INDIA IS CELEBRATING AN AI GOLD RUSH FOR EFFICIENCY AND GROWTH, BUT THIS AI IS FED BY A RAPIDLY EXPANDING SURVEILLANCE ECONOMY
– By Prasanto K. Roy
It was a week after Indepconcludeence day in 2017; a startup founder friconclude had hit upon a great idea: microloans for those without a credit history, tapping unrelated data such as mobile recharges. Over chilled beer, his startup team came up with what all they could do with bank statements. Was privacy an issue, I questioned. Oh no, this was for the applyr’s benefit, so she’d be happy to share bills and statements and, anyway, India had no privacy law.
Two days later, the Supreme Court ruled that Privacy was to be a fundamental right, implicit in Article 21 of the Constitution. That landmark ruling was set to alter our lives; but very, very slowly. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act was finally born six years later, and stayed in the incubator for two years till its rules and regulator were notified late in 2025. Organisations have till 2027 to fully comply, 10 years after the landmark privacy ruling. Yet this isn’t a full-fledged privacy law like Europe’s, and this law written for data is under-equipped for AI. It lacks provisions for algorithmic accountability, a right to explanation for automated decisions, and liability for AI-driven bias (all of which Europe addresses). And government and law enforcement are largely exempt, but that’s another story.
This story is more about the ravenous AI monster, feeding on our data. The DPDP Act relies largely on applyr consent, but what exactly will you consent to? You have no idea of the AI’s ultimate apply of your data—even its developers don’t know that. Which leaves consent with little value against the opacity and scale of AI processing.
THE INDIAN PRIVACY LAW HAS NO PROVISION FOR ALGORITHMIC ACCOUNTABILITY, EXPLANATION FOR AUTOMATED DECISIONS, OR LIABILITY FOR AI-DRIVEN BIAS
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