By Resham Jain on 30 November, 2020 For a long time, transgender persons have been excluded from contributing towards socio-economic activities and decision-making processes. So much so that it was only during the 2011 census that, for the first time, data related to their employment, literacy and caste was collected. As per a 2017 study conducted by...

It is not unusual for Indian employers to collect extensive personal and sensitive personal data of their employees. From the more obvious personal identifiers, to sensitive information such as marital status, sexual orientation, health records, biometrics, etc, are collected and processed for various reasons, namely, pre-employment background checks, employee profiling, drug or alcohol abuse tests,...

On August 26, 2020, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) published the draft Health Data Management Policy (Policy). MoHFW has been advocating for digitisation of health records, creation of registries, and adoption of a federated health data management structure to ensure interoperability and transferability of health data within the healthcare ecosystem. A federated structure, simply...

In the earlier post Part I, we delved into some of the recommendations made by the Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data (NPD Committee)[1] in its report of July 12, 2020 (Report)[2]. We discussed the genesis, Committee’s rationale for regulation of non-personal data (NPD), its scope, the distinction between NPDs based on sensitive nature, and consent mechanism for anonymisation.

In September 2019, the Government constituted the Committee of Experts to study various issues relating to Non-Personal Data (NPD), and make recommendations for its regulation (NPD Committee)[1]. NPD Committee released its report on July 12, 2020 (Report)[2] which is open for public consultation till August 13, 2020. The Report is structured into 7 key chapters delving...

There is global consensus that COVID-19 transmission chain can be interjected with containment measures. Containment efforts require rapid identification and quarantine of potential carriers or “contacts” who may have contacted the virus through a confirmed patient. Manual tracing requires the patient to jog their memory, recollect, and identify all locations, times, duration and contacts. This...

COVID-19 has brought the world to a stand-still. It is rightly being called “infodemic” due to the efflux of related (mis)information on the internet. Since January 2020, 16,000 coronavirus-related domains have been registered, with over 6,000 new domains registered last week1.

COVID-19 has de-globalized the world and yet, ushered a new global citizenship, where the order is simple – solidarity in isolation. In battling the highly contagious pandemic, governments are focused on breaking the transmission chain. They are deploying old and new tracking and surveillance technologies, with minimal checks, and in certain instances, at the cost...

Non-personal data broadly refers to data that standalone or in combination with other data does not directly or indirectly result in identification of a natural person (NPD). These data sets could include aggregated, derived, anonymous, and community data. They have enormous economic value for organizations. NPD often drives innovation, gives organizations a competitive edge, helps...