Government plans to curb collection of data by apps amid the rising privacy concern

The central government has been planning at prohibiting mobile applications from collecting user information beyond their area of functioning.

The move can be seen in the backdrop of concerns around data handling and users' privacy, including at the hands of Internet giants Whatsapp and Facebook and scores of top international and Chinese apps.

As per the sources, the government has begun working on a policy that will aim to stop the mobile and internet apps to collect information that is not necessary for their functioning.

New policy to curb data collection:

The central government is planning to have a policy on pre burning/pre-loading of apps on mobile phones as there have been rising concerns that many of these apps are installed on the mobile phones of the users without their consent.

The importance of user consent and the illegal harvesting of data is something that has been getting increasingly intense within the various levels of the government, including finding the prominent positions in the data protection bill, which has been currently tabled in the Parliament.

Like push email, the government has also been working on the areas to stop push apps which have been advertised by the handset manufacturers. Most of the measures are being taken in view of the concerns around the data protection of millions of users.

Why there is a need to control the data collection?

The government feels that after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and work and study from home situations the enormous amount of data has been moving online, right from the education of students, to businesses and offices, to social media and the internet conversations.

As a result, the increasing number of instances of cyber- attacks, data thefts, and fishing has been observed at the hands of some of the well-known and larger internet apps.

The unauthorized data collection has been flagged off even previously by the government, as many apps tend to take data that is not even remotely connected to their utility.