Tech Companies Must Prune Privacy Policies for Users: Government

With the privacy policies of tech companies running into dozens of pages and users often accepting the terms and conditions without reading them, there is an urgent need for improving privacy communication to generate nuanced consent from the users, a senior government official said here on Thursday.

"There is a need for simplifying communications to garner more nuanced consent," said Ajay Prakash Sawhney, IT Secretary, during a session at the Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) 2017 in New Delhi.

Reacting to the suggestion, Maria Luisa Jimenez Martin, Head of Data Governance Public Policy at Google, said that improving privacy communication with users is of great concern for Google.

"There is a continued need for improvement in communications in India, especially in view of the fact that so many different languages are spoken in the country. It is of great interest for Google," Martin told the gathering.

"But there is also a need for change of mindset on the part of the users as they expect an open transparent economy. We have to understand that sharing data helps in providing better services," added Debjani Ghosh, President-Designate, Nasscom.

"While sensitive data should not be shared, we should also be open to sharing some data," Ghosh said without bringing in the controversy surrounding sharing of Aadhaar details for availing various government subsidies.

William Hiroyuki Saito, Adviser, Government of Japan, said that the current trends of resting the burden of security on the part of the users must be re-examined.