TRAI to recommend govt for data portability to empower consumers

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is planning to recommend data portability for consumers to have more control over privacy and ownership of their data.

Data portability will allow the subscriber to be an owner of their data and authorise any platform for the limited purpose as per their choice. This way any major social media site would not have a monopoly on data and startups can benefit hugely,” TRAI Chairman, RS Sharma was quoted as saying by the FE report.

Data portability gives users the option to choose the best social network for them, rather than being stuck where they already are.

Meanwhile, a detailed questionnaire to TRAI Chairman regarding the data portability and data privacy as well as protection recommendation has been sent. We will update the report once we get the response.

At present, mobile portability is offered to consumers.

Since Trai regulation is limited to telecom players and it plans to make a recommendation to the government, which may frame laws to this effect.

In wake of recent data leak incidents, Nandan Nilekani too had cautioned against ‘data colonization’ by social media and search engine giants such as Facebook and Google. Nilekani had reportedly called for data democracy and right to data portability through a data protection law.

A right to data portability got the first legal recognition in European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“The data subject shall have the right to receive the personal data concerning him or her, which he or she has provided to a controller, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the data have been provided” defines the Article.