By Anurita Das
Every time we open an app, stream a song, or ask a smart speaker a question, we hand over fragments of our lives. In India, this dynamic is especially pronounced: a 2024 PwC India survey of over 3,000 consumers across 24 cities revealed that only 16% understand the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, while 56% are unaware of their personal data rights, and 44% say they’d pay more for services that protect their data - highlighting both a significant privacy-awareness gap and a strong willingness to trade price for protection. That is where embracing privacy by design becomes essential: instead of bolting on security later, platforms should build privacy into their systems from the start.
Your Data Deserves a Vault
When personal data sits on company servers without protection, it is like leaving your diary in a shoebox under the bed. Anyone who finds it can read it. Encryption at rest changes that. It locks the box so tightly that even if servers are breached, the information inside is unreadable.
Keep It at Home
Today, many apps ship our data to distant servers just to perform basic tasks. But why should a diary be mailed across the world simply to check spelling? Local processing keeps information on our own devices. A phone that sorts photos or a watch that analyses a heartbeat does not need to share that data with anyone else.
The Quality Trade-Off
The glossy version of a feature often comes from cloud-based processing. A photo app that produces dazzling edits may be doing so by sending your pictures to the company's servers.
The local version, running on your phone, might look less polished, but it never leaves your pocket. Sometimes consumers need to choose: is the slightly better output worth surrendering private data?
No Hoarding, No Copying
Imagine you give someone your house key so they can water the plants. You expect it back, but instead, they secretly make a copy. That is what it feels like when apps keep more data than they
need. A maps app does not need your lifetime of trips. A food app does not need to remember every meal you have ever ordered. Your data should not be theirs to stockpile.
Smarter AI Without Exposing You
Artificial intelligence improves by learning from data. But if raw information is fed directly into models, personal details can slip through. It is the digital equivalent of reading diary entries aloud in a classroom.
The answer is anonymisation and noise. Strip away identifiers, blur the specifics, and the system can still learn patterns without exposing individuals.
How Your Data Gets Used
The real question is what happens after data leaves your hands. Often it is analysed, packaged, and turned into revenue. A free navigation app may log the shops you pass. A shopping app may sell records of what you browse. A photo platform may scan images to improve recognition tools.
This trade is rarely visible. Consumers use services for “free,” while companies profit handsomely from the insights our habits reveal. The real price of convenience is often our privacy.
What Users Can Do
- Audit app permissions and switch oƯ anything that feels excessive
- Choose tools that process data on your device rather than the cloud
- Use services that offer end-to-end encryption
- Be cautious with “help us improve” options that send information for training
- Skim the privacy terms to see what data is collected and why
Privacy Is a Right
Privacy is not paranoia. It is a right, rooted in dignity and trust. Platforms that encrypt by default, process locally, avoid hoarding, and anonymise during training are showing respect for the people who use them. And when consumers reward privacy-first services, companies have no choice but to follow. Because in the age of AI, protecting privacy is not about data. It is about protecting you.
(The author is the Founder, Genovation Solutions)
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