Asia: Privacy

India’s data protection landscape is undergoing its most significant shift in over a decade. The Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 (“SPDI Rules”), have long formed the core of personal data protection obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act“) for body corporates handling sensitive personal data or information.

The increasing use of remote working, Bring Your Own Device (“BYOD”) arrangements, cloud-based platforms and workplace monitoring software has made employee privacy an important consideration for employers in India. Organisations routinely collect and process employee data through access-control systems, company email accounts, endpoint security tools, attendance systems, CCTV, location services, and cybersecurity platforms.

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (“AI”) has brought data protection considerations into the design, training and deployment of AI systems. AI models may be trained using datasets containing names, images, text, identifiers, behavioural information or other data that can relate to identifiable individuals. AI systems may also process personal data when they are deployed for purposes such as recruitment, credit assessment, insurance, healthcare, customer profiling or content moderation.