Understanding the Data Protection White Paper Part VI: Big data and IoT present huge challenges to traditional privacy principles

This article is Part 6 of a multi-part series explaining the recently issued white paper on data protection in India. The era of big data and the internet of things presents a huge challenge to traditional privacy principles, questioning their efficacy and adequacy in protecting people’s interests. The huge benefits of big data analytics have led to new schools of thought advocating a rethink of existing privacy principles, to allow the use of big data. Key questions raised in the White Paper The advantages of big data, thus, are likely being achieved at a huge cost to people’s privacy. It has, however, invited discussion on big data and other new uses of data, to assess how such activities can be benefited from without compromising with people’s privacy.