In an effort to better understand privacy perceptions in India, two researchers have conducted the largest-ever survey on the topic. Professor Ponnurangam PK (PK) and Niharika Sachdeva have published “Privacy in India: Attitudes and Awareness V 2.0,” which follows a smaller version of the study, published in 2005. The survey aimed to better understand how Indians’ view their own privacy, particularly given advances in technology and government projects such as Unique ID (UID), which aims to give each Indian citizen an identifying number. Some of the study’s key takeaways include: participants’ concerns about privacy surrounding mobile phones and the Internet-more than other platforms or venues; participants’ lack of awareness about privacy concerns in public, such as surveillance cameras; participants’ increasing likelihood to store private information on mobile devices; participants’ beliefs that privacy laws existed where they did not, and a decline in government trust since 2004. The authors say this indicates an overall concern and awareness of privacy since 2004 and that India is “on the path” to becoming a “privacy-aware and privacy-concerned” society.
