Pipe Dream: Challenges With Data Portability in India
Proposed legislation in India would grant people a “right to data portability” (RDP), allowing them to retrieve their personal data from data controllers and transfer it to others. This paper analyzes the legally nuanced pros and cons of RDP to determine if it has a net benefit.
Authors: Aparajita Srivastava and Nehaa Chaudhari
Social Graph Portability: An Analysis of India's Approach
Proposed legislation in India would grant people a “right to data portability” (RDP), allowing them to retrieve their personal data from data controllers and transfer it to other such controllers. This, in effect, would give people a right to social graph portability as well. While there is a foundation in law and policy for such rights in India, it is not necessarily a strong one.
This paper analyzes the legally nuanced pros and cons of RDP to determine if it has a net benefit. Specifically, the paper takes a look at seven issues, including: (1) how the legal doctrine of ‘privity of contract’ applies here; (2) the differences between User Loaded Data and User Generated Data; and (3) the cyber-security risk associated with moving data from platform to platform.
The authors conclude that while the RDP may be a credible solution to the lock-in effect of large social networking platforms, it may pose several practical and technical challenges which may outweigh its benefits.