DPI Privacy
Privacy Risks of Digital Public Infrastructure in India
Research Question
Why is this important to answer?
The Indian government has widely deployed a set of “Digital Public Infrastructures” that citizens are required to use, in practice, to access essential public and private services. While there is much focus on the utility and efficiency gains DPIs could provide, scant attention has been paid to their operation and storage of private data of nearly all Indian residents with little transparency or oversight. This project will audit the data collection practices of DPIs to document what entities operate these infrastructures, the data (and metadata) visible to them, and parties the data is shared with. It will also explore how slices of information from disparate applications can be combined to create a powerful mass surveillance apparatus.