A Privacy Deficit

Context:

• The Union Budget 2022-23 has promised for a bigger share of funds to digitisation and promoting technology but there still exists some policy mismatches hindering individual rights.

Budgetary commitments:

• Major allocations: Digital India programme has been allotted Rs.4, 795.24 crore with the Ministry of Electronics and IT has nearly doubled its funding, and there is a 1,000 per cent increase in the funding for the Artificial Intelligence and Digital IntelligenceUnit.
• Privacy-invasive changes: The Income Tax searches and seizure provisions were sought for privacy related changes and for increase in use of technology and digitisation.
• Focus on e-governance: To expand the scope of DigiLocker, a government-run cloud-based platform for storing, sharing, and verifying documents and certificates was introduced with “Aadhaar as foundational identity”.