Companies have no rights over personal data; consumers are primary owners: TRAI

Taking into consideration the growing need of effective data protection laws, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has suggested that the existing laws for the protection of consumer data are not sufficient and that there is a need to have stricter laws to protect the data of consumers. According to TRAI, consumers are primary owners of the personal data and information created by them and companies do not have any right over it. TRAI has suggested that the consumers should be given a right to choose the information they want to share on internet and right to be forgotten if they so desire. Additionally, TRAI has recommended to stop the collection of unnecessary personal information from users and to remove the complicated one-sided user agreements created by app makers and other companies. TRAI has also suggested that the users should be given a right to give their consent for each term and condition separately rather than giving consent for all the terms and conditions at once. The above recommendations assume great importance in the present scenario due to the increasing number of cases of violation of data protection laws including the recent case of data privacy violation involving millions of Facebook users.