Apps on our phones and our privacy

There is a lot of publicity about misuse of customer data by Internet-based services companies. Regulatory agencies and the government should do their work and reduce risks to citizens. I have some suggestions:

1)  An App demanding blanket access to customers’ contacts, photographs, etc. should not be allowed. They cannot harvest your contacts and bother all those in those contacts with commercial solicitation. The App could ask for limited access, such as the email address of a person in my contacts when I ask the App to send him an email. The service provider should not misuse his email address to solicit business from him. 

2)  Terms and Conditions for online apps should not exceed 200 words and should be in simple English. The T & C are not for obfuscation.

3)  For Indian customers, the legal jurisdiction should always be local Indian courts according to the customer’s location.

4)  Irrelevant information should not be demanded. It is no business of the email provider whether the customer is male or female, and what the customer’s age is.

5)  No credit card or debit card of the customer should be stored by the online service provider. The customer can always provide them for one-time use, whenever required, directly to the payment gateway.

6)  No customer data should be taken beyond the Indian border. If an Indian customer goes abroad, his customer data should continue to stay in India and not be migrated abroad.

7)  Selling of customer data should not be allowed.

8)  The government should consider encouraging Indian companies to provide Internet-based services provided they offer greater privacy and security to Indian customers.

9)  The use of cookies should be regulated by law. They should be used only for the essential functions, not for gathering data beyond the minimal requirements for the service provided and commerce in such data.  

Online services do provide free services and earn their costs and profits through advertising. The indirect costs to the customer of being spied upon all the time and having one's privacy violated should be considered in this context. 

Srinivasan Ramani

Regulating the Pharmaceutical Industry

Jug Suraiya’s blog post titled “Sick Industry” makes very interesting reading (March 25, 2016, Jug Suraiya in Juggle-Bandhi, Times of India). Visit

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/sick-industry/

What should be an indicator of a person being diabetic? Fasting sugar level? Yes, but who decides the threshold? Jug Suraiya says that “experts” redefined the threshold a couple of times during the last two decades and have caused the world to think that the number of diabetics is now more than 200% of what it was earlier.

There are lots of interesting reports about how uncontrolled commercialism can endanger public health. For, an example, visit

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/21/how-an-obscure-drugs-4000-price-increase-might-finally-spur-action-on-soaring-health-care-costs/

We need the media to be alert to all kinds of dangers. Governments can subvert institutions like Lok Ayuktas as and when they wish. Media have become our only hope for demanding high standards in public life. Society needs to worry about commercial interests and corrupt members influencing professional bodies. The “reputation” the Medical Council of India enjoys is an example of what can happen. Visit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Council_of_India

In this context I should share a joke about world of telephone companies – landline as well as mobile. What happens if the percentage of calls landing on wrong numbers increases? Profitability goes up!  

Regulating private educational institutions

Ravi Iyer runs an interesting blog titled the

Indian CS & IT Academic Reform Activism

There are interesting discussions on that blog on profit-oriented private sector education. There is a comment on some explosive news from New York Times on a large for-profit higher education institution in the US. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/upshot/corinthian-colleges-is-closing-its-students-may-be-better-off-as-a-result.html?_r=0

There is also comment on a recent Indian report that estimates black money generated in education sector at US$ 8 Billion per year!
CRPCC-education-black-money-corruption

At this level, the Government can dig out more Indian black money locally rather than in Switzerland!

There are also references to older events in India which we cannot afford to forget, such as those reported in the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_Reimbursement_Scheme_(Andhra_Pradesh)

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120325/jsp/nation/story_15292366.jsp

http://www.indiaeducationreview.com/features/indias-education-system-second-only-politics-corruption-wikileaks

What about government-funded education? Is that as pure as Ganga Jal? What have the politicians done to it? 

Srinivasan Ramani