53% of Indians are seeing ads based on their last private phone conversation, reveals a survey. The government is yet to approve the personal data protection bill 2019.
If you have seen an ad in your email box or via SMS based on your smartphone conversation with your wife or a colleague, don’t get shocked. On Wednesday, a survey revealed that 1 in 2 citizens in India acknowledge seeing ads based on their private voice conversation.
Almost 53% of 8000 respondents have said that they’ve seen instances in the past 12 months of seeing related ads after a phone call. The other half of the respondents to the question have neither seen such instances on their smartphones.
The survey shows that 9% of respondents out of approximately 9000 have given permission to all their apps to access the microphones. The user who has given apps access to the microphones. Audio and video calls and posting to social media constitute 11%.
“A large number of people have raised the issue of seeing contextual advertising posting their private phone conversation and this is of great concern,” said Sachin Taparia, founder of Localcircles.
Practice like this need to be investigated and any apps that require microphone access must provide clear explanations as to where a user’s information will be used and get explicit consent.
The Indian government has yet to agree to this personal data protection bill 2019 aims to provide legal and legal protection for the personal data of users or citizens, recognizing the protection of the data of individuals as their rights.
LocalCircle said that it will share survey results with the department of IT, the central consumer protection authority(CCPA), and the RBI to take necessary action.
