‘No company or govt should get access to our data’: Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Speaking at the IAMAI India Digital Summit 2021, Vijay Shekhar Sharma also argued that all data of Indian citizens should be stored within the country.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
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At a time when the country is talking about data privacy on the back of WhatsApp’s new privacy policy update, Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma says that no commercial organisation or government should get access to a person’s data.

Speaking at the Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI)’s India Digital Summit 2021, Vijay said that giving access to user data allows companies and governments to do things that an individual wouldn’t normally anticipate. Vijay was in conversation with Anant Goenka, executive director of The Indian Express.

“No company, Indian or outside, big or small, no commercial organisation, no government should get access to our data because it allows them to do things that we can only underestimate… they can use these data points to maybe find out that there is an election happening, there is economic activity,” he adds.

Soon after WhatsApp’s privacy policy was updated, Vijay too, had tweeted urging people to move to Signal.

“They say, market has power. We are the largest market. Here in India WhatsApp / Facebook are abusing their monopoly & taking away millions of users' privacy for granted. We should move on to Signal NOW. It is upto us to become victim or reject such moves,” he tweeted.

Speaking at the summit, Vijay also argued for all data of Indian citizens to be stored within the country.

Taking a shot at Google, Vijay said that we have handed over our cyber world to one company.

“In the name of openness, Android allows anyone to install an app and take so much data back home and we have no control over how the data is being used or abused because the control is in the hands of a commercial establishment… We have handed over our cyber world to some company,” he said.

Vijay has been vocal in his criticism against Google’s Play Store policies especially after Paytm and Paytm First Games were briefly taken down from the Play Store in September. He has also been calling for an Indian App Store.

When questioned about his views on India’s fraying relationship with China, Vijay said that India should not act like a ‘doormat’ and not let any country – from the east or the west — take advantage.

However, when asked about the Chinese funding and investors that Paytm has, Vijay defended Paytm saying all of the company’s software technology platforms are run by themselves and that no shareholders have a say in what Paytm does.

“We run all our software tech platforms by ourselves. No shareholders have no say in what we do. Board seats and board control is in India. All shareholders are treated as commercial shareholders. We have shareholders from China, Japan and the US and each one of them is a very influential corporate governance-led shareholder,” he added.

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