In response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) consultation paper on data protection, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has demanded that other communication service providers be regulated as strictly as telecom operators. Asking for a level playing field, COAI said that the treatment of telcos was “widely different” from other stakeholders on security requirements. Many similar voice and text-based services were not subjected to regulations, such as setting lawful interception and monitoring systems, ensuring protection of privacy and confidentiality of subscriber information, restrictions on sending user information abroad, and on employing bulk encryption equipment, among others. It said that telecommunications service providers (TSPs) act as data controllers and inform the user while collecting data and its purpose. Other digital entities do not act as such. COAI has asked for a set of regulatory principles to be established for digital entities to act as data controllers. Some of the other suggestions given by COAI are as follows: On user consent COAI was of the opinion that law must recognise the difference between personally identifiable and anonymised information when it comes to regulations. It said that user consent should be required only if the user's data was shared in an identifiable format, and not when it was anonymised or aggregated. However, the privacy policy of the company should include the purpose of the use of such data and its recipient, if it's being shared. Notably, personal information is defined as information that relates to a natural person, and…
