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‘We don’t collect subscribers’ genetic, religious, health and sexual data,’ Airtel clarifies

Airtel

Airtel has said that it does not collect any personal information related to subscribers’ genetic data, religious or political beliefs, and health or sexual orientation. The telco instead attributed the inclusion of such data in its privacy policy to a “clerical error”. The second largest ISP in the country (by number of subscribers) had “inadvertently put” the broad definitions of personal data from the Information Technology Act on to its website, the company said in a statement to MediaNama. What happened? On October 16, eagle-eyed Twitter users noticed that Airtel’s privacy policy for its website and services stated that Airtel and its authorised third parties could collect, store and process the following types of sensitive personal information: “Genetic Data, Biometric Data, Racial or Ethnic Origin, Political opinion, Religious & Philosophical belief, Trade union membership, Data concerning Health, Data concerning natural personal's sex life or sexual orientation, password, financial information (details of Bank account, credit card, debit card, or other payment instrument details), physiological information”. This caused a furore on Twitter after which Airtel sought to rein in the damage and thus released an updated Policy on October 17. Multiple Twitter users pointed out that the Privacy Policy had been updated on October 8, 2020. However, as per archived pages of the Policy, the contentious section has been a part of the policy since at least August 13, 2019; it only got public attention now. Statement from Airtel: “We have come across some reports regarding our privacy policy as stated on…

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