Privacy in India: Attitudes and Awareness

In recent years, numerous surveys have been conducted to assess attitudes about privacy in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the European Union. Very little information has been published about privacy attitudes in India. As India is becoming a leader in business process outsourcing, increasing amounts of personal information from other countries is flowing into India. Questions have been raised about the ability of Indian companies to adequately protect this information. We conducted an exploratory study to gain an initial understanding of attitudes about privacy among the Indian high tech workforce. We carried out a written survey and one-on-one interviews to assess the level of awareness about privacy-related issues and concern about privacy among a sample of educated people in India. Our results demonstrate an overall lack of awareness of privacy issues and less concern about privacy in India than has been found in similar studies conducted in the United States.