DPDP Act & AI: Challenges for AI Firms

New Delhi, Aug 7 (PTI) Ambiguities in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), surrounding the processing of publicly available personal data might pose practical challenges for AI companies, the Internet and Mobile Association of India said in a submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The industry body of mobile and internet companies, in its submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), pointed out that restrictions on access to publicly available personal data would impose undue compliance burdens on AI companies, hinder technological progress, and could ultimately obstruct the realisation of AI's potential.

Even where personal data is shared publicly to comply with a legal obligation, it may be re-shared or resurface online through various means well after the initial legal disclosure, making it difficult for AI companies to process such data, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said in a statement on Thursday.


Such limitations would disproportionately affect startups and smaller companies developing AI models, it added.

In its submission, IAMAI requested MeitY to suitably amend the DPDP Act to remove barriers to use publicly available personal data for training or fine-tuning of AI models, it said.

To that end, IAMAI recommended that the Union government might, as an interim measure, consider exempting data fiduciaries from the DPDP Act's provisions if they are processing personal data solely for training or fine-tuning of AI models, it noted.