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By:

Sagari Gupta

24 March 2026 at 7:46:04 pm

India’s Digital Footprint Is No Longer a Choice

India’s digital economy has made personal data unavoidable. The harder task is ensuring that citizens retain meaningful control over the trails they leave behind. In August this year, the Unified Payments Interface processed about 24.5 billion transactions worth nearly Rs. 29.8 lakh crore, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India. Aadhaar’s authentication system recorded more than 17,759 crore transactions in FY2025-26, according to UIDAI’s dashboard. Behind these...

India’s Digital Footprint Is No Longer a Choice

India’s digital economy has made personal data unavoidable. The harder task is ensuring that citizens retain meaningful control over the trails they leave behind. In August this year, the Unified Payments Interface processed about 24.5 billion transactions worth nearly Rs. 29.8 lakh crore, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India. Aadhaar’s authentication system recorded more than 17,759 crore transactions in FY2025-26, according to UIDAI’s dashboard. Behind these numbers sits a question Indian policy has yet to answer clearly: what happens to the data these systems generate, and who controls it? The most pressing privacy question in India today is not what people choose to post online. It is what they are required to leave behind to take part in everyday life. A UPI payment leaves a transaction trail. A loan application generates financial records. A food-delivery order records your address and buying habits. A cab ride shows where you work and when you travel. A social-media post adds something more personal: what you think, like, fear or believe. Individually, these fragments look harmless. Together, they can describe a remarkably detailed version of a person’s life. Orwellian Society This is not digital technology invading a society that was once offline. It is a society in which digital systems have become part of ordinary economic life. For a software professional, deleting social media may be an inconvenience. For a domestic worker paid through a bank account, a student applying for a scholarship or a pensioner completing an identity check, opting out is not a workable choice. Consider an ordinary Saturday. You check the weather, search for a medicine, order groceries, pay through UPI, book a cab and make an online purchase. No single action tells a complete story. Together, they reveal your location, spending patterns, household composition, health concerns and daily routine. Artificial intelligence changes what this data means, because machine systems are increasingly good at connecting fragments that once sat in separate databases. The concern is not that an AI system knows what you searched for once. It is that automated systems can identify patterns across millions of ordinary interactions that, taken individually, meant little. The problem is also one of asymmetry. The individual usually sees only the service being offered; the organisation sees the accumulated information behind it. A single transaction may be trivial, but millions of such transactions can become commercially or administratively valuable when linked and analysed. That makes data different from many other commodities. Once information has been copied, combined or used to build a profile, the original individual may have little visibility into its subsequent journey. The question is therefore not simply who collected the data, but who can combine it, infer from it and act upon those inferences. The public debate on AI scraping is often too simple. Not every online interaction is pulled into an AI model, and not every company holds every piece of a person’s digital life. Collection depends on the platform, its policies, its technical architecture and the applicable law. But the gap is real: the capacity to analyse vast volumes of information is growing faster than most people’s understanding of where their information goes. A PwC India survey found that 56 percent of consumers did not know their rights over personal data, while 70 percent said privacy policies were difficult to understand. When a person does not understand what they are agreeing to, consent risks becoming a formality rather than a genuine choice. There is also a distinction between privacy and secrecy. A person may have nothing embarrassing to hide and still reasonably object to a detailed record of their movements, purchases and associations being assembled without meaningful control. Privacy is less about having something to conceal than about retaining a degree of agency over one’s own life. A Right on Paper The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 gives individuals rights to correct and erase personal data, subject to the conditions and exceptions set out in the law. The government notified the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules in November 2025, with provisions coming into force in phases. On paper, this changes the relationship between citizens and the organisations that hold their data. In practice, most people do not think in terms of “Data Principal” or “Data Fiduciary” when an app asks for access to their information. They think about whether the app will still work if they say no. That is the test that decides whether a data-protection law functions on the ground. A small retailer selling online may not fully understand the compliance requirements. An elderly customer faces a long privacy notice before completing a routine transaction. A young user accepts an app’s terms because refusing means losing access to a service that friends or employers already use. A right that exists on paper does not guarantee a person’s ability to exercise it. The ability to protect personal data is not distributed evenly. A high-income professional can pay for privacy-focused software, encrypted communication and legal advice. Someone on a smaller income uses whichever free application is available. The same divide applies to time. A person who understands technology can adjust permissions and request deletion. A person working two jobs may accept an app’s terms because reading a 30-page privacy notice at 11 p.m. is hardly realistic. This produces an uneven outcome. The people with the strongest ability to protect their data are often the same people with the clearest sense of what is being collected. Those with fewer resources tend to generate more data while having less power to question how it is used. This is why treating “going offline” as the solution has limited use in India. Cash does not cover every digital transaction. A basic phone does not replace every digital service. Deleting a social-media account does not erase bank or government records. Refusing every digital platform carries its own economic cost, particularly for people who depend on digital payments for income. The realistic goal is not disappearance. It is control. India’s digital economy should not be measured only by payment volumes or platform reach. It should also be measured by whether people understand the exchange taking place underneath that convenience. Regulators should track whether a person can find out what a service holds about them, correct inaccurate information, delete data that is no longer necessary and withdraw consent without clicking through several layers of settings. The sharper test is what happens when data collected for one purpose becomes useful for another. Rising Stakes The stakes will rise as India’s digital infrastructure becomes more deeply embedded in public services, finance and commerce. The country has built impressive systems for moving money and verifying identity; the next challenge is to build equally credible systems for limiting what can be inferred from the information those systems generate. The next phase of India’s privacy debate should move past the idea of digital disappearance, because most people have no practical way to leave the systems through which they earn, pay, borrow, travel, study and access public services. The more useful task is making those systems answerable to the people whose lives they record. The measure of digital freedom is not whether a citizen leaves no trace. It is whether they have a say over where that trace leads. (The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

The Science of Gait Analysis

Writer: Dr. Keshav Kumar
Dr. Keshav Kumar
5 hours ago
3 min read

As facial recognition reaches its limits, the science of how we walk is emerging as a powerful new tool in forensic investigation.

In today’s world, where surveillance cameras are present everywhere, identifying a suspect is no longer restricted to only fingerprints and facial recognition. Modern forensic science has shown that the way a person walks provides valuable evidence during a criminal investigation. This unique walking pattern, known as gait, has emerged as a valuable behavioural biometric.

 

By analysing gait from CCTV footage, forensic experts help investigators identify suspects, particularly when other methods of identification are unavailable. This makes gait analysis useful in cases involving masked offenders like kidnappings, murders, robberies, terrorist attacks and other crimes captured on surveillance cameras. Although gait analysis is now an important forensic tool, it originated in the medical field, where doctors studied walking patterns to diagnose movement disorders.

 

Over time, researchers discovered that every individual has unique walking patterns, influenced by their age, height, body structure, injuries, habits, and footwear. Advances in video technology, computer-based analysis, and artificial intelligence have transformed gait analysis into an important scientific tool in criminal investigations.


Notable Cases

India has witnessed several notable cases in which gait analysis played a key role in criminal investigations. One of the most notable examples is the 2021 Saki Naka rape and murder case in Mumbai. The CCTV footage captured the accused's body movements near the crime scene. As facial recognition alone was insufficient, forensic experts compared the accused's walking patterns with the individual seen in the footage. The gait analysis report, along with CCTV evidence, witness statements and other findings, strengthened the prosecution’s case. Rather than serving as a standalone proof, gait analysis acted as corroborative evidence.

 

Recently, during the investigation of the 2026 Ketan Agarwal murder case in Pune, investigators compared the accused’s gait with CCTV footage, as the suspect’s face was allegedly hidden with a hoodie. Investigators recreated the suspect’s walk under similar conditions to compare it with CCTV footage, highlighting how gait analysis is becoming a valuable investigative source in India when traditional methods of identification are limited.

 

In State of Tamil Nadu v. Ponnusamy (2026 INSC 507), the Supreme Court observed that Gait analysis is a useful scientific technique for identifying suspects; however, the court also clarified that gait analysis should not be treated as the only evidence but rather should be used alongside CCTV footage, witness testimony, and other forensic findings. This approach encourages the use of scientific evidence while protecting the fairness and credibility of the judicial process. Recent scientific research highlights advanced forensic gait analysis through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning.


Unlike fingerprints or facial features, gait can remain useful even when a suspect’s face is concealed or the image quality is poor. By examining factors such as stride length, walking speed, body movement and the timing of each step, experts can identify patterns that may help establish whether two video recordings show the same individual.  

 

Modern systems combine spatiotemporal and biomechanical gait measurements for analysing walking patterns, even from low-quality CCTV footage, which makes gait analysis faster, more accurate, and increases its value in criminal investigation.

 

The growing importance of forensic gait analysis highlights the work of experts and institutions across the world. In India, experts such as Dr. T.D. Dogra and Dr. B.R. Sharma made remarkable contributions in the field of forensic science.

 

Internationally, Professor Mark S. Nixon pioneered gait recognition research. Government organisations such as the Directorate of Forensic Science Services (DFSS), Central Forensic Science Laboratories (CFSLs), and the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), along with private organisations like Truth Labs, support research and the use of modern forensic technologies in criminal investigations. As forensic science continues to emerge, gait analysis opens up with new possibilities in solving crimes and delivering justice.


While it only serves as one piece of the puzzle, it provides valuable clues when used with other evidence. After all, every step has a story to tell, and sometimes, that story leads investigators to the truth.


(Writers are experts in forensic matters. Views personal.)

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