Consumer Data May Be Safer Now: Google-Pay Tweaks Privacy Policy Post Allegations Made By Paytm

After Paytm alleged that Google had provided its consumer data for advertising and other purposes, the US tech giant modified its privacy policy regarding its Indian digital payments mobile application, reports Reuters.

A clause in Google Pay’s privacy policy which says it could collect, store, use and disclose personal data and also any communications made through Google Pay, sparked row over how technology firms treat data in India and abroad. India had also drafted a new data protection law which could force companies to change how they transfer or store customer data.

Paytm had complained that Google Pay’s privacy policy was an apparent disregard for a consumer’s need for privacy in a letter to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), dated 13 September.

Reuters says it reviewed Google’s privacy policy and found that it was updated on Thursday(20 September) and the company had dropped the word “disclose” from its privacy clause.

The controversy triggered by the letter of Paytm to the NPCI reportedly implies an increasing competition in India’s digital payments market which is projected to grow five-fold to $1 trillion by 2023.

Mobile payments application gained traction after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of high-valued notes in November 2016, boosting digital payments. Prominent payment applications such as Paytm has 95 million active monthly users while Google Pay’s ( Tez) is 22 million.

Both apps use NPCI’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system that allows instant money transfers and merchant payments.