Behavioural Economics: Why Indian urbanites may transparently sell their data

Abstract

Macro-economic inequality in the digitally booming GDP-rich India is glaring (India is a top-five GDP nation globally), where millionaires control a significant portion (approximately 54 percent) of the nation's GDP, leaving the per-capita GDP in the country too low for it to be lowly ranked. India is ranked around 145th in the world on nominal per-capita GDP. A considerable portion of the 'non-millionaire' population live in smart urban cities and have access to the various varieties of smartphone apps (for on average 3-4 hours a day) and IoT devices (such as smartwatches, Fitbit) that aggregate a plethora of an individual's lifestyle data in real-time and economically transact on them in the opaque value chain. Examples of widespread personal data (PD) include basic personal information like age and sex, expressions/emojis from social posts and messages, financial transactions data, photos, web surfing data, interaction data with a smart fridge, smart thermostat or other IoT devices, calendar events, sport activity data from Fitbit, location data, and travel data.