If you worry about privacy in a country with no data protection law in place, you should stay far away from anything Jio. I’ve said this before here: when Jio w

If you worry about privacy in a country with no data protection law in place, you should stay far away from anything Jio. I’ve said this before here: when Jio was announced, the company said that “data is the new oil”, indicating that what oil was to Reliance’s growth and power would be what data would be for the company from then. The company also said it would do deep packet inspection of traffic to learn more about the people on its network (you can find news reports of this online). Jio has also fought against encryption of communications. While a cheap(er) phone may sound like a great idea in a country where many people are struggling (and more so with poorer policy decisions in the last few years), this is a deal with the devil. People like saying that switching away from Gmail is pointless because most of the emails you send would still go to Gmail (I don’t entirely agree with this, but that’s for another post). I see it being the same with Jio very soon. It will have all your data and habits because the people you interact with are deep in its ecosystem. Beware, and stay safe!