On digital privacy laws emerging around the world, including India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Adkins said the company advocates for standardisation and principles-based approach to enable a seamless experience as they adapt across countries, while factoring in local needs and innovation.India has a unique lens on how technology is being used today, given the scale of the country, the speed at which people are coming online, and the vibrancy of the business community, said Heather Adkins, VP security engineering, Google. Threat actors responding to this ecosystem also provides a useful view of the evolving threat landscape, she said, adding that patterns seen in India may be translated in other parts of the world.
Google on Tuesday released a “safety charter” for India to address online scams and fraud, cybersecurity for government and businesses, and responsible artificial intelligence. The company is looking to deepen partnerships with the government, local organisations, and academia in these areas, said Adkins.
Initiatives under the safety charter will be executed through the Google Security Engineering Centre being set up in a hub-and-spoke model across Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, she told ET.
Local engagements help to understand patterns better and protect people globally, Adkins said.
“What we might learn about a pattern in India will then be automatically translated to a user somewhere else in the world, which is very beneficial for us,” she said, “and because of India’s scale, you have so many people online, that gives us a lens that’s very unique in the world in terms of what we can see.”
Fraudulent loan apps and “digital arrest” scams, for instance, were seen emerging in the country.
On digital privacy laws emerging around the world, including India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Adkins said the company advocates for standardisation and principles-based approach to enable a seamless experience as they adapt across countries, while factoring in local needs and innovation.
“Regulation works well when it addresses the problem and gets it solved, and so what we don’t want to see is regulation that makes the other problems worse,” she said.
On the question of heightened threats during conflicts like the recent India-Pakistan tensions, Adkins said cybersecurity is now a bigger factor in conflicts as well as natural disasters across the world, with scammers trying to trick people via, say, donation links.
“It’s really easy for the scammers to pick up on current events and then use that to trick well-intentioned people out of money, out of personal information, into installing apps that are dangerous,” she said.
Threat actors are also using Gen AI for greater productivity, language translation, and research, and the company is “very concerned” about how the technology can make attacks easier, said Adkins.
Sharing information and signals about these trends among partners will help tackle the problem, she said, adding that AI is also key in identifying fraud emails or removing malicious apps.
Google is set to collaborate further with the ministry of home affairs, partnering with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) for user awareness on cybercrimes over the next two months.
