internet privacy india data-ownership
Do citizens of India have a legal right ask a website to delete their personal information?
<p>Is there any rule under the IT Act or any other regulation in India which provides the right to withdraw consent from providing your personal information?</p>

<p>I want to delete my personal information from a certain website where I have created an account.</p>

<p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>

<p>As @ohwilleke pointed out I was specifically looking for "a legally enforceable right" and not something inherited in TnC since it can get pretty crazy [Ref: <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/tech/7500-online-shoppers-unknowingly-sold-their-souls" rel="nofollow noreferrer">7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls]</a></p>

<p>Thanks for your responses, I have done my own research with negative result, at least for India. While EU seems to be serious about "<strong>Right to be forgotten</strong>". As per this regulation, you do have option to opt-out. So it does mean somewebsite.com would destroy my personal information when i choose to withdraw my consent. Now, </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>what happens to other data retention laws that require data to be kept
  for specific amount of time?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>At least as of 2011, when regulations under the Information Technology Act related to privacy and data security were issued (some of the relevant statute sections and regulations are linked in <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/7209/use-of-encryption-and-storage-of-personal-information-on-website-based-in-india">this answer at Law.SE</a>), there was no non-contractual right to have your data destroyed, although a terms of service for a site could give you that right contractually. </p>

<p>Instead, usually, a term of service agreement will do exactly the opposite and give a site owner an irrevocable right to keep your data forever.</p>

<p>I am not aware of any subsequent statutory, regulatory or case law developments in India which have changed this situation, but that kind of tweak of IT Act regulations in India wouldn't necessary make headlines outside of the local IT industry press coverage in obscure trade journals.</p>

<p>The EU is the only place of which I am aware that has any individual right to have data destroyed or suppressed even if it doesn't violated copyright, wasn't obtained illegally and isn't fraudulent or defamatory. Even then, as I understand it, in the EU this is not a unilateral right that applies in all circumstances and is instead a specific remedy for certain situations that have a particularly intense privacy aspect to them.</p>
