NPCI working with banks, UPI apps to strengthen user privacy
What's the story
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is working with Unified Payments Interface (UPI) apps and partner banks to implement the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) law, according to Moneycontrol. The move is aimed at enhancing customer privacy on India's most popular digital payments platform. The NPCI has already ordered the masking of phone numbers, a key step in this process.
Directive details
Deadline for implementation is September 4
The NPCI has issued a circular directing payment apps to mask customer phone numbers. The deadline for implementing this order is September 4.
The move comes in light of social media complaints from women users about identity, privacy, and security concerns.
The NPCI has stressed that UPI member banks and apps must ensure user privacy by masking information like UPI IDs, mobile numbers, and account numbers across all customer-facing interfaces and communications.
Transaction privacy
Guidelines for transaction visibility
The NPCI has also laid down specific guidelines for transaction visibility. It has said that only the last four digits of a customer's mobile number should be visible to the other party.
For QR code transactions, the app shouldn't show the mobile number after payments are completed.
The circular also mandates UPI apps to allow users to have non-mobile number-based IDs as their default ID.
Privacy enhancement
Major shift in UPI's user privacy policy
The NPCI's directive comes as a major shift in UPI's user privacy policy.
Until now, most users chose their mobile number as their virtual private address (VPA) when signing up for UPI for the first time.
However, with this new circular, the default will be a username instead of a mobile number.
This is expected to improve privacy and make digital payments safer for all users.