New Delhi, April 25 -- Tracking individuals online, even in an ostensible bid to guard against theft, can have unintended consequences, as the recent suit filed against Apple Inc. indicates. An 18-year-old US college student filed a $1-billion lawsuit against Apple on 22 April, claiming its facial recognition software falsely linked him to thefts at several stores. In his suit, the student alleged that Apple's software "negligently" tied his name "with the wrong face" and gave him "no recourse to correct the error". The matter will be decided by a court of justice, but the fact remains that protecting an individual's privacy in today's increasingly digital world is not just a challenging task, but an imperative. Data analysis done with sophisticated tools of analytics can lay an individual bare to companies and governments alike. Several countries have rules that require telecom services providers to retain traffic and location data generated by mobile and landline phones, as also fax and email messages, ostensibly to tackle crime and terrorism. India's data localization rules also mandate that all data generated in India must be stored in the digital memory of servers within the country. However, nothing can stop the government from accessing this data under the garb of keeping the nation secure....