Below is what Sharda Tickoo, Country Manager for India and SAARC at Trend Micro has to say on Data Privacy Day 2026.
“Data Privacy Day 2026 arrives at a critical inflection point. Evolving from a compliance obligation, privacy has become the foundation of trust in an AI-driven economy. As organizations deploy agentic AI systems that autonomously process, analyse, and act on personal data, the stakes have fundamentally changed. Data privacy now directly impacts business continuity, competitive advantage, and digital sovereignty. Deepfakes bypass authentication systems we’ve trusted for years. They manipulate AI assistants embedded in workflows to exfiltrate sensitive information. With quantum computing emerging as the next powerful weapon adversaries can wield, malicious actors are stealing encrypted data today to deploy quantum technology and decrypt it tomorrow making traditional defences irrelevant when the attack surface includes every AI model, API endpoint, and automated decision.
Strengthening data protection requires three decisive actions. First, embed privacy into AI lifecycles from design through deployment. Implementing robust access controls for training data, model parameters, and inference endpoints. Second, adopt continuous monitoring that tracks data access patterns, detects unauthorized AI processing, and flags when systems operate beyond consented purposes. Third, ensure transparency and explainability in AI decision-making so organizations can demonstrate compliance and build stakeholder trust.
Future-forward organizations should treat data privacy not as constraint but as competitive weapon, building trust competitors cannot replicate and unlocking responsible innovation.”
