{"id":1237387,"date":"2025-03-06T04:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237387"},"modified":"2025-03-06T04:01:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T09:01:00","slug":"india-grants-tax-officials-sweeping-digital-access-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237387","title":{"rendered":"India Grants Tax Officials Sweeping Digital Access Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>India&#8217;s income tax department will gain powers to access citizens&#8217; social media accounts, emails and other digital spaces beginning April 2026 under the new income tax bill, in a significant expansion of its search and seizure authority. <\/p>\n<p>The legislation, which has raised privacy concerns among legal experts, allows tax officers to &#8220;gain access by overriding the access code&#8221; to computer systems and &#8220;virtual digital spaces&#8221; if they suspect tax evasion. <\/p>\n<p>The bill broadly defines virtual digital spaces to include email servers, social media accounts, online investment accounts, banking platforms, and cloud servers. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The expansion raises significant concerns regarding constitutional validity, potential state overreach, and practical enforcement,&#8221; Sonam Chandwani, Managing Partner at KS Legal and Associates, told Indian newspaper Economic Times.<\/p>\n<div class=\"share_submission\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=India+Grants+Tax+Officials+Sweeping+Digital+Access+Powers%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F06%2F0836227%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/twitter_icon_large-84.png\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F06%2F0836227%2Findia-grants-tax-officials-sweeping-digital-access-powers%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/facebook_icon_large-86.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/yro.slashdot.org\/story\/25\/03\/06\/0836227\/india-grants-tax-officials-sweeping-digital-access-powers?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed\">Read more of this story<\/a> at Slashdot.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/slashdot.org\/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=23628755&amp;smallembed=1\" style=\"height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India&#8217;s income tax department will gain powers to access citizens&#8217; social media accounts, emails and other digital spaces beginning April 2026 under the new income tax bill, in a significant expansion of its search and seizure authority. The legislation, which &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237387\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1237387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slashdot","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1237387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1237387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1237387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1237387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}