Income Tax dept tracks your social media, online shopping and lifestyle? ‘This claim…’ – What govt said

The government has dismissed a viral social media post claiming that the Income Tax Department (ITD) tracks citizens’ personal digital spending habits, online spending and general lifestyle choices.A message circulating widely on several social media platforms claimed that the IT Department will be able to access social media accounts, emails, trading apps and other digital platforms from April 1, 2026, to curb tax evasion. This has triggered concern among taxpayers. The post quickly gained traction across platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp and X, prompting confusion about whether taxpayers’ online activity will come under the surveillance of the government.The Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau labelled the claim as misleading, clarifying that the department does not engage in such surveillance. It further stated that there is no mechanism created by the Income Tax Department to monitor an individual’s digital or online activity.In a post from its X handle, PIB Fact Check wrote, “An Instagram post by 'bingewealth' claims that the Income-tax Department (ITD) tracks people’s personal digital activity, online spending, or lifestyle.”Claiming the post is misleading, the government’s Fact Check Unit said the Income-Tax Department does not track online shopping, digital payments, app-based transactions, or any form of personal spending behaviour. “There is no mechanism to monitor an individual’s digital or online activity,” it added.“Reporting under Section 285BA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 does not involve surveillance. The Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) framework requires specified entities (banks, registrars, etc.) to report limited high-value transactions as part of routine compliance. These provisions have existed for years and do not involve behavioural profiling or online activity monitoring,” the X post further read.In a separate development, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the social media firms should take responsibility for the content they publish and a standing committee has already recommended a tough law to fix accountability of platforms.Earlier this week, the Centre warned online platforms -- mainly social media firms -- of legal consequences if they fail to act on obscene, vulgar, pornographic, paedophilic and other forms of unlawful content."Social media should be responsible for the content they publish. Intervention is required," Vaishnaw said in New Delhi on the sidelines of a Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) event.He was replying to a question on the AI app Grok generating indecent and vulgar images of women.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written a to X (formerly Twitter) over "failure to observe statutory due diligence obligations" under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and other relevant laws and sought an Action Taken Report towards immediate compliance for prevention of hosting, generation and uploading of obscene, nude, indecent and sexually explicit content "through the misuse of AI-based services like 'Grok' and xAI's other services".In a letter to the Chief Compliance Officer, X Corp, India Operations, MeitY advised the social media platform to strictly desist from the hosting, displaying, uploading, publication, transmission, storage, sharing of any content that is obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, paedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under any law for the time being in force in any manner whatsoever."Failure to observe such due diligence obligations shall result in the loss of the exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, and you shall also be liable for consequential action as provided under any law including the IT Act and BNS," the letter said.The letter emphasised that hosting, generation, publication, transmission, sharing, or uploading ofobscene, nude, indecent, sexually explicit, vulgar, paedophilic content or any content that is invasive of another's privacy, including bodily privacy or otherwise unlawful, including through AI-enabled systems and tools, attracts serious penal consequences under multiple statutes."It has been reported and represented from time to time, including through public discourse and representations from various parliamentary stakeholders, that certain categories of content circulating on your platform may not be in compliance with applicable laws relating to decency and obscenity. It has especially been observed that the service, namely "Grok AI" developed by you and integrated and made available on the X platform, is being misused by users to create fake accounts to host, generate, publish or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them," the letter said."Importantly, this is not limited to creating of fake accounts but also targets women who host or publish their images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs. Such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguards and enforcement mechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws," it added.MeitY said in the letter that it is of the view that the regulatory provisions under the Information Technology Act, 2000 ("ITAct") and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 202I (*IT Rules, 2021') "are not being adequately adhered to by your platform, particularly in relation to obscene, indecent, vulgar, pornographic, paedophilic, or otherwise unlawful or harmful content which are potentially violative of extant laws"."The aforesaid acts and omissions are viewed with grave concern, as they have the effect of violating the dignity, privacy and safety of women and children, normalising sexual harassment and exploitation in digital spaces, and undermining the statutory due diligence framework applicable to intermediaries operating in India," it added.The Minstry asked the social media platform to immediately undertake a comprehensive technical, procedural and governance-level review of the Al-based application "Grok", including its prompt-processing, outputgeneration (responses generated using Large Language Models (LLMs)), image handling and safety guardrails, so as to ensure that the application does not generate, promote or facilitate content which contains nudity, sexualisation, sexually explicit or otherwise unlawful content in any form.The Ministry also asked X to enforce its user terms of service, acceptable use policies and AI usage restrictions, including strong deterrent measures such as suspension, termination and other enforcement actions against violating users and accounts.It asked the social media platform to remove or disable access, without delay, to all content already generated or disseminated in violation of applicable laws, in strict compliance with the timelines prescribed under the IT Rules, 2021, without vitiating the evidence in any manner;'X' Corp has been asked to submit a detailed Action Taken Report (ATR) to the Ministry at the earliest and in any case not later than seventy-two (72) hours from the date of issuance of the letter covering "specific technical and organisational measures adopted or proposed in relation to the Grok application; role and oversight exercised by the Chief Compliance Officer; aotions taken against offending content, users and accounts; and . mechanisms put in place to ensure compliance with the mandatory reporting requirement under section 33 of the BNSS".(With agency inputs)