Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Today, privacy is more than a personal choice—it’s a terrain shaped by power, politics and everyday life. This book shifts the lens from established western narratives to India, WhatsApp’s largest market, exploring how digital privacy is lived, built, and regulated on the world’s digital peripheries. Drawing on rich field-based research, it examines encrypted technologies, the ties between big tech and governments, and the role of messaging apps in political life. This is a sharp and grounded account of how privacy can both strengthen and erode democracy in the digital age.