George Orwell has depicted a character Big Brother in his widely acclaimed novel 1984 which is infamous for his extremely dirty and pervert surveillance mechanism. The Big Brother always keep a watch on his subjects.  They become so accustomed to espionage for BB that even people provide BB information about neighbours. The Indian government is presently acting like Big Brother. The proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, have been of the same type that present BB would have screamed with joy. The new statements of concern coming in every day. However, one issue that has garnered less attention is how it would expand the government’s powers to access data of consumers, raising fears regarding expanded surveillance intruding into consumer data and the right to privacy. Rule 5(18) in the amendments would require any e-commerce entity to provide information under its control or possession to a requesting government agency within 72 hours of receipt of an order. Agencies can make this demand for over-broad purposes devoid of any limitations. The proposed grounds include the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution of any offence, or identity verification, or cybersecurity. The information under the “control or possession” of many e-commerce platforms is not merely information that is willingly submitted in the form of names, addresses, payment details and order histories. It includes data gleaned by tracking our browsing habits, even beyond the e-commerce website itself, and data inferred about personal characteristics and preferences based on what we search for, click on or purchase and when, where and how we do it. Already we are seeing the government spreading its tentacles to suppress citizens privacy through a new amendment about social media platforms. In the case of E-Commerce regulations,  the rules, define “e-commerce entities” is broad and includes entities engaged for the fulfilment of orders. This could mean payment portals, delivery agents or even social media applications over which orders and payments are processed. Therefore, consumers’ data with any of the wide range of entities that fall in this broad bucket would be up for grabs. This proposed amendment fails to meet the standards of legality, necessity and proportionality recognised by the Indian Supreme Court’s right to privacy judgements. The relevant section in the consumer protection Act empowers the government to make rules to prevent unfair trade practices and direct selling. This objective has no nexus with what is sought to be done through the amendment, i.e. amplifying the government’s powers to acquire data for broad purposes beyond specific consumer law grievance redressal. It reflects executive overreach and fails the legality test, not to mention contempt for parliamentary scrutiny. In the next years we will not have anything which we can claim as private. This is the irony of the new normal world.