India’s gig platforms weaponise information asymmetry: India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 recognises gig and platform workers as categories eligible for social security schemes, but it does not automatically extend the statutory employment protections available to conventional employees. The distinction leaves a central problem unresolved. How can the state enforce workers’ rights when digital platforms control the information needed to determine whether those rights have been violated?
The difficulty goes beyond regulatory delay. Platforms decide how work is allocated, how performance is assessed and when workers can be suspended or removed from their apps. Regulators rarely have comparable access to the underlying data. This information imbalance allows companies to contest regulatory demands, makes independent verification difficult and leaves policymakers dependent on disclosures from the businesses they oversee.
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The Code provides for social security schemes covering matters such as accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, and old-age protection. It also provides for contributions by aggregators to a social security fund. The existence of these provisions, however, does not guarantee that workers will receive benefits. Implementation requires reliable information about who works for a platform, the duration of that engagement and the conditions under which work is allocated. The government’s account of the Code sets out the intended framework, but the effectiveness of its protections depends on how these provisions are implemented.
When gig platforms control the evidence
Conventional labour inspection relies on records such as wage registers, attendance sheets and employment contracts. Platform work complicates this model. A worker’s access to assignments and earnings may depend on location, customer ratings, acceptance rates, delivery times and other variables processed by software. The effect of these decisions may be difficult to establish from a platform’s public disclosures or a sample of its records.
The problem is not that algorithms are inherently beyond regulatory scrutiny. It is that regulators need access to the information required to test a platform’s claims. Without records of assignments, cancellations, suspensions and earnings, an inspector may struggle to determine whether a fall in a worker’s income reflects lower demand, a change in the allocation algorithm or a punitive decision by the platform.
Platforms can also influence the terms of the regulatory debate. Proposals for mandatory disclosure are frequently assessed against their compliance costs and possible effects on innovation. Those concerns deserve consideration, particularly for requirements that impose substantial technical burdens. Yet the absence of disclosure also carries costs. Workers may have no effective means of challenging decisions that determine their livelihood, while regulators lack the evidence to establish patterns of unfair treatment.
This is the practical significance of the algorithmic black box. The issue is not simply that a regulator cannot inspect every line of code. It is whether the regulator can establish what a system does, which workers are affected and whether its decisions comply with the law.
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New services, old regulatory questions
The expansion of quick-commerce platforms into new product categories illustrates the difficulty of applying existing rules to app-based distribution. In July 2026, Swiggy and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation announced a pilot to deliver smaller cooking-gas cylinders through Instamart in Bengaluru. The service extended quick commerce into a sector with established arrangements for the distribution of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
The relevant regulatory question is whether the new delivery model complies with the rules governing the commodity and its distribution. LPG is subject to a specific regulatory framework, and concerns about equitable access or diversion of supplies require evidence about the service’s operating arrangements. The launch of an app-based service alone does not establish that existing safeguards have been bypassed. It does, however, demonstrate why regulators must examine new business models before assuming that rules designed around conventional distribution arrangements remain adequate.
Labour regulation faces a more immediate problem. Delivery workers operate under time pressures that can encourage unsafe riding and other violations of road-safety rules. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 provides a framework for road safety, but enforcement against individual drivers cannot by itself address incentives created by delivery targets or the way platforms allocate work.
The Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025 offers a more direct test of the state’s ability to regulate platform work. In June 2026, the Internet and Mobile Association of India and several platform companies, including Swiggy and Urban Company, challenged the law in the Karnataka High Court. Their challenge raised questions about the relationship between the state legislation and the central Code on Social Security, among other issues. The dispute illustrates the legal contest over the scope of state regulation and the obligations platforms must meet. It does not, by itself, establish that every objection to the legislation is an attempt to evade worker protections.
The broader issue is whether the state can enforce its rules when platforms dispute both the obligations imposed on them and the mechanisms through which compliance is assessed.
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Regulation can impose costs on workers, too
The transition to electric vehicles illustrates a different limitation. Delhi’s Motor Vehicle Aggregator and Delivery Service Provider Scheme, 2023 sets out a phased transition towards electric fleets, including requirements applicable to delivery service providers. Electrification can reduce emissions, but compliance also depends on whether workers and fleet operators can obtain suitable vehicles and finance.
A policy that assumes delivery workers can readily purchase or lease electric vehicles risks overlooking their financial constraints. Lenders may be reluctant to finance vehicles when resale values, battery life and maintenance costs are uncertain. Workers who cannot afford an outright purchase may have to rely on rental or leasing arrangements, whose costs affect their net earnings. Limited charging or battery-swapping facilities can also reduce the time available for paid deliveries.
These are reasons to assess the distributional effects of an electrification mandate before implementation, rather than evidence that Delhi’s scheme has necessarily produced each of these outcomes. Regulators should examine access to credit, vehicle utilisation, infrastructure availability and the allocation of transition costs. Environmental objectives and worker welfare need not conflict, but policy design must account for the costs borne by those expected to comply.
The same principle applies to social security. A registry of workers can establish that an individual has signed up to a platform or registered on e-Shram. Registration alone cannot establish the duration or intensity of work, the earnings generated or whether a worker meets the eligibility requirements of a particular scheme. The distinction between registration and actual engagement is crucial when benefits depend on work performed over time.
The government’s e-Shram framework provides a national registration mechanism for unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers. To support effective implementation, registration records must be complemented by verifiable information on work and earnings, subject to appropriate safeguards for personal data.
Claims that platforms deliberately reduce assignments or suspend accounts to prevent workers from qualifying for benefits require platform-level evidence. Such conduct would be a serious concern if established. Regulators should be able to test for it by examining changes in assignment frequency, account restrictions and earnings around eligibility thresholds, rather than relying on either company assurances or unverified allegations.
Give regulators the means to verify compliance
India needs a regulatory framework that can examine the effects of algorithmic management without requiring public disclosure of every commercially sensitive detail. The first step is to establish what platforms must report and how those reports will be independently verified.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority’s experience with dark patterns offers a useful lesson. In November 2025, the government announced that 26 leading e-commerce platforms had submitted self-declarations of compliance with the 2023 guidelines. Such declarations are a starting point for supervision, not a substitute for independent checks. Regulators need the authority and capacity to test whether actual interfaces and transactions conform to the rules.
Labour regulators face a more demanding task because the relevant information may include millions of assignments and decisions made over time. They need access to records on hours worked, earnings, rejected assignments, account suspensions and the reasons for deactivation. Reporting should be sufficiently granular to reveal patterns that aggregate figures might conceal, while protecting workers’ personal information and limiting unnecessary disclosure of commercial data.
Independent technical expertise will also be necessary. Regulators should be able to commission audits, conduct controlled tests and require explanations for decisions that materially affect workers’ access to employment. Where appropriate, they should have access to relevant system documentation and audit trails. This does not require every algorithm to be published. It requires platforms to demonstrate that their systems comply with legal obligations.
International experience offers a useful reference. The European Union’s Platform Work Directive, adopted in October 2024, establishes requirements concerning algorithmic management, transparency and human oversight. It also provides for access to specified information about platform work by competent authorities. India can draw on these provisions when designing its own reporting and oversight mechanisms, while adapting them to the structure of its labour market and regulatory institutions.
Disclosure requirements must be proportionate. Requiring platforms to produce every item of operational data without a clear regulatory purpose could raise compliance costs and expose workers’ personal information. Regulators should identify the records needed to assess particular risks, specify reporting intervals and establish secure procedures for accessing sensitive information. More intensive scrutiny can be directed towards systems that affect earnings, road safety, account access or eligibility for social security.
Enforcement must also alter the incentives facing platforms. Where regulators establish that a company has withheld required information, submitted misleading returns or violated worker-protection rules, penalties should reflect the seriousness and duration of the breach. Repeated violations may warrant stronger sanctions. An effective system should make concealment and non-compliance more costly than meeting disclosure requirements at the outset.
The central challenge is institutional. India has begun to recognise gig workers in its social security framework, while states are experimenting with additional protections. The next stage requires regulators to move beyond formal registration and self-reported compliance. If platforms control the records through which their conduct is judged, statutory rights will remain difficult to enforce. The state needs the information, technical capacity and legal authority to test what platforms claim and impose consequences when the evidence establishes a violation.