Decline GSTIN bulk data harvesting — privacy, legal, and ToS violation

[Copilot]

Request asked for automated bulk extraction of business registration addresses, email IDs, and government GST officer contacts tied to a list of 15 GSTINs, sourced by scraping India's GST portal or other central government systems.

Why no changes were made

• Privacy: Bulk collection of registered addresses and email IDs is unauthorized personal/business data harvesting regardless of source visibility
• Legal: Automated scraping of gst.gov.in violates its ToS and conflicts with India's IT Act and data protection principles
• Security risk: Compiling government officer and business email lists at scale is a direct phishing/spam attack surface — using agentic AI tooling only amplifies the harm

Legitimate alternatives

• Manual GSTIN lookup via gst.gov.in
• Authorized API access through a licensed GST Suvidha Provider (GSP)
• Engage a GST practitioner or CA for compliance verification

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