Can data localization help protect national, economic interests?
6 years, 5 months ago

Can data localization help protect national, economic interests?

Live Mint  

If data is likened to oil, it’s with good reason. Recent efforts towards creating a robust data protection framework in India focus on one aspect across various parts of the government machinery—data localization. Four key pronouncements in quick succession have hailed data localization as the solution to protect Indian consumers and safeguard India’s national and economic interests. The bad news, however, is that several of the above recommendations, including the draft e-commerce policy, falter on a key ground—they gloss over the negative economic impact of data localization. Given the comparative trade advantages enjoyed by one section of Indian industry in this context, mandating a strict data localization regime could be perceived as a restrictive trade barrier and spur retaliatory measures.

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History of this topic

Rollout of Data Rules set for mid-2025: IT Minister
Trending News
6 days, 15 hours ago

Rollout of Data Rules set for mid-2025: IT Minister

The Hindu  

The government is aiming to notify and begin implementing the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 — currently in a draft state — by the middle of this year, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said. “I don’t see too many amendments coming in the final notification beyond some tweaks.” While large firms are prepared to comply …

Nations must control data to tell their stories their own way
3 weeks, 4 days ago

Nations must control data to tell their stories their own way

Hindustan Times  

It all begins with a simple question: who gets to decide how a country’s stories, culture, and information are handled online? Digital sovereignty means a nation has the infrastructure and power to keep its own data home, manage its own digital affairs, and ensure what its citizens sees online is not controlled by distant companies and foreign governments. When countries …

Privacy as priority: India can’t afford any further delay in notifying data protection rules
4 weeks, 2 days ago

Privacy as priority: India can’t afford any further delay in notifying data protection rules

Live Mint  

A few days ago, Signzy, a popular Know Your Customer verification service used by India’s top banks and fintech firms, was affected by a cyber attack that may have exposed the sensitive personal information of millions. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act was passed six years after the Right to Privacy verdict in 2017. The Digital India Act, touted as …

EU's data privacy laws stymie India's investigation into airline bomb hoax calls
2 months ago

EU's data privacy laws stymie India's investigation into airline bomb hoax calls

Live Mint  

New Delhi: India’s hunt for the perpetrators of multiple bombing threats that significantly disrupted the domestic aviation and hospitality sectors has hit a roadblock in Europe, where most of the hoax calls are said to have been made through virtual private networks. “India has currently hit a roadblock in the European Union, with France and Germany being among the nations …

'Indian data should remain in India': Akash Ambani bats for indigenous AI at IMC 2024
3 months ago

'Indian data should remain in India': Akash Ambani bats for indigenous AI at IMC 2024

Firstpost  

Batting for indigenous research and development, Reliance Jio Infocomm Chairman Akash M Ambani said that India should develop indigenous AI applications and the policy should support the building of data centres domestically Reliance Jio Infocomm Chairman Akash M Ambani has called for the development of indigenous artificial intelligence capabilities. Speaking at the India Mobile Congress 2024 at Bharat Mandapam, New …

India's Data Revolution: Unpacking the DPDPA 2023 and Ensuring Accountability
1 year, 1 month ago

India's Data Revolution: Unpacking the DPDPA 2023 and Ensuring Accountability

The Quint  

It is crucial to establish mechanisms that hold the government accountable as a data custodian, said Dr Kislay Pandey, a leading corporate lawyer of India. Specific measures need to be taken to explicitly regulate emerging technologies like AI and tapping into their potential to bolster data protection. He further said, “To ensure the efficacy of data protection and privacy regulation …

Word choice in India’s data protection law and a dilution of rights
1 year, 4 months ago

Word choice in India’s data protection law and a dilution of rights

The Hindu  

After years of going back and forth on its contents, India finally has a data protection law, i.e., the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. In the search for an answer to this question, we need to look at two basic features of any data protection law: the use of personal data with consent and without it. As decades of …

Satire India new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 policy highlights
1 year, 5 months ago

Satire India new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 policy highlights

The Hindu  

First of all, kudos to the Mother of Democracy for setting new world records every day for fastest-ever law-making. Did you know the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 zipped through Parliament faster than a bullet train? There was no nonsense like ‘informed consent’ because they knew that all individual streams of data merge eventually with the Annadata — ‘the …

Data market’s future hinges on regulation
1 year, 5 months ago

Data market’s future hinges on regulation

Hindustan Times  

In 1776, when Adam Smith — arguably the most ardent champion of market economics — argued in favour of the invisible hand, there was no telephone, no broadband and no digital data coursing through cables or air waves. Several economists, including Hal Varian, the chief economist of Google, are swayed by the efficiency hypothesis while others liken data to oil …

India passes data protection legislation in Parliament. Critics fear privacy violation
1 year, 5 months ago

India passes data protection legislation in Parliament. Critics fear privacy violation

Associated Press  

NEW DELHI — Indian lawmakers Wednesday approved a data protection legislation that “seeks to better regulate big tech firms and penalize companies for data breaches” as several groups expressed concern over citizens’ privacy rights. The legislation will limit cross-border transfer of data and provide a framework for setting up a data protection authority to ensure compliance from tech companies, Information …

India passes data protection bill amid surveillance concerns
1 year, 5 months ago

India passes data protection bill amid surveillance concerns

Al Jazeera  

The new law has drawn criticism from opposition lawmakers and rights groups over the scope of exemptions, weakening gov’t accountability. Indian lawmakers have passed a data protection law that will dictate how tech companies process users’ data amid criticism that it will likely lead to increased surveillance by the government. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 gives the government …

Indranil Banerjie | A Law to Protect Citizens, Or To Help in State Snooping?
1 year, 5 months ago

Indranil Banerjie | A Law to Protect Citizens, Or To Help in State Snooping?

Deccan Chronicle  

In today’s digital age, privacy is a chimera -- the reality is that every intimate detail of our lives, from our eating and spending patterns to medical and financial details, are digitally recorded in some computer somewhere in the vast cloud and can therefore be potentially exposed. The idea of a digital data protection law had become imperative given the …

The new data bill will mark a paradigm shift
1 year, 5 months ago

The new data bill will mark a paradigm shift

Hindustan Times  

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha yesterday. This is why I have been opposed to the enactment of a compliance-heavy, General Data Protection Regulation style regulation in India, even though this is widely believed to be the gold standard for data protection. Most of the other data protection principles — retention restrictions, purpose specifications, …

India’s data protection law needs refinement
1 year, 5 months ago

India’s data protection law needs refinement

The Hindu  

India is no Europe, and this seems especially true in the face of a task such as drafting and conceptualising a data protection law for over 1.4 billion Indians. The European Union’s data protection law, i.e., the General Data Protection Regulation, came into force in the middle of 2018 and achieved widespread popularity as arguably the most comprehensive data privacy …

New Data Protection Bill receives Cabinet's green light: Here's all you need to know
1 year, 6 months ago

New Data Protection Bill receives Cabinet's green light: Here's all you need to know

India TV News  

India's ongoing efforts to protect privacy and personal data have gained significance in light of the Supreme Court's recognition of privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. The need for a robust data protection law became apparent following incidents of data breaches and unauthorized use of personal information by entities before stricter regulations were imposed globally. …

Fix govt accountability for personal data leaks
1 year, 7 months ago

Fix govt accountability for personal data leaks

Hindustan Times  

Privacy – that elusive fundamental right – is again under the spotlight with reports of a possible breach of CoWIN data of individuals. Two provisions under the Information Technology Act, 2000 – Section 43A and Section 72A – encompass personal data protection in India. Pursuant to the Puttaswamy judgment of 2017, the central government released multiple drafts of the proposed …

Looking at the cross-border data flow regime in the DPDP Bill 2022
1 year, 9 months ago

Looking at the cross-border data flow regime in the DPDP Bill 2022

Hindustan Times  

According to a 2019 report of India's ministry of electronics and information technology, India's digital economy could reach $1 trillion by 2025. Section 17 of the new draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 will allow businesses to store data in "trusted jurisdictions," which the central government will later specify on a "whitelist" based on their evaluation. This may make …

Significant controls to govt. under data protection bill to hit investments in data centres: ITI
2 years ago

Significant controls to govt. under data protection bill to hit investments in data centres: ITI

The Hindu  

Significant controls and exemptions to the government under the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill 2022 are likely to make it harder for companies to invest in data centres and data processing activities in India, according to global technology industry body ITI. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has floated draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 and has invited …

Political Line | Public Debate on Privacy
2 years ago

Political Line | Public Debate on Privacy

The Hindu  

India’s new draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 is being debated intensely. Privacy activists and legal scholars are concerned that the draft is going in the wrong direction, with the government giving itself too much power to collect data, and snoop on people. The draft DPDP bill reiterates state authority and sovereignty over all questions related to data, including …

Why the new draft data bill must be reconsidered
2 years, 1 month ago

Why the new draft data bill must be reconsidered

Hindustan Times  

Earlier this month, the government released the Digital Data Protection Bill of 2022, and asked for public comments. The government said this iteration provides a progressive and adequate legal framework for data protection in India; and, in particular, having listened to industry critiques of the draft Personal Data Protection Bill of 2018, it has removed onerous provisions regarding the storage …

Data protection bill may need multiple iterations before becoming practical: experts
2 years, 1 month ago

Data protection bill may need multiple iterations before becoming practical: experts

The Hindu  

The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, released on Friday, is a mix of hits and misses, with more misses than hits, and would need multiple iterations before becoming practical, according to experts. They have no right to data portability.” “The Data Protection Board is toothless as most power is given to the Executive to prescribe through Rules,” she …

Are data localisation requirements necessary and proportionate?
2 years, 2 months ago

Are data localisation requirements necessary and proportionate?

The Hindu  

The importance and use of data in today’s technology-driven world is immense. While governments try to reap the most by exploiting data to drive their economy, there are various other challenges that can shoot up due to non-uniform data localisation laws around the globe. In this age of rapid technological growth, governments should shift to alternate standards rather than enforcing …

First Principles | What the new Data Protection Bill might look like
2 years, 2 months ago

First Principles | What the new Data Protection Bill might look like

Hindustan Times  

Ever wondered why do you get spammed with phone calls, emails and text messages from service providers of all kinds? In any case, this was the stated intent of the Personal Data Protection Bill which was withdrawn after much work had gone into it earlier in August this year. While the browser is free, the data that Chrome collects about …

Govt to bring in data protection law soon: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
2 years, 4 months ago

Govt to bring in data protection law soon: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Live Mint  

India will replace the IT Act with a Digital India Act, comprising a modern framework of laws and rules that will act as catalysts for innovation and protecting citizen's rights, said Rajeev Chandrashekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology. Speaking at the USIBC India Ideas summit, he said that the government will bring a fresh comprehensive legislative framework …

As IRCTC Mulls Data Monetisation, There Is an Urgent Need for Data Privacy Rules
2 years, 4 months ago

As IRCTC Mulls Data Monetisation, There Is an Urgent Need for Data Privacy Rules

The Quint  

Both these moves have sparked a new line of debate about the data privacy issues. The recent withdrawal of the Personal Data Protection Bill by the government, citing more comprehensive legislation, has also triggered concerns as data privacy remains guided by the provisions of the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 and the related rules of 2011, and are found to …

India needs a data regulator
2 years, 4 months ago

India needs a data regulator

Hindustan Times  

The government is considering doing away with the need for a data protection authority in the new draft of the data protection law, this newspaper reported on Friday. But they cited the ease of doing business, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises for whom a regulator such as DPA, especially in how its role was envisioned in the last personal …

Data opportunity at the G20
2 years, 4 months ago

Data opportunity at the G20

The Hindu  

The global politics of data is rapidly evolving as leading and emerging digital economies like the European Union, the U.S., India, Indonesia, and South Africa strive to protect, monetise, and leverage data collected within their territories for domestic purposes. Since 2017, India has attempted to incubate governance of non-personal data, personal data, e-commerce regulation and artificial intelligence with a preference …

Explained | Why has the government withdrawn the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019?
2 years, 5 months ago

Explained | Why has the government withdrawn the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019?

The Hindu  

The story so far: On Wednesday, August 3, the Central government withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill that it had tabled in the Lok Sabha on December 11, 2019. Alongside this, the government has also said that it received several concerns from the tech industry — specifically from Indian start-ups — regarding the stipulations on data localisation in the Bill. …

Why does India not have a data protection bill yet?
2 years, 5 months ago

Why does India not have a data protection bill yet?

Business Standard  

According to Dutch cybersecurity firm Surfshark VPN, India had the second highest number of data breaches in the first half of 2022. And on Friday, a Ukrainian cybersecurity researcher claimed that sensitive personal data of 280 million Indian citizens allegedly from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation database surfaced online. After five years in the making, the bill that was designed …

EU seeks unrestricted cross-border flow of data
2 years, 5 months ago

EU seeks unrestricted cross-border flow of data

Live Mint  

The European Union is seeking unrestricted cross-border flow of data between itself and India, including allowing storage of data in the EU’s 27 countries, under the free trade agreement being hammering out by the two sides. The chapter on Data Flows and Personal Data Protection in the draft advance text of the FTA says that parties are committed to ensuring …

Delay in data law can prove costly
2 years, 6 months ago

Delay in data law can prove costly

Hindustan Times  

In two months, it will have been five years since the Supreme Court ’s landmark judgment that laid down the right to privacy as a fundamental right for Indian citizens. For 58 months, a draft legislation has bounced between committees, the government and Parliament, being redrawn and redrafted several times – each iteration arguably more controversial than the last. PREMIUM …

What Does The Data Protection Bill 2021 Mean For Commercial Industries?
2 years, 8 months ago

What Does The Data Protection Bill 2021 Mean For Commercial Industries?

Live Law  

The second working session at the Bar Association of India's Seminar on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2021 held on 3rd May 2022 at New Delhi looked into the nuances of the impact that the impugned bill might bring upon industries. A Data Protection Bill which tries to bring both personal and non-personal data under it will raise the level …

India’s Data Protection Laws Will be Critical in Attracting FDI and Pushing Digital Exports
2 years, 8 months ago

India’s Data Protection Laws Will be Critical in Attracting FDI and Pushing Digital Exports

News 18  

At the cost of repeating a cliche, technology and data-driven innovations are at the centre of economic activity in what is now a digitally led era. And, with India negotiating trade agreements with several countries, including the UK, it will be important that the Personal Data Protection Bill strikes the right balance between localising data and enabling cross-border data flows. …

Data Protection Bill Very Sensitive, Requires Extensive and Exhaustive Consultations: IT Minister
2 years, 10 months ago

Data Protection Bill Very Sensitive, Requires Extensive and Exhaustive Consultations: IT Minister

News 18  

Even as the Centre has released the ‘Draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy’ and opened the doors for feedback from the public until March 18, Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw has shared key details regarding the government’s vision. Vaishnaw was also asked about whether there is any possibility or idea that the Centre …

Data Protection Will Win Only When the DPA Wins
2 years, 11 months ago

Data Protection Will Win Only When the DPA Wins

News 18  

With the tabling of the JPC report on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, a data protection law for India is seemingly imminent in the near future. Maintenance of DPA’s Independence Second, reluctance of the government to cede regulatory control often leads to turf wars between the respective ministry and the sectoral regulator, thereby diminishing trust of the market in …

India wants to protect your data. Should you worry?
3 years ago

India wants to protect your data. Should you worry?

Al Jazeera  

After it introduced a Personal Data Protection Bill in December 2019 to protect people’s personal data, India said it would set up a data protection authority to do the job. The bill lists about six categories to define personal data, including an individual’s name, mobile number, biometrics – anything that can identify a person. Moreover, the fact that India, a …

Personal Data Protection Bill: 4 Reasons Why Governments Bat for Data Localisation
3 years, 1 month ago

Personal Data Protection Bill: 4 Reasons Why Governments Bat for Data Localisation

News 18  

With the Joint Parliamentary Committee Report on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 being expected to be tabled sometime this week, debates around key issues in India’s data are now heading towards resolution. Second, storage and transference of personal data of resident data principals to jurisdictions with lax data protection laws also makes their data vulnerable. Concerns over Data Localisation …

What you need to know about the Personal Data Protection Bill | In Focus Podcast
3 years, 1 month ago

What you need to know about the Personal Data Protection Bill | In Focus Podcast

The Hindu  

The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 will be tabled in the winter session of Parliament. As India right now doesn’t really have a data protection regime, it is this legislation that will lay the foundation for protection of an individual’s privacy in the digital age. Through a multitude of policy measures and mechanisms, the most well known among them being …

Data Protection Bill Provides Safeguards against Private Actors; State Gets Broad Exemptions
3 years, 1 month ago

Data Protection Bill Provides Safeguards against Private Actors; State Gets Broad Exemptions

News 18  

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which has now been more than three years in the making, will presumably see progress with the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill tabling its report in the Parliament this Winter Session. The fundamental way in which the Personal Data Protection Bill provides for these protections is by embodying the principle of informational autonomy …

A closer look at the draft Data Protection Bill
3 years, 1 month ago

A closer look at the draft Data Protection Bill

The Hindu  

The story so far : The Joint Parliamentary Committee constituted to examine India’s proposed data protection law, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, released its report on Monday. For instance, the JPC notes that the European GDPR, commonly seen as the pinnacle of data protection regulation worldwide, exempts from its ambit certain types of processing carried out in public interest. …

E- International Seminar: "Data Protection And Data Privacy" [Submit Abstract By 30th Nov, 2021]
3 years, 2 months ago

E- International Seminar: "Data Protection And Data Privacy" [Submit Abstract By 30th Nov, 2021]

Live Law  

The International Seminar on Data Protection and Data Privacy is taking place on 18th December, 2021Online. The International Seminar on Data Protection And Data Privacy is being organized by Law Mantra Trust, The Indian Law Institute New Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur & Advanced Centre on Research, Development & Training in Cyber …

EXPLAINED: Why RBI Has Barred New Users For Mastercard And What Data Privacy Has To Do With It
3 years, 5 months ago

EXPLAINED: Why RBI Has Barred New Users For Mastercard And What Data Privacy Has To Do With It

News 18  

International payments service provider Mastercard has fallen foul of the Reserve Bank of India over non-compliance with a three-year-old order that had asked for data of card transactions done in India to be stored within the country itself instead of at overseas data centres. RBI had noted the “considerable growth in the payment ecosystem in the country”, but found that …

RBI Restricts Mastercard: How Will It Impact Existing Customers?
3 years, 5 months ago

RBI Restricts Mastercard: How Will It Impact Existing Customers?

The Quint  

In a 2018 statement, MasterCard CEO and President, Ajaypal Singh Banga, said that data localisation may fail to provide safety and security to Indian banks, merchants. Meanwhile, Sharat Chandra, an emerging tech evangelist told The Quint that since there is hardly any money left to be made in payments business, payment data collected can be used by Mastercard to build …

Why the Personal Data Protection Bill matters
3 years, 9 months ago

Why the Personal Data Protection Bill matters

The Hindu  

The pandemic has forced more people to participate in the digital economy. However, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, now under scrutiny by a Joint Parliamentary Committee, could play a big role in providing robust protections to users and their personal data. However, this data protection regime falls short of providing effective protection to users and their personal data. In …

Opinion | The march towards an equitable data economy
3 years, 9 months ago

Opinion | The march towards an equitable data economy

Live Mint  

Over the past few months, many of us have been part of various WhatsApp group debates about migrating to platforms that provide better privacy. The next wave of data governance ideas will seek to protect collective harms and build on the foundation of individual agency and control. Greater acceptance for “data sovereignty” assertions across India and Europe is a welcome …

Privacy and surveillance: The Hindu Editorial on WhatsApp user policy change
3 years, 11 months ago

Privacy and surveillance: The Hindu Editorial on WhatsApp user policy change

The Hindu  

Following an exodus of its users from its messaging service, WhatsApp, to apps such as Signal and Telegram, which promise more privacy options, the Facebook-owned service might have been forced to postpone the date for users to accept its new privacy policy terms to May 15. In just days after the earlier announcement by WhatsApp, Signal has emerged as the …

India and the geopolitics of technology | Analysis
4 years, 1 month ago

India and the geopolitics of technology | Analysis

Hindustan Times  

Splinternet, the balkanisation of the internet, digital sovereignty, and data localisation are some of the more popular terms that have come to define the debate on the future of data, and, more broadly, on the future of technology. It is a treasure trove for big tech firms, as much as it is for firms within India wanting to expand operations …

India will be a large data economy; will have data refinery: Ravi Shankar Prasad
4 years, 1 month ago

India will be a large data economy; will have data refinery: Ravi Shankar Prasad

The Hindu  

The government plans to cultivate India as a large data economy and as a precursor, the country will soon have its Data Protection Law in place, said Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Opinion | The Data Protection Bill only weakens user rights “We are keen to promote India as a large centre for data economy and we will also …

India’s data protection law has potential to propel digital economy, says Facebook
4 years, 2 months ago

India’s data protection law has potential to propel digital economy, says Facebook

The Hindu  

Social media giant Facebook on Friday said that the data protection law in progress has potential to propel the country’s digital economy and global digital trade. The company’s comment came following a hearing by a Joint Committee of Parliament on Data Protection Bill, 2019, chaired by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi. “We deeply appreciate the opportunity to discuss data regulation issues …

We need to define who gets access to what type of data
4 years, 4 months ago

We need to define who gets access to what type of data

Live Mint  

Existing data governance policies are driven by a market-centric approach, based on the concepts of data ownership, and treat data as property. But there are three main areas that require a pragmatic rethink—business implications related to incentives for innovation and compliance burden, need for a policy framework for data trusts, and adopting a practical approach to value of data. First, …

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