Data Protection Bill: EU cautions India against stressing on mandatory local storage

The Indian Express
Nov. 22, 2018


The European Union has suggested that the Indian government, which is in the process of making a data protection law, should not stress on data localisation as apart from being unnecessary and potentially harmful to the cause of data protection, any such measure would create unnecessary costs, difficulties and uncertainties that could hamper business and investments.

The caution with regard to data localisation being part of a proposed data protection law is part of EU’s responses to the draft Data Protection Bill drafted by Justice Srikrishna committee which is being processed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

As is known, most global companies present in India who deal with data have been opposing data localisation, which basically means that whatever data is generated in the country should either be stored within the country or at least a mirror copy of it should be stored in the country.

“As a matter of economic policy, such an approach (data localisation) will create significant costs for companies — in particular, foreign ones — linked to setting up additional processing/storage facilities, duplicating such infrastructure etc and is thus likely to have negative effects on trade and investment. If implemented, this kind of provision would also likely hinder data transfers and complicate the facilitation of commercial exchanges, including in the context of EU-India bilateral negotiations on a possible free trade agreement,” EU has said.

The Srikrishna committee while not recommending a blanket local data storage clause has identified circumstances under which data has to be mandatorily stored in the country and cases where it can be stored with mirroring provisions. It has, however, said that critical data has to be stored only in the country.
It has said that personal data determined to be critical will be required to be stored only in India and there will no cross-border transfer of such data. Meanwhile, from October 15, the Reserve Bank of India has made it mandatory for all payments data to be stored in the country.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India Joins Russia in Voting Against West-Backed Move to Expand Powers of OPCW

The Wire: June 28, 2018 New Delhi: India voted against a UK-backed move that will allow the global chemical weapons watchdog to apportion blame for illegal attacks, criticising the decision to grant “unchecked powers” to the head of the group which could be used for “partisan” purposes. On Wednesday, more than two-thirds of the member states of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted to authorise the international body to identify the perpetrators and sponsors of a chemical weapons attack. It also specifically called on the OPCW’s technical secretariat to begin work on identifying the perpetrators behind the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The draft decision, sponsored by 30 countries, was adopted at the fourth special session of the conference of the states parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention at the Hague, with 82 in favour and 24 negative votes. While Europe, the United States and their allies voted ‘yes’, there was strong oppo...
Read more

As financial insecurity rises in urban India, so does investment in insurance

Image
Scroll.in March 13, 2020 Urban Indians are becoming less confident about their financial security. Up to 58% of them fret over financial independence post retirement, which is a 4% increase from last year. An equal share of urban Indians worry about meeting their daily medical expenses and sustaining their current lifestyle once they stop working. The findings are part of a survey published by Delhi-based Max Life Insurance in association with London-based consultancy Kantar. The firms surveyed 7,014 respondents in 25 cities, including six metros, nine tier-1 cities, and 10 tier-2 cities, between December 2019 and January 2020. Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz The trends Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz Source: Max Life Insurance via Quartz A significant share of urban Indians also say their families will have no financial support in the event of the breadwinner’s death. In such a scenario, around 57% believe the family sav...
Read more

ED tracks Swiss Bank A/Cs of Agusta scamster

The Poineer February 10,2019 Rakesh K Singh The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has tracked a dozen Swiss bank accounts in the name of Rajiv Saxena, who is key accused in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam. The ED has also found out accounts held by  his family members and associates where the kickbacks in the now scrapped deal were allegedly parked. Two bank accounts are in the name of Rajiv Saxena’s  associates Pankaj Jain and Sumita Jain who are also the authorised signatories. The  third is in the name of another associate Ajit Singh Bubber, but Rajiv and his family members are authorised signatories. The remaining nine accounts are largely owned and operated by Rajiv, his family members and associates. Rajiv Saxena was deported by the UAE authorities on January 30 and the ED formally arrested him the next day and a court later granted his remand to the agency. He is currently undergoing custodial interrogation by the ED. The agency had in 2017...
Read more