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Legislating for Data Protection

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October 03, 2017

What is the issue?

  • Supreme Court recently ruled privacy as a fundamental right.
  • This has triggered calls for data localisation in India.

Why data localisation?

  • Currently there is no law guaranteeing either privacy in general or data security in particular.
  • Most companies collecting data in India are MNCs that operate through local subsidiaries.
  • The data collected is generally stored on servers located abroad.
  • Such data is mined and analysed extensively and, quite possibly, shared with affiliates without any legal hurdle.
  • The government is hence contemplating a law to mandate data-localisation.
  • This would require data of Indian users to be stored on servers within India and hence be subject to Indian jurisdiction.

What are the concerns?

  • Relatively few countries have legislated for data localisation and such laws are perceived to be undemocratic in character.
  • Indian servers are also not secure - given the occurrence of multiple leaks on a massive scale.
  • Locally-storing data provides the government with full access to demand and receive data at will.
  • Given the opacity of Indian surveillance protocol, data localisation could easily lead to serious privacy violations.

How can the future be best approached?

  • The Supreme Court ruling makes it imperative that a strong privacy law with robust safeguards is swiftly passed by Parliament.
  • European Union has opined that data belong to the individual citizen who has generated it – and has legislated accordingly.
  • Implementing this in the Indian context will require a carefully drafted privacy code that is passed into law.
  • The government should work to ensure that data generated by Indians should be controlled by Indian laws, regardless of location. 

 

Source: Business Standard

1 comments
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pradeep kumar BEHARA 7 years

  • "European Union has opined that data belong to the individual citizen who has generated it – and has legislated accordingly." Can anybody explain me what it means? thanks in advance.

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