A dozen industry organizations around the world have sent a joint letter to the government saying that India’s Data Protection Bill, as it was recommended by a Parliamentary panel will severely degrade India’s business environment and decrease foreign investment inflows.
Before the bill is introduced into Parliament, industry associations sought to have more consultations with stakeholders.
The US, Japan Europe, Southeast Asia, and India are represented by thousands of companies and technology majors, such as Google, Amazon, Cisco and Dell.
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The letter, dated March 1, was addressed to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Communications and IT Minister. It stated that the Parliamentary Panel’s report included novel recommendations for the personal information protection bill. This bill, if passed, would be a powerful disincentive for India’s innovation ecosystem as well as the promise of a billion-dollar digital economy.
These bodies expressed concern over the inclusion of non-personal information, restrictions on cross border data transfers, data localisation obligations and mandatory hardware and AI Software certifications.
According to industry bodies, requiring companies to store data locally in India will compromise privacy and cybersecurity by limiting the availability of state-of-the art solutions globally.
“When these and the other recommendations in the Report are taken together, their result, If enacted, will lead to a significant deterioration in India’s business environment, degrading India’s Ease in Doing Business in and with India, as well as negatively impacting India’s domestic startup ecosystem and global competiveness,” the letter stated.
The industry bodies stated that the recommendation to create an Indian alternative to the international SWIFT bank system is also unorthodox and seems beyond the scope of this report’s objectives. This would have a significant adverse impact on India’s financial sector as well as the digital payments ecosystem.
Kumar Deep, ITI’s country manager for India, said that there should be extensive consultations to ensure privacy-friendly future legislation. India can be a leader in this regulatory space by creating a dynamic data privacy legislation, keeping in mind all stakeholders’ interests.
Opposition political parties have also voiced concern at the panel’s recommendations regarding the proposed data privacy authority, and clauses they feel infringe on the rights states.
On Thursday, Rajev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, stated that the government was reviewing the concerns expressed by stakeholders to the ministry.
“So we are extremely careful that whatever legislation we do in the digital ecosystem will be enabling legislation…legislation that improves the momentum of growth of the digital economy rather than create any problems going down the road,” he had said.
(Edited By : Jomy Jos Pullokaran)
