Despite criticism from United States Trade Representative Report, India should continue its efforts to localize data. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 2 years
KEY POINTS
· The report of USTR alleges that India has proposed and implemented several data localisation rules that could act as an impediment to digital trade and increase the cost of operations.
· Protection of privacy of personal data of customers can be ensured more effectively if it is housed in servers in the country.
· RBI’s firm implementation of the order issued in 2018 that all payment service players should store all information relating to payments by Indian citizens on servers located in India affirms the advantages of data localisation.
· Sensitive data relating to credit and debit card payments are now being stored in servers within the country and the RBI has better access to the data for surveillance purposes.
· The US trade representative office has, for instance, flagged concerns about provisions in the Personal Data Protection Bill, the Non-personal Data Governance Framework and the e-commerce policy that are on the anvil.
· These regulations insist on storing data generated by Indians on local servers. It is apprehensive that the e-commerce policy could lead to forced sharing of business sensitive information, trade secrets, intellectual property and proprietary source codes.
· While it is the USTR’s mandate to raise its voice against laws that are not conducive for US companies, the above-mentioned rules are needed to ensure the right to privacy of Indian citizens.
