The revised version<\/a> of the personal data protection<\/a> (PDP) bill is likely to contain relaxed provisions<\/a> on data localisation<\/a> or crossborder flow<\/a> of data but will ensure that all data belonging to Indian citizens remains available for law enforcement agencies or any other government organisation which is legally entitled to access such data, minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar<\/a> told ET in an exclusive interview.
“The internet is global and has data as its underlying basic element. For a robust internet innovation ecosystem, there has to be (a) flow of data. However, we also recognise that in our national interest, there are requirements of protecting a digital nagrik’s data protection and privacy rights,” Chandrasekhar said.
Cross-border flow of data will, therefore, be permitted as long as the government is able to access the data legally and such data of citizens is safe even if it is stored in cloud architecture, he added.
Provisions over data localisation<\/a> in the previous draft of the PDP Bill- —withdrawn earlier this year—that mandated certain types of data to be necessarily stored in India had invited significant criticism from companies, especially foreign tech companies and the governments of US and Europe along with Indian startups.
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