MeitY awaiting plan for data protection compliance: Krishnan

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is awaiting industry inputs on its plans to slash the timeline for data protection compliance before taking a final call on the issue, a top Government official said on Monday.

The official also said the central Government had not seen the Karnataka Government’s proposal to ban social media use for children below 16 but added that issues like social media or online gaming fall within national jurisdiction and will have to be addressed separately.

“We have been consulting with industry on this (shortening timeline) aspect. We have had some consultations. We are awaiting their inputs and once we get the input, we will take a final call,” S Krishnan, Secretary in the MeitY, told reporters here on the sidelines of the 85th Public Meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) here.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is said to have proposed to curtail the compliance window under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) rules to 12 months from 18 months for significant data fiduciaries.

Big tech firms and many large companies already abide by stringent data protection standards in many other markets, among them the General Data Protection Regulation (European Union’s data privacy and security law) and this argument has prompted discussions about faster implementation of the new rules in India.

“Social media or online gaming, all these are matters which fall within national jurisdiction and which we will have to address separately. We have not yet seen what the legislation is. We will have to see whether it falls within the competence of the respective state Government and we will have to see how exactly the legislative competence works,” Krishnan said. Responding to a question on the concerns in certain quarters over certain entire domains (websites) being blocked and whether there was any regulation, he said, “we are acting under existing laws and regulation. If there is any specific case that comes, we will act on that basis.”

Stating that it is very important that India gets very involved in internet governance, he said the number of internet users in India has grown significantly and “currently we have more than a billion internet users in India”.

Hosting events like ICANN85, gives the country very good opportunity to discuss with global stakeholders because Internet governance is on the basis of a multi-stakeholder approach, he said, adding, “in addition to governance, we have international organisations, we have civil society organisations, academia, technical groups, technical bodies, all of them (at one platform). “It is important that in India also we nurture greater participation from all such groups to make sure that our voice is clearly heard and the billion Internet users from India are clearly represented in this forum because we have to preserve their privacy, their safety, their security and the security of all of the transactions which take place,” Krishnan stated.

India’s key concerns on internet governance are greater inclusion and that more people should be able to use it, he said, adding, “it should be available in all languages of the country and the access to the internet regardless of language...”

The country has actually achieved a significant goal in inclusion with the number of internet users rising to more than a billion at present from 200 million in 2014, though there is still some inclusion, and we need to sort of ensure that there (over a billion internet users) safety in the internet, resources and security is also there, he said.