17-Jun-2019: Commerce & Industry Minister Meets Industry Stakeholders on E-Commerce & Data Localization
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry & Railways, Piyush Goyal is holding a meeting with Industry stakeholders on e-Commerce and data localization in New Delhi.
Common issues for discussion include opportunities for India in the growing digital economy, value addition in Indian GDP due to advent of e-commerce, understanding data flows from four aspects – privacy, security, safety and free choice, ownership and sharing of data, gains and costs of cross border flow of data and means to monitor use of data.
Issues like strengths and weaknesses of Indian companies who may benefit from e-commerce, threats from large foreign competition, level playing field and impact of anti-competitive practices such as predatory pricing and other discriminatory practices are expected to come up for discussion during Commerce Minister’s meeting with Indian e-Commerce companies. Gains and costs of cross border flow of data, ownership and sharing of data and efficiency gains and losses on utilizing Indian data servers, emails, clouds are likely to be deliberated during his meeting with e-Commerce companies.
Anticipated increase in costs and efficiency losses due to data localization, timeline to create a data infrastructure to comply with data localisation norms and developing Indian data servers, clouds, emails: Scope, coverage, advantages, disadvantages, costs and gains are some of the issues which may figure during Piyush Goyal’s meeting with Indian IT companies. Anticipated increase in costs and efficiency losses due to data localization, monitoring use of data from lens of privacy, security, safety and choice and efficiency gains and losses on utilizing Indian data servers, emails, clouds are the issues on the agenda of the Minister’s meeting with foreign IT firms.
15-Oct-2018: U.S. senators urge India to soften data localisation stance
Two U.S. senators have called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to soften India’s stance on data localisation, warning that measures requiring it represent “key trade barriers” between the two nations.
U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner - co-chairs of the Senate’s India caucus that comprises over 30 senators - urged India to instead adopt a “light touch” regulatory framework that would allow data to flow freely across borders.
The letter comes as relations between Washington and New Delhi are strained over multiple issues, including an Indo-Russian defence contract, India’s new tariffs on electronics and other items, and its moves to buy oil from Iran despite upcoming U.S. sanctions.
Global payments companies including Mastercard, Visa and American Express have been lobbying India’s finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to relax proposed rules that require all payment data on domestic transactions in India be stored inside the country by October 15.
The letter is most likely a last-ditch effort after the RBI told officials at top payment firms this week that the central bank would implement, in full, its data localisation directive without extending the deadline, or allowing data to be stored both offshore as well as locally - a practice known as data mirroring.
Other than the RBI proposal, India is working on an overarching data protection law that calls for storing all critical personal data in India. E-commerce and cloud computing policies are also being developed.
The letter also raised concerns on the draft data protection bill and e-commerce policy framework that called for stringent localisation measures. These measures have unnerved some tech companies who fear it will increase their infrastructure costs, hit their global fraud detection analytic platforms and affect planned investments in India at a time when more and more Indians are going online and using digital payments.
U.S. lobby groups, that represent companies such as Facebook Inc, Amazon.com and Alphabet Inc-owned Google, have also voiced concerns about the proposals.