Discussion with Cos Issues of Data Storage in Draft E-Commerce Policy on Jan 14

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has convened a meeting of industry representatives from IT and e-commerce sectors on January 14 to discuss the merits and de-merits of draft e-commerce policy on data storage, sources said.

Representatives from different companies including Accenture, Adobe, Facebok, Genpact, Google, HCL, Infosys, Intel, Microsoft and TCS are expected to participate in the deliberations, they said.

Besides, officials from Nasscom, E-commerce Council of India, Informational Technology Industry Council, CII and FICCI would also attend the meeting, they added.

The meeting will be chaired by an additional secretary level officer of the DPIIT.

The meeting assumes significance as the department is working to release the national e-commerce policy by the end of the current financial year.

The government in February last year released a draft national e-commerce policy, proposing setting up a legal and technological framework for restrictions on cross-border data flow and also laid out conditions for businesses regarding collection or processing of sensitive data locally and storing it abroad.

Several foreign e-commerce firms have raised concerns over some points in the draft pertaining to data. The department has received huge response on the draft and it is examining all the views and comments.

As the draft policy includes several provisions related to data, the department is also looking at the Personal Data Protection Bill approved by the Cabinet last month.

Further, sources said that issues which needs to be looked upon include whether India should allow free flow of data across the border or inhibit or regulate it in some manner; and whether data localisation is required or not.

"These are the issues which have lot of pros and cons," they added.

The Personal Data Protection Bill spells out a framework for handling of personal data including its processing by public and private entities.

A company may have to pay a penalty if found violating norms under the Personal Data Protection Bill.

PayPal mulls Data Localisation for India, Sets up Tech Centre in Hyderabad

American digital payments player PayPal is working with its partners on localisation of data as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India, said vice-president and head (Engineering) of PayPal India Guru Bhat here Tuesday.

"As part of our operating set-up in India, we work with a lot of partners and we are working with them with the proposal right now on how to enable this for the country," he said when asked if Paypal is considering 'data localisation' nas mandated by the RBI.

The RBI had, in April last year, asked payment firms to ensure their data were stored exclusively on local servers, setting a tight six-month deadline for compliance. That deadline was said to have been missed by some foreign firms including credit card giants Visa and Mastercard.

International giants usually store data on global servers and the requirement to store data locally would require them to make an additional investment. But policymakers in India believe storing data locally would help monitor and conduct investigations if the need arises.

"In all the markets that we are prevalent or operative, our intent is to have platform that is compliant across all those platforms. So we have the same approach for India and all the laws of the land we will comply," Bhat further said.

Also, PayPal announced an expansion of its presence in India with the launch of its third global technology centre here. The expansion follows the acquisition of fraud prevention platform Simility in 2018, the official said.

The Hyderabad centre would focus on leveraging PayPals extensive expertise in data science, risk management and machine learning to empower small and medium-sized businesses to identify and protect themselves from fraud.

"India is a key growth market for PayPal and the opening of our global technology centre in Hyderabad, the heart of innovation and technology in India, marks a significant milestone on our journey," Bhat said.

The Hyderabad location would be PayPals third technology centre in India after Chennai and Bengaluru and the centre would house approximately 100 engineers across roles, including risk management and operations, to provide cutting-edge digital payments solutions to customers around the world.

PayPal currently has an employee base of about 3,500 employees in all the three tech centres in India.