In a conversation with Brijesh Singh, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Cyber, Government of Maharashtra, he shares his opinion as a law enforcement official why it’s critical to have a data localization policy in the place to safe guard the citizens’ data. Q. What are your thoughts on data localization?
Citizens data should belong to the country where it originates from, it is also a cost proposition for all these companies, so that is why these companies are reluctant. They will have to build data centers and whole IT security architecture around it. In long term it will benefit, if you need more data center created and whole applications will be built for other purposes also.
If you look at the legal conundrum about who owns data, it’s good till countries have good relations, in terms of international relations if something happens then I don’t have access to data of my own citizens. Secondly, you’re not aware what they’re doing with your data. So your government is your custodian of your data its duty bound to protect and ensure data is not misused.
Social contract allows you to question if something happens to your data. We as law enforcement agencies whenever we have to access data outside country you know there are layers and layers of difficulty which arises during investigations. In case of larger breaches or investigations, having this data in hand is very crucial otherwise it becomes very difficult to give justice.
Q. How difficult is cross border investigation without data localization?
Time and again if you see, right from Cambridge Anaytica case, how it has been misused. It has larger connotations it’s not just breach of privacy its actually changing the fortunes of the country. How misinformation campaigns are run during elections across border due to vested interest of some other nations. The question here is much larger than privacy of individual.
Nothing binds that foreign player with responsibility of guarding my citizens privacy and rights. If something happens to the data or privacy, we cannot question because there’s a wall and the foreign player would simply say it’s not in my company policy to give you this data. So in all these senses data localization is essential and necessary in India.
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