Free flow of data at core of IT: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The government did not want to force companies based in friendly nations to mandatorily store citizens’ personal data within the country as that would have been against the principle on which digital economies function today, communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.

Speaking to FE after the government unveiled the draft of the new Data Protection Bill, Vaishnaw said, “The digital economy, the IT industry is based on flow of data between friendly countries, and we did not want to disturb this. That’s why the draft after extensive consultations with stakeholders decided not to force global firms to mandatorily store the data of citizens in the country as was provided in the earlier version of the Bill”.