E-commerce policy: Final draft skips data protection

The National e-Commerce Policy would steer clear of issues around protection of personal data, and would not prescribe any norms for use of data by the thriving sector, official sources familiar with the final drafting of the policy said.

The policy would not provide for a separate e-commerce regulator either, they added.

An earlier draft of the policy that was released in 2019 had devoted considerable attention to how data collected by e-commerce companies should be allowed to be used. It had emphasised that an individual consumer who generates data retains ownership rights over his or her data.