Differentiate between consumer & biz data: Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO

MUMBAI: India must differentiate between rules that govern privacy of consumer data and that of data generated by business users while drawing up new regulations for a digital economy, said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty.

Emphasising the need for free flow of data across borders, Rometty said there should be no “unintended consequences” that hurt economic growth as India seeks to police its burgeoning internet economy. “We believe strongly in consumer privacy and you have to be careful to not conflate consumer data issues with business-to-business data issues,” said the 61-yearold chief executive in an exclusive interview with ET on Tuesday.

“Because of the mishandling of consumer data by a very small number of companies, it is clearly a heightened issue on everyone’s mind and we need to have a set of regulations — voluntary or otherwise — around consumer privacy,” said Rometty, who is the first woman to head the 108-yearold technology giant.