India ‘important digital power’, won’t compromise on data sovereignty: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said India is an “important digital power” and will not compromise on its data sovereignty. Speaking at the launch of a Rs 1,100-crore data centre built by Hiranandani Group company Yotta, Prasad also said that he aspires India to be a centre for data refining, which will include data cleaning and data research as well while keeping in mind concerns on privacy. The comments from the minister come days after the country blocked 59 Chinese apps on concerns around “sovereignty and security”.

A day after that, Prasad had termed the move as a “digital strike” and added that the apps were banned to protect data of citizens. “We shall never compromise on data sovereignty of India. India being an important digital power, our data sovereignty will be very very important. And we shall ensure that we are never made to do any compromise, nor we will do that (compromise),” Prasad said, speaking at the data centre launch event on Tuesday. He said cyber security is an important aspect and we should be very cautious about things. Prasad used the metaphor of a highway to stress that infrastructure building should not stop because of accidents, stressing that being cautious is the key.