Google Advocates Cross Border Data Flow In India

New Delhi: Google has advocated free flow of cross border data as the country is mulling to bring about data localisation in its data protection framework.

“Free flow of data across borders — with a focus on user privacy and security — will encourage startups to innovate and expand globally and encourage global companies to contribute to India’s digital economy,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a letter to Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

In a letter thanking Prasad for his visit to the Google’s Mountain View campus last month, the Indian-born chief of the Internet giant Pichai said the company shares the vision of creating a truly ‘Digital India’ and Google remains firmly committed to being part of the India growth story. “The Google team in India will be touch with your office to follow up on some of the specific topics we discussed during our meeting.”

The recent report and the draft Bill on data protection submitted by the Srikrishna committee last month suggested that every data fiduciary in India shall ensure the storage of at least one serving copy of personal data on a server or data centre located in India. It also stated that the government can notify some categories of personal data as critical personal data that have to be stored in a server or data centre located only in India.

Prasad also said recently that he has conveyed to companies like Amazon to check unbridled cross-border migration of data without consent of users.

This particular recommendation has met with criticism from various quarters especially American technology company groupings.

Meanwhile, the government has extended till September 30 the deadline for public feedback on the draft personal data protection Bill. It had earlier set September 10 as the deadline for public comments. ET had reported earlier that the government plans to present the Bill in the Parliament by December this year.

Courtesy: Economic Times