The Indian government will share de-identified datasets collected and harmonized under the forthcoming National Data Governance Framework with Indian startups and researchers to innovate systems and create better policy solutions, Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. to the Hindustan Times.
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“It will be a broad policy that will harmonize all independent data silos, data management and data processing, so standards and rules – how access, control and security are stored, managed – will form an administrative part of the policy. and its first pillar,” said Chandrasekhar. “It focuses on how data is stored, formatted and managed.”
The policy has been sent to the Cabinet of Ministers for final approval, the minister said. India does not yet have a policy regulating anonymized or non-personal data. A committee was set up under former Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan to look into the matter. She submitted her report last year.
Those standards are set by the India Data Management Office, Chandrasekhar said. The framework directive is working on ways to store and share the data, he added.
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The draft policy, as first reported by HT on April 9, addresses the overall objective of the new framework. “(It will aim to ensure greater citizen awareness, participation and commitment to open data, increasing the availability of datasets of national importance and identifying datasets suitable for sharing, and overall compliance with the guidelines and improve standards for secure data sharing and privacy,” the draft said.
It will also be the “first step in accelerating the age of digital government,” which will provide “greater scope for better, more informed decision-making…while adhering to the highest privacy standards and a commitment to privacy principles,” he said of the draft.
A core component of the data governance framework will be the formation of an India Data Management Office (IDMO) under the IT Ministry.
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The policy reform, Chandrasekhar pointed out, was that the anonymized datasets would be offered as part of India’s dataset programs to the artificial intelligence ecosystem, which will be a enabler for the digital economy. “Data sets representing India’s consumers are a huge opportunity for the next generation of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms,” the minister said. “It’s an estimated $200 billion to $500 billion opportunity if capitalized properly.”
The data sets are made available for governance research, which even the government can use to develop more targeted strategies. “This includes the ability to use AI to determine how different parts of the country need different types of systems and different forms of systems. A district in Jharkhand has very different needs than a district in Uttar Pradesh,” said Chandrasekhar. “This can help identify which policies are required for which district.”
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“The policy has tremendous potential for application that will make the next generation of governance more effective, efficient, focused and with more sustainable outcomes, and will make India a global leader in the field,” he added.
Such a governance framework must respect existing constitutional and legal protections and remain focused on the rights of data subjects, said Supreme Court Attorney NS Nappinai, founder of CyberSaathi, a nonprofit dedicated to digital security.
“The assurances expressed need to be fleshed out or implemented through enforceable mechanisms, and every aspect of the proposal needs to be implemented with responsible governance that thinks through and anticipates risks and vulnerabilities,” she said.
