Indian government is planning to clarify the nature and scope of the newly proposed data protection rules very soon. These rules have raised lots of concerns in India and abroad, especially among the outsourcing industry.There has been some confusion over the interpretation of Sec 43 A of the information technology act 2000 (IT Act 2000), the sole cyber law of India.
.IT Act 2000 has been in controversies ever since the information technology amendment act 2008 (IT Act 2008) was notified in India. The IT Act 2008 incorporated many provisions that are not in conformity with the spirit of Indian constitution. In fact, experts like Praveen Dalal have suggested the repeal of the IT Act 2000 so that a better and constitutional law can be formulated.
The new data protections rules have raised many concerns for foreign companies and outsourcing players. They believe that under section 43A, an Indian outsourcing provider would be required to obtain written consent from each individual of an organisation whose outsourced work it would manage. They fear that such a consent requirement will potentially put a huge additional financial burden on these companies and thus affect their profitability.
The new Rules for Data Protection need to be “analysed in detail” and these issues must be sorted out so that outsourcing industry can work in an effective manner, suggests Dalal. This is exactly what the Indian government is planning to do.
On the one hand India needs to ensure privacy and data protection laws whereas on the other hand concerns of outsourcing industry have also to be accommodated. Let us see how things would come up finally as the matter is of utmost importance.
