America's major tech companies are pushing back against India's proposed data protection laws, with a lobby group led by ex-Cisco CEO John Chambers emerging as the protest organiser.
The move came a week after the proposals, first published at the end of July, were opened for comment by the Ministry of IT.
The draft copped criticism when it was published because of its "data localisation" provisions, which demanded local storage for some citizen data; and for banning the re-identification of anonymised data without offering protections for security researchers trying to improve security of anonymised data sets.
Last week, India's IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said he had asked Amazon to set up servers in the country, to comply with the localisation requirements.
Prasad announced the move in a press conference, according to Entrackr, saying he was concerned at data being moved offshore without the consent of end users.
Reuters yesterday reported that companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and American Express want the issue raised at US-India trade talks in September.
The report quoted Mozilla global policy adviser Amba Kak as saying the issue is worth national-level negotiation, adding: "Data localisation is not just a business concern, it potentially makes government surveillance easier, which is a worry."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Wednesday August 22 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)
I find it incredibly ironic that said companies are 'pushing back' against these regulations. If they had done a better of respecting privacy, rather than demonstrable running roughshod over it whenever it was convenient for them, then this wouldn't be happening.
But the fact is, tech companies treat personal data with as much respect as a cow has for it's cud. I hope countries around the world enact these kinds of laws, because companies simply cannot be trusted to do so.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22 2018, @04:48PM
oh yeah. let's destroy personal freedom and the responsibility that goes with it so some piece of shit thief can tell private citizens what to do and make it so only scum like the companies you complain about can compete. that's a real stroke of genius.