India could make public next week the draft e-commerce policy proposing a dedicated regulator for the sector. The draft, focussing on special measures for rural e-commerce, job creation and infrastructure, could be made public next week after a group of secretaries reviews it on Monday.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is giving finishing touches to the policy aimed to protect citizens but not disrupt business, people in the know of the development, said.
“A few changes are being made and then the draft would be opened up for industry feedback. The policy is likely to be finalised by May,” said one person, adding that there is aneed for a regulator for the sector.
The department is examining the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill and aspects of non-personal data before it comes out with a policy on e-commerce. The PDP Bill relates to privacy data while a committee of experts under Kris Gopalakrishnan is looking into non-personal data.
The e-commerce policy will be aligned with these issues. “Data mandate is with the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY). The policy will look at e-commerce only, even the aspect of cross border data flows,” the person said.
The policy will look at cross border data flows with respect to protecting sensitive data and India’s citizens. Each line ministry will decide what is sensitive for them. PDP defines what is sensitive from privacy perspective and spells out a framework for handling of personal data including its processing by public and private entities. A company may have to pay a penalty if found violating the norms under the bill.
“A decision is yet to be taken. The policy is in the making. The first draft released last year had proposed a regulator,” said an official.
The department had in February last year released a draft national ecommerce policy, proposing to set up a legal and technological framework to restrict cross-border data flow and conditions to collect or process sensitive data locally and storing it abroad.
The draft policy proposed granting the ‘infrastructure status’ to data storage services such as data centres, server firms, towers, tower stations, equipment, optical wires, signal transceivers and antennae. It also said location of computing facilities like data centres and server firms within the country will not only give a fillip to computing in India but will also lead to job creation, especially when activities like back-office processing are expected to decrease due to rising automation.
The Centre had in January sought suggestions from IT and ecommerce firms to attract investment in the data storage infrastructure.
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