Data policy should not mimic West: Bansal

BENGALURU: India’s data policy laws should consider the local problems and refrain from “mimicking” the western nations, said Sachin Bansal, co-founder, Flipkart, at the ET Startup Awards 2018. Bansal, one of the early Indian entrepreneurs, said the country’s data protection laws should factor in the existing business environment here and have a “balanced approach”. “I think it is still very early stage... There is still a bit of lack of trust between entrepreneurs and bureaucrats...if the data is open the entrepreneurs can take advantage of it... that fear is also little bit visible. In some ways I have seen that the data privacy laws are also trying to mimic what is happening in the West, I think the kind of problems we are solving here in India are very different... We need to be little balanced,” said Bansal. He was responding to questions how the recently announced data protection policy could benefit the Indian startups at the panel discussion as part of the ET Startup Awards. Another prominent entrepreneur, Bhavish Aggarwal, chief executive officer of ride-hailing company Ola, said how the policies can facilitate “data empowerment”. “In our industry, the government has been very supportive. We are (at) the forefront and cutting edge of a policy environment in India...we need to have discussions on how we can move from data protectionism to data empowerment, that is the right discussion to have.”Nandan Nilekani, Infosys chairman and the architect of Aadhaar said Western model emphasises on protection. “The western model of privacy is only about data protection. The Indian model should be empowering people through data in addition to protection. The SriKrishna committee report factors this aspect of data empowerment in the policy.”Data protection and privacy laws have been a talking point for Indian startups for some time now and the Justice B N Srikrishna Committee’s recommendations have nudged them to discuss the nuances of it in the Indian context. Ritesh Agarwal, founder of Oyo, who has won the ET Startup of the Year award, said proactive policy engagement with the government has been effective and eventually found solutions. “I have always learnt that preemptive has always been the right solution.” Vani Kola, managing director, Kalaari Capital, believes that creating a policy framework for an emerging sector however comes with its challenges. “It is a point of scale,” said Kola. “You generally cannot create policies for emerging sectors well before you even know what that sector is all about,” she added explaining how a policy framework is linked to the growth of any business sector.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2Bldfau