On Friday, Policy think tank Niti Aayog sought suggestions & comments on the ‘Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture (DEPA)’ draft which aims to promote greater user control on data sharing.
“The Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture will empower individuals with control over how their personal data is used & shared while ensuring that privacy considerations are addressed. Seeking your comments on the draft document, before October 1,” it posted on Sept 3 today.
On Thursday, the think tank said that the draft for the discussion paper is designed as an evolvable & agile framework for good data governance, given the rapid pace of change in this arena.
Overall, the DEPA empowers people to seamlessly & securely access their data & share it with third-party institutions. Opening up an Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) based data sharing framework would bring significant innovation by new fintech entities, it said.
The discussion paper said that “India needs a paradigm shift in personal data management that transforms the current organisation-centric data sharing system to an individual centric approach that promotes user control on data sharing for empowerment".
It also noted that DEPA is predicated on the notion that individuals should have control over how their personal data is used & shared.
Besides this, the draft for discussion paper also pointed out that a well designed data governance framework for the Indian context would enable, not just secure data protection, but also grant users control over data through a safe & seamless protocol to share data across institutions, leading to individual empowerment & well-being.
According to the discussion paper, other countries have responded to data protection challenges by implementing efforts to improve data protection & consent-based sharing (such as Open Banking in the UK or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU), which India can learn from.
It said, “However, these approaches have not addressed the issue in a manner that is fully relevant to India’s scale & diversity, & to our objectives around accelerating financial inclusion, economic growth, & data democracy".
In his foreword, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant wrote that “in an evolving & fast paced digital landscape, headlines world-over have squarely placed data protection, privacy, & unauthorised data sharing or misuse in the limelight.”
Kant wrote, “In India, we not only need stronger data protection, but also data empowerment: everyday Indians need control over their own personal data to improve their lives. They should be able to leverage their digital history to access growth opportunities offered by different institutions".
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