India is unlikely to join the ongoing negotiations for a plurilateral deal on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization (WTO), notwithstanding a change in stance on data localisation and cross-border flow of data. Under the new draft digital personal data protection (DPDP) Bill, put out on Friday for public consultation, the government has proposed free cross-border flow of data with 'friendly' nations, significantly easing its earlier stance on data localisation. India has so far stayed out of a group of 87 countries, including the US, European Union, China, and Japan that are negotiating trade-related aspects on e-commerce since December 2017.
IAMAI in a statement, which represents digital businesses in India, said Trai's recommendation to formulate standards of anonymisation and de-identification was akin to putting the cart before the horse, and till such time the Srikrishna Committee submits the report, making these standards would be like groping in the dark.
Railways ramps up project to instal AI-based cameras that can recognise faces.
If you want to inspire the young workforce, focus on building transparency, purpose and social responsibility, says notes Varun Sachdeva, SVP and APAC head, NLB Services.
It is sad that the legislative pre-consultation on such an important bill is being done in a very biased manner, notes Shailesh Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner, recounting his experience with Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar.
'Maybe the State wants to be watching people all the time. But when they are watching, others too may be watching!' 'The State is becoming more and more secretive while throwing people to the wolves.'
Amid outrage over a plan to give powers to its arm Press Information Bureau to police fake news on social media, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Tuesday said that the government will hold discussions next month with stakeholders before the proposal is implemented.
Lack of clarity on data-sharing persists, public health experts sceptic about the pilot that was run in six Union territories as benchmark for national roll-out
Absence of comprehensive data protection and privacy laws will be barriers in the government's digitalisation drive.
In a serious data breach, personally identifiable information of 815 million Indians has been up on the dark web for sale, according to a report by US-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity. Details such as Aadhaar and passport information along with names, phone numbers and addresses are available for sale online, it has said.
...benefiting 350,000 persons. Also, Trai detected and blocked seven million mobile phone connections involved in cyber fraud and suspicious activities.
If you think nobody will ever try to breach your data online get out of your shell. NOW!
The company has set an internal target of 6-18 months to set up the data centre. The plan is part of the $1 billion ByteDance has recently committed to the Indian market over the next three years.
The Centre's claim has been made in an additional affidavit filed in response to several pleas challenging the new privacy policy of WhatsApp.
At the outset, all eyes will be on the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Monday when it is expected to review the stay granted by the Supreme Court on the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the 'Modi surname' case and decide on the revocation of his Parliament membership.
Whether Rajeev Chandrasekhar wins or not, Thiruvananthapuram will likely never see such an interesting contest again.
India is headed for general elections early next year, and the DIA is expected to be legislated only after the 2024 polls and the formation of the government.
What if the digital records of a food delivery service are leaked? What if a tech-savvy gaurakshak scans those records and discovers who the beef-eaters are? What happens next? Devangshu Datta highlights the risks posed by leaks of digital databases.
'The most valuable personal sensitive information of present and future citizens has been made available to foreign data firms and governments and non-State actors for all time to come,' says Gopal Krishna.
Fair trade regulator CCI on Thursday alleged that Google has created a digital data hegemony and called for a market space with "free, fair and open competition". Concluding the arguments of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) before the appellate tribunal NCLAT in the Google matter, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman said a market with greater freedom for all players would be in total sync with principles of free competition rather than the 'walled garden' approach of the internet major. On October 20 last year, the CCI slapped a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore on Google for anti-competitive practices in relation to Android mobile devices.
There is a perception getting built inside the government that big technology companies -- a common term used for firms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and the like - are becoming very powerful and present multiple threats to entire nations and their citizens today. The digital ecosystem is replete with CSAM (child sexual abuse material), fake news, drug trade, radicalisation, trolling among other social vices. Given the network effect that these platforms have, it is important to ensure that these platforms are not misused.
Data privacy, he said, is a broader argument beyond Aadhaar as it includes everything such as issues related to mobile phones and social media data.
'We also realised that locking customers to our Cloud was not fair to them.'
SBI Life Insurance reported a weak performance in Q2FY25. The annual premium equivalent or APE grew 3 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 5,390 crore. For the first half of financial year 2025 (H1FY25), it grew 9 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 9,030 crore.
'As long as businesses do not consider cyber recovery an integral part of their enterprise IT, they remain greatly vulnerable.'
The number of cyberfraud cases has skyrocketed from 2,677 in 1999-2000 to 29,082 in FY24 -- more than a 10-fold increase. The RBI pegs digital payment frauds at Rs 1,457 crore in FY24, up more than five times in a year. It's not just the number of frauds. What's alarming is the growing sophistication of the fraudsters, exposing the vulnerabilities within the financial system, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The major worry for everyone using Internet-linked devices today is whether the latest download on his smartphone or laptop is a bait from a digital hacker who is out to secure access to his hard-earned money,' notes T A Ramalingam, chief technical officer, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.
The key components of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission include a health ID for every citizen that will also work as their health account, to which personal health records can be linked and viewed with the help of a mobile application, a Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and Healthcare Facilities Registries (HFR) that will act as a repository of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine.
What all global leaders need to understand is that no Generative AI regulation will work unless they start with the basics, which is data collection, asserts Prosenjit Datta.
The productivity of the Budget session was abysmal. The Lok Sabha functioned for 33% of its scheduled time (46 hours); the Rajya Sabha 24% (32 hours).
The size of Reserve Bank's balance sheet increased by 11.08 per cent to Rs 70.47 lakh crore as on March 2024, leading to the highest-ever dividend payout to the government, according to the central bank's annual report. In actual terms, the increase was Rs 7,02,946.97 crore over Rs 63.45 lakh crore as on March 2023.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
First things first: For those wondering if they need to reapply, the answer is no.
The opposition will seek to target the government on the issue of farmers' plight as well as their demand for a legal backing for minimum support price.
The police suspect a virtual private network was used for uploading the Facebook post, allegedly by Anmol Bishnoi, the brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi on Sunday, he said.
Senior counsel, Diwedi submitted that technology is advancing and we have limitations of understanding the technological developments.
The data for individual weighted received premium (WRP) showed divergent trends for life insurers in December 2024. Overall, the industry's individual WRP grew 4.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y); LIC's individual WRP declined 13 per cent while private players saw 11.4 per cent growth.
Confident that a cyber attack won't affect you? Think again, says Nandakishore Harikumar.
Even devices such as connected lights, doorbells -- even garden sprinklers -- are all at risk from attackers who can remotely, or even physically, access them to dump firmware, warns Nir Chako, security research team leader, CyberArk, a security software company.
The answer depends on your financial goals and risk appetite, says Certified Financial Planner Ramalingam Kalirajan, and explains why.
