\u201cYou really want your grandson to become a delivery boy?\u201d Vinit Goenka, the former National Co-convener of the BJP\u2019s IT Cell, and a member of the Center for Raily Information Services (CRIS), said at MediaNama\u2019s discussion on India\u2019s Data Protection Law in New Delhi on 23rd of August. Goenka exhorted the audience to accept data localisation and digital sovereignty, saying that \u201cData sovereignty is a reality. Some data has come in front of you. Some will come in the months to come. If we get re-elected in 2019, it will be total sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goenka defended the Srikrishna Committee\u2019s contentious provision in the draft Data Protection bill that at least one copy of all Indian citizens\u2019 personal data held by companies should be stored in India.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot force Indian industries to close down, and force our people to just become delivery boys of Flipkart, and then Flipkart survives and becomes big, and say that whatever $17 billion will come, will come to another country, not to India, who is basically consumer. We\u2019ll have to dissect this, and understand. Colonization does not mean that someone will come with a gun and actually colonize you. Colonization also means that someone will come with licenses and patents and sit on your head. As a country, we have to all grow up and say, \u2018Enough of this!’\u201d<\/p>\n
Goenka said that sovereignty includes ICT sovereignty, not only territorial sovereignty. \u201cAs a politician, I\u2019m not supposed to be talented\u201d, he said, \u201cBut when I see 800 years of slavery \u2014 and I think that continues in our mind, and we think whatever is there in the west is right for the country. And if some other countries have not done it, we should not do it. We have not done it in the past, so we should not do it now. Just because some people who are motivated or financially benefited, they put it very articulately, and they have means to put it to the larger perspective of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ready to give all the data to the visa officers here. We\u2019re ready to give things on Facebook, on the mobiles, which are internet-existing. When sole questions are asked for one particular policymaking this thing, which will help us have better policy devices being created, then there is a narrative created that privacy is being challenged.\u201d
\n\u201cLet us dictate a little bit\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSee, we [in India] are one sixth of human beings, one fifth of the market. The market decides how the game of the rule will be. Let us dictate a little bit. Let us come out of this slavery mentality where we always get dictated by some smaller marketplaces, on ease of doing business or economic scale. We gave them economic scale because ten years of no policies. Nobody thought we\u2019ll send hundreds of satellites. We did that in one go. We are rising fast, we\u2019ll buckle up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responding to a question about challenges to localisation, especially given global agreements that India is party to, Goenka said that \u201cAs far as the WTO regime goes, ASEAN agreements which we have signed or the BRICS agreement we have signed, there is an idea of PMA, Preferential Market Access. And we have signed them for our benefits. We don\u2019t become slaves to them. If they don\u2019t benefit us, we may have to think other ways.\u201d
\nOn repercussions of data storage outside India<\/p>\n
Goenka cited the example of a girl whose \u201cphotograph was morphed and Facebook denied us access to the IP address which was morphing it. The girl hanged herself. And after her suicide, and we invoked the Geneva Convention and got the data, and it was a stupid guy. Somebody thought \u201cIf I put slur on that female, I may get access to her marriage.\u201d This kind of small thing, where somebody acts very funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
On surveillance, security and data leaks<\/strong><\/p>\n Goenka said that localisation will not impact privacy. \u201cLocalisation will not impact anybody\u2019s privacy. If in case you know some officer who tries to do that, there are laws and rules which will guide.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to a question from the audience about data leaks risking a person\u2019s habits \u2013 say, beef eating \u2013 and there being a risk of lynching, he said that it was worthwhile to trust the Indian and military police, because they would protect the person. Additionally, he said, that if a non-Indian company\/person got to know that the person was eating beef, he said \u201c\u2026 they may well plan and make sure that you don\u2019t get Indian beef, and they push their beef inside our country. Whether you eat x or y is not my concern. But I can\u2019t kill my Indian market and Indian industries for this.\u201d<\/p>\n Financial growth from data centre investment<\/strong><\/p>\n Goenka went on to add that he believes that a 10% investment in ICT hardware and data centres would lead to a 1.38% growth in India\u2019s GDP. \u201cJust because it [investment in data centres] did not happen between 2004 and 2014, [it is not that] I will not allow this to happen between 2019 to 2024.<\/p>\n If they [foreign companies] believe that data is borderless and data can be kept anywhere, I invite all the countries of the world to keep their data here. And as we trusted them all these years, they can trust us. Let us debate what are the processes, what are the standards to be followed, and we can put in all the standards\u2026the best of the things.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked by a member of the audience about impact assessment studies done (regarding how it would impact businesses, and economic growth) prior to recommending data localisation, Goenka said:<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s deliberations and discussions going on, scientific analysis going on. We collect data, then there is a debate, with stakeholders, and I don\u2019t decide things because I decide, when it goes to various people, there are various committees, and they all work on data, sir. Without data nobody works. You may not have seen, that\u2019s because the government cannot come to your doorstep saying humko nirnay karna hai [we have to take a decision], the stakeholders were involved. They\u2019re not only the stakeholders, there are all the stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe discussed, and you have to take it on face value. There\u2019s quantum and impact analysis done.\u201d<\/p>\n On being asked about which ministry (so that MediaNama can file an RTI and get a copy of the impact assessment done), Goenka said that an RTI can be filed with the GAD.<\/p>\n India\u2019s large size allows data centres anywhere<\/strong><\/p>\n Goenka said he felt ashamed that India was 29th in the list of Ease of Doing Business in 2013, due to not having electricity, cost of energy etc. \u201cBut.. against the Business Continuity Process, whereby you don\u2019t keep data in one place, because of man-made challenges or natural calamities. Fortunately, my country is so big that you can have a data centre in Trivandrum, and another in Sikkim. It is as good as between seventeen countries of Europe\u2026 We may be one single country but we are enormous; we have almost three timelines which can do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On transparency in the Srikrishna committee process<\/strong><\/p>\n He went on to add that \u201cThis bill which we are discussing\u2026 there were debates, discussions, we heard everybody. The impact was seen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe conclusion was one. It\u2019s time we wake up and wake all those people who know that the challenge of sovereignty lies here. And then came this particular bill, and the draft bill. And seeing the Justice Srikrishna bill also \u2014 there was judicious time given. Six months where people reacted.\u201d He added that people who spoke in various forums and media houses \u201cnever thought of writing a reaction to Srikrishna.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m open for public discussion and debate, and if there is a need to discuss anything and everything once again, that\u2019s also okay. In our country we have the right to discuss again. If there can be amendments in constitution, there can be amendments in this particular bill and policy also. Once a bill is written, that doesn\u2019t make it a final bible which cannot be discussed or debated. There are a few people sitting here who say one thing, while there may be a larger crowd out there saying something else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat discussion can continue and we can go on. The days are gone when you make a law or policy and forget it. Now the days have done because of technological challenges where you have to be vibrant, where you have to keep your ears open, you have to move. And everytime there\u2019s a change in technology, there\u2019ll be change in things, changes in the environment. You have to accommodate the environment, and make that policy so vibrant that every time you accommodate requests. That\u2019s the beauty of democracy is. If you think the approach was wrong, please guide us, we\u2019ll change it. If there are things that need to be changed, we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Analytical tools kill the local market<\/strong><\/p>\n Goenka said that he was surprised to see the differences in the same supermarket chain\u2019s aisle product placements. He observed that in D-Mart Sarojini Nagar, small onions were placed in the first rack because the area consisted of many Malayalis, whereas in CR Park, there was mustard oil in the first rack because of people from West Bengal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYou really want your grandson to become a delivery boy?\u201d Vinit Goenka, the former National Co-convener of the BJP\u2019s IT Cell, and a member of the Center for Raily Information Services (CRIS), said at MediaNama\u2019s discussion on India\u2019s Data Protection Law in New Delhi on 23rd of August. Goenka exhorted the audience to accept data […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/vinit-goenka1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"full":["https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/vinit-goenka1.jpg",960,600,false]},"categories_names":{"6":{"name":"Opinions\/Blog\/Articles","link":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/category\/articles\/"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/php.worldindia.in\/cksindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}