Context : Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) proposed a policy named “Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022”
India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022
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Aim: To radically transform India’s ability to harness public sector data.
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The nature of the policy objectives suggested in the draft is mainly commercial.
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The Policy proposes permitting the licensing and sale of public data by the Government to the private sector.
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The policy will apply to all data and information created and collected by the Central Government. It also has provisions for the State governments.
Key features of the Policy:
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The policy proposes the establishment of an India Data Office (IDO) under the MEITY for overall management, with each government entity designating a Chief Data Officer to help achieve its objectives.
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An India Data Council will act as a consultative body.
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The policy strategy is to make Government data open by default and then maintain a negative list of datasets that cannot be shared. The declaration of sensitive data that has restricted access is left to the independent government ministries.
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The existing data sets will be enriched or processed to gain greater value and termed high-value datasets.
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As a measure of privacy protection, there is a recommendation for anonymisation and privacy preservation.
Why Data Use Policy is needed?
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The generation of citizen data is expected to increase at a rapid rate in the next decade and become a foundation of India’s $5 trillion-dollar digital economy.
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The policy aims to harness the economic value of the generated data.
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The National Economic Survey, 2019 noted that “The private sector may be granted access to select databases for commercial use, given that the private sector has the potential to reap massive dividends from this data”
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Currently, there are several bottlenecks in data sharing and use which includes,
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The absence of a body for policy monitoring and enforcement of data sharing
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Absence of technical tools and standards for data sharing
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Identification of high value datasets and licensing and valuation frameworks.
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Issues associated with the policy:
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Privacy Issues : India does not have a data protection law that can provide a remedy for privacy violations such as coercive and excessive data collection or data breaches. The inter-departmental data sharing poses concerns related to privacy since the open government data portal may result in state-sponsored mass surveillance.
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Lack of transparency : The list of stakeholders who have been consulted, which according to MEITY include, “academia, industry, and Government” are not revealed along with their view on the policy.
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Lack of scientific analysis : The lack of analysis of scientific evidence and the availability of tools pose a challenge as the commercial value of the data increases with greater amounts of personal data to the private sector. It becomes a challenge to limit the usage of this data by private agencies.
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The policy bypasses parliament : The policy as it contemplates large scale data sharing and enrichment that will be borne from public funds.
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Issue of federalism : The constitution of offices and prescription of standards apply to the Central government as well as State governments and schemes administered by them.
Recommendations:
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In the present context, where the most valuable data resources are held by the private sector, it is evident to the governments that socioeconomic innovation depends on the state’s ability to facilitate data-sharing between public and private sector players across the sectors.
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The European Union, in this regard, has focused on the development of common, harmonious data spaces to encourage voluntary data-sharing in specific domains such as health, energy and agriculture.
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These data spaces provide the governance framework for secure and trust-based access and use, in full compliance with personal data protection, and updated consumer protection and competition laws.