Andhra wants Centre to enact DPA on lines of legislation in US

Andhra Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, in a letter to Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology Kapil Sibal today stressed the need for a DPA to address concerns abroad related to data theft and misuse of personal and private information.

"India's business, data and knowledge process outsourcing sectors have been growing significantly in the last few years. The BPO segment has a substantial share (40 per cent) in the total ICT exports from India.

However, various incidents of data theft and misuse of personal and private information have raised concerns about outsourcing to India," he pointed out.

Regardless of the promising perspectives, India has to tackle the problem of bad reputation outsourcing has earned abroad, through large-scale data thefts in the recent past.

"During my recent visit to the UK, the ICT industry there and Member of Parliament Lord Lumba strongly recommended that India come up with the Data Protection Act.

Though the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2006 was introduced in Parliament, it had elapsed.

"The need for a specific and stringent legislation in line with USA or EU data protection is of paramount importance if India is to sustain investors' confidence, especially among foreign entities that send large data for back-office operations," Lakshmaiah noted in the letter.

The proposed legislation should ensure a detailed framework, adequate safeguards and also regulators to monitor collected data and its usage, the AP Minister added.

Lakshmaiah requested Sibal to pursue the subject "aggressively".

A copy of the letter was also marked to Union Minister of State for Communication, Killi Kruparani.