Addressing concerns

Data localisation demands must be backed by better laws

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) insistence that all payment companies shift India-specific data and data-processing activity to servers located within India by October 15 can certainly be justified on various grounds. The RBI wants unfettered supervisory access to payment data and that is unobjectionable. It is also possible to justify data localisation on the grounds of data sovereignty. For instance, it is possible, if slightly far-fetched, that data could be indicted if it is stored on American servers and India faces US sanctions. However, such concerns of supervisory access and data sovereignty could be easily addressed by "mirroring" —