With the newly elected government led by Narendra Modi taking over, the IT fraternity in India, to begin with, expects significant development in creating a clear regulatory and policy framework around cloud computing.
Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already acknowledged the role of IT as a game changer and has plans to leverage IT for faster business implementations across the country. Having said this, it might be the right opportunity to have a separate legislation dealing exclusively with the regulatory and privacy policies or other legal issues pertaining to cloud computing.
As of now, the Indian IT Act 2000 remotely covers the various security and privacy issues related to cloud computing. Absence of clear mandates has caused low adoption of cloud services in the country.
According to Yolynd Lobo, Director, BSA-India, a leading global advocate, representing the interests of software publishers around the world, “India should look beyond the mere consumption of cloud services to improve e-governance delivery and access to creating a future-focused policy framework that will help it derive long-term developmental impact and economic benefits from the cloud.”
On the brighter side, the government had launched MeghRaj aka GI Cloud in February 2014 to “utilise and harness the benefits of cloud computing”. According to Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTY), “Formulation of the cloud policy is one of the primary steps that will facilitate large scale adoption of cloud by government.”
“We need a policy around cloud computing which takes care of privacy, accountability and provides clarity on the legal issues related to policy violation. We are expecting the IT Act bill to be passed very soon. This bill is expected to bring forward several regulatory frameworks. However, from a cloud stand point, we are a little far behind. We need a framework that covers cloud, mobility and be in-line with the globally accepted privacy policies,” said Anubhav Bathla, CISO at SDG Corporation.
According to BSA, there is an urgent need for specific policy actions by the new government:
- Enabling cross-border data transfers: India should strive to forge bilateral or multilateral agreements that permit the movement of data across borders. India should also urge trading partners to reject arbitrary geographic restrictions and requirements for data-storage facilities.
- Preventing Regulatory Obstacles: India should refrain from adopting discriminatory licensing requirements and certification schemes for cloud providers.
- Protecting Intellectual Property: India should ensure that intellectual property laws provide for clear protection and vigorous enforcement against misappropriation and infringement of the technological developments that underlie the cloud.
Regulations around cloud computing are still evolving in India. The country hasn’t faced much difficult situations due to lack of regulations compared to other nations. However, it’s high time that we set rules related to govern cloud computing which would help organisation to get clarity and also promote cloud.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Debashis Sarkar
Quelle/Source: CIO & Leader, 21.05.2014
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