'Indian IT to become more attractive after data law'

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, recently cleared the test of parliamentary approval.

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ASHWINI VAISHNAW, the Union minister for communications, electronics and information technology, who was instrumental in the passage of the legislation, tells Sourabh Lele in an interview in New Delhi that the law will bring about behavioural changes in the internal business processes in alignment with the principles of privacy. Edited excerpts:

"ALL THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PRIVACY ENCODED IN THE LAW WILL HAVE TO BE FOLLOWED, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER DATA IS KEPT IN INDIA OR OUTSIDE" -Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union minister for communications, electronics and IT

The final version of the Bill has switched to a blacklisting approach from the earlier concept of trusted geographies. What led to this change?

Don't read it as whitelisting or blacklisting. In the digital world, there are no boundaries. In today's connected world, close to $600 billion worth of export and import are happening [from India]. With every item of goods and services exported or imported, a lot of sensitive information like bank account numbers and addresses are exchanged across boundaries. So we have created a framework in which we can meet the sector-specific requirements.