Government stands firm on e-commerce, data security

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday made it clear that it was unwilling to tolerate any deviation from norms for e-commerce as it vowed to protect the interests of small businesses, while indicating that concerns related to data flow would be addressed.

During a meeting with IT companies, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyaltold industry representatives that their concerns will be addressed and many of the apprehensions were unfounded. The minister suggested that the government will seek to push an early introduction of the data protection bill in Parliament so that there was no confusion over India's stance, sources told TOI.

But in several instances, officials said, the concerns of foreign players have already been addressed. For instance, it was pointed out that 117 of the 124 companies were complying with RBI norms on data storage and the remaining seven had given a roadmap to comply with the regulation.

RBI is expected to issue a set of FAQs on data storage to clear the air after it clarified that even riskier data can go out of the country for processing but has to be sent back within 24 hours.

Goyal was said to be more firm on e-commerce as the government made it clear that it will not tolerate companies circumventing rules.

It was pointed out that Press Note 2 was issued to block companies from turning the e-commerce business into multi-brand retail. "A lot of the noise is due to lobbyists and the government is keen that companies work directly with it instead of engaging lobby firms," said a source.