Bengaluru: The largest digital payments company of the country, Paytm, has urged the government to not allow mirroring of the data overseas and insisted that the storage of the customer data should be done within the country.
Kiran Vasireddy, Chief Operating Officer, Paytm said that we are of the opinion that the storage of the customer data should be done in the country. This is because as soon as the data is mirrored outside the country it lands under various jurisdictions which are not in our control in many cases. Hence, keeping the data within the country will enable us to keep intact the laws of the land to that particular data.
User the Eventual Owner of Data
Supporting the recent recommendations of telecom regulator, Paytm said that the recommendation of the telecom regulator supports the move to identify the user as the eventual possessor of their data whereas every other player in the network is only a guardian or keeper.
The CEO of the digital payments company cited the instance where Google rejected 55 per cent of the government’s requests for data as a strong point of proof for the government to push for the storage of data locally.
The Reserve Bank of India had instructed all the payment companies operating in India to set up data storage facilities in the country within six months in April. This was asked by the apex bank so as to keep ‘unfettered supervisory access’ to transaction data so that better monitoring of the network can be ensured. The decision of the RBI left the payments sector in the state of panic.
It was reported in the media recently that Finance Ministry suggested mirroring of payments data as an option and urged the apex bank to look into the matter.
The note sent by the Finance Ministry to the central bank and other entities read that mirroring of data in India along with the country where the data is being currently stored could be a possible solution.
Costing Not an Issue, Rather it Requires Intent
The digital payments company said mirroring of data is not the solution and many countries have barred the companies from doing so. Vasireddy said that the best thing is to look into the possibility whether the data can be stored in India itself. He said that this is not related to the costing as for large players in the market the cost will be insignificant rather it is more to do with intent.
For overseas card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express, localization of data norms have come as a major jab. As per the information available, these companies have made various representations to the Indian government as well as the banking regulator through the US-India Business Council, a lobby group of US businesses in India.
Vasireddy said, “We will have to wait for the Srikrishna Committee recommendations to see what happens, but the fact that the government has started taking steps towards strict implementation of data protection is a commendable move.”
