India to Set Up Independent Data Privacy Watchdog

As the leading destination for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), India's BPO sector employs over one million people and accounts for approximately 5% of the country's GDP. Despite this, there is no general data protection law in India such as that in force in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. There are known to have been cases of information being leaked from call centres in India to criminals around the world and corporations are continually lobbying for more data protection in India. One IT firm which had its data misappropriated is reported to have decided to move its operations to Australia. To partially fill the legislative void is the aim of India's largest proponent of data protection, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an industry association that promotes India"˜s global business and trade in software and services. NASSCOM has recently created the Data Security Council of India, an independent organization at arm's length from NASSCOM. The organization will develop security policies and offer certification of skills within the sector, but will have no legal powers, other than referring cases to the police. For a news article on the topic, see: http://tinyurl.com/ywk939 For the NASSCOM web site, visit: http://www.nasscom.org/ Summary by: Oren Weichenberg