Cross border flow of data is going to be very important for the digital economy of the future and countries need to be able trust other countries at trading data of their citizens, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's secretary general Mathias Cormann told Moneycontrol.
In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Cormann said, "Cross border data flow with trust; governments being able to trust, and businesses and individuals being able to trust cross border flow of data is going to be very important to optimise the digital economy of the future."
"Countries need to be able to trust other countries at trading data of their citizens in an appropriate fashion," he added.
Cormann said this in response to a query by Moneycontrol on OECD finalising a framework in December 2022 on how governments, especially national security and law enforcement agencies, can access citizens' personal data held by private companies.
The "Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities" was signed by 38 OECD countries apart from the European Union. Cormann was asked whether India should adopt similar frameworks.
"The guideline that OECD released seeks to provide that reassurance that countries which side on to those standards, countries that act consistently with those standards can be trusted to receive the data from all of the countries," said Cormann.
Apart from that, the OECD secretary general was also asked whether India's proposal to ease data localisation norms in the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 would reflect on OECD's low ranking of the country in terms of data restrictions.
Cormann said, "Normal process will go under the way. But we work on the decisions that India are making to take these steps and we continue to assess as the information comes through ."
In the DPDP Bill 2022, India has proposed more liberal regulations for cross border data flow by introducing the concept of 'trusted jurisdictions' where data can be transferred.
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