Data privacy may hinder growth: IBM

It seems that the Data protection bill, which is yet to be cleared by the Cabinet, has not been fully welcomed by US-based tech companies.

After Facebook founder's views about data protection and privacy policy last week, IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty has also said that there is a need to differentiate consumer data from business data.

In a conversation with Moneycontrol, Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President, Cloud and Cognitive Software, IBM, spoke about the company’s stand on data privacy and adoption of artificial intelligence.

"We strongly endorse that government should worry about how to protect consumer data. When it comes to business data, I think government should be careful," said Krishna.

Restricting the flow of business data means getting rid of businesses such as BPO, which happens offshore in India.

As multinational businesses follow the data flows, putting heavy restriction on data means stopping the flow of business, he added.

As data is the new oil, it is hard for companies to ignore India with its 1.3 billion population, with close to 30 percent of them being internet users. Amount of data the connected population generates makes India an attractive destination for enterprises, who can use the data for developing intelligent applications across verticals from banking to retail.

This is where data privacy becomes a concern, which puts a restriction on what data is being collected and stored. Though most enterprises have information infrastructure to capture data, most of the enterprises in India are using AI to increase business efficiency. There are few that use predictive analytics and fewer still that use artificial intelligence to change processes.

Companies such as IBM are trying accelerating artificial intelligence adoption by deploying Watson, IBM's AI, that can run on any cloud platform to help organisations improve performance.

"Artificial intelligence is powered by data. You put very restricted data rules, the country will not be able participate. Then everybody will say I won’t come if my data gets locked. This slows down growth," he said.