Assocham asks govt not to impose any geographic bar on data embassies

Industry body ASSOCHAM has made a representation to the government, requesting it to have no geographical limit on the proposed data embassies.

The Data Centre Council of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India in its representation to Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar also said that a data centre should be classified as a data embassy.

"Members of the ASSOCHAM Data Centre Council are very pleased to hear about the concept of data embassies. While a part of it is already covered under the existing IT Act and the Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, we think that a provision of setting up data embassies shall be very positive,” Deepak Sood, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, said in the representation.


Read | Let data embassies come up across the country, not at GIFT IFSC alone: Industry

The government shall create a special zone where Indian laws shall not apply (or have very limited application) on data of overseas users, he added.

"We would, however, request that no geographical bar is put on the location of such data centres. Primarily, on the request of a foreign state through their representative in India (like a consulate or an embassy), any data centre or area within a data centre can be classified as a data embassy," he said.

Some countries might prefer to have data embassies near submarine cables or satellite uplink areas, while others might want a main site and a disaster recovery site in two different seismic or weather zones, he noted.

Some neighbouring countries might want it where they can get terrestrial fiber connectivity, like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, Sood added.

ET reported on Thursday that the data embassy concept mooted in the budget may bring big business to India

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the budget proposals, had said that “for countries looking for digital continuity solutions, we will facilitate setting up of their data embassies in GIFT IFSC”. Gujarat International Finance Tech-city (GIFT) is India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC).