India has taken a great techno-legal approach to data privacy: Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran

India’s techno-legal approach to data privacy has been a great way to address concerns in the age of artificial intelligence, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekeran said during the B20 India Summit 2023 in New Delhi.

Chandrasekeran added that all the strides taken by India in the space of digital transformation and infrastructure will be applicable to countries globally and especially in the case of the global south.

“So it's so important to allow this digital innovation and in order to foster innovation, we need proper regulation and have the ability to build private applications on top of the public infrastructure,” said Chandrasekeran. “That is what has happened in India. The legal framework has come up with this data privacy and data protection act which provides data empowerment and protection architecture,” he added emphasising how the inbuilt consent architecture framework within India stack provides a technical guardrail.


He added that in the Indian ecosystem, a strict regulatory approach with large punitive damages cannot work. However, having technical frameworks along with regulations is something that India has championed and can be replicated outside India.

“I feel because it is very different from the traditional approach of over-engineering the laws and regulatory framework, which is totally punitive,” said Chandrasekaran.

He added that India has a huge population of people with lack of access to education, healthcare, banking and jobs which can be addressed by utilising this digital technologies. “ So the only way to solve this problem is by adopting technology at a pace and scale that has never been done before.”

He cited examples of the payment infrastructure that has been transformed by the India stack and its secure consent based architecture.

Chandrasekaran further added that any concerns around these technologies, especially AI taking away jobs are misdirected. Rather they will create more jobs. “Benefits of AI will differ across segments and markets. But everywhere, it will create jobs by helping people to migrate to higher level jobs. And in markets where there is a lack of human resources (like ageing economies) it will help to substitute human beings to provide some of these services,” he said.