Why Data Privacy Matters for Indian Organizations in 2023

India by 2020 has nearly 749 million Internet users at a growth rate of 7-8%. India is well on the path to becoming a digital economy, which can be a large market for global players. Indian IT sector has been growing exponentially at 10% per year with a market size of $ 100 billion in 2021. Further, it has been projected that Indian IT expenditure will reach $ 150 Billion by 2022. The rapid growth of Internet users in India and the Great Digitalisation push by the Indian Government through “Digital India” campaigns, where the citizen services were empowered through the use of technology and the Internet, throws a greater challenge to every personal, private and public entities.
 With the great potential, Indian tech-driven organisations carry forward, it is Inevitably the prime time for Indian information technology service organisations to deep dive into the data protection and privacy framework Mechanisms. Information Security has occupied a pivotal role in the recent security policy postures. The range of threats it poses from Individual Privacy to Organisation intellectual data has made it imperative to look for more sophisticated data protection frameworks. The recent Indian bill on data protection “The personal Data protection bill” was a step in the right direction. cyberattacks costs Millions of dollars for Organisations dealing with data. It is always optimal for every organisation to proactively invest in cyber security frameworks. Bigger economies like the EU and US have started acting for an effective data protection framework. However, they were highly criticised for being more complicated and inadequate. This was the best time for India to take cognizance of the significance of data protection while also encouraging the IT market and Technology Innovation to reach their greater potential.

What are the benefits of Data privacy regulations for an Organisation?

  • Data Privacy Increases Trust and credibility on an Organisation 
  • Data Privacy adherence gives better oversights on the Data Processing
  • Better Data Privacy frameworks provide enhanced Data Management mechanisms
  • Privacy is key to trust- better data privacy protects and Improves an Organisation Brand Reputation.
  • Easier Business process automation.
  • Data Privacy through Frequent audits and innovative policies facilitates a better platform for Organisations. 
  • Data Privacy reduces financial loss to data-driven business organisations.
This is the era where every human interaction was influenced by Technology with Data being the medium. We live in a Transition Phase that is breaking the grounds of the third Industrial revolution (Digital Revolution) and entering into the Fourth industrial revolution, which is a fusion of Technology interacting with other subjective spheres of life like Physics, Biology, sciences etc. This technological revolution has created new markets and innovative business models. From young start-ups to Big MNCs every entity has benefitted from this revolution. This Technological transition has made data Omnipresent. Today, every organisation has to deal with an everyday digital transaction involving some kind of data. Even though Digitalisation and Data processing is very crucial for efficient service delivery, Unregulated and arbitrary use of data especially personal data impedes individual autonomy and privacy. Therefore, Data protection is very essential to secure the independence and privacy of Individuals, private and public entities. 

India, the youngest and one of the leading IT sector-based countries, tops the list among the counties facing cyberattacks since the pandemic. Around 68 per cent of the companies in India have faced some form of a cyberattack or the other since the beginning of the pandemic. Further, 1.1 million Cyber- Attacks were reported in India in 2020. As per the reports, 50,000 cyber-crimes were reported in 2020 of which nearly 100 are reported as data theft. Financial and Banking data breaches are regarded as one of the sensitive data breaches. In 2020 alone, nearly 4000 cases of financial data breach or banking fraud were reported. The Supreme court of India in its landmark judgement proclaimed that “The Right to Privacy” is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Indian constitution. India, one of the demographically youngest nations with the fastest-growing number of Unicorns with over billion-dollar valuation, world leader of IT tech organisations, it is Indeed time for Indian firms to take Data privacy seriously.