7 hours ago
In a major development for the growing demands from countries around the world that tech companies store data about their citizens on their soil, Microsoft said on Thursday that it would start storing European Union user data in the EU. “If you are a commercial or public sector customer in the EU, we will go beyond our existing data storage commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU,” the company said. While this may not apply to home users of services like Windows and Outlook email, most of Microsoft’s revenue comes from enterprise and business users. “This commitment will apply across all of Microsoft’s core cloud services – Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365,” Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a post on the company’s blog.
New Delhi : Speaking in CUTS webinar, ‘Discussing the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2021 (rules) from the Lens of Consumer Welfare and Ease of Doing Business (EoDB)’, Dr Amar Patnaik, Hon. Member of Parliament, & Member, Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 (PDPB), stated that the PDPB once passed, would be the overarching law for personal data protection, and the rules should be consistent with it. He also emphasised on the need for building state capacity for effective implementation of the rules and the PDPB.
Mr Rakesh Maheshwari, Group Coordinator and Head – Cyber Law, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), presented a holistic view of the rules, and clarified that the rules have a clear objective of curbing the spread of problematic unlawful information on intermediary platforms, such as revenge porn and related contents, to ensure safety of people particularly that of women and childr
5 hours ago
India’s latest report on Non Personal Data, published by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MEITY) Committee of Experts has defined parameters regarding who can seek Non Personal Data, High Value Datasets, what a community is and who can represent it as a trustee, rights over non personal data, sovereign access to data, meta-data directories, and addressed intellectual property concerns. They’ve exempt entire raw databases from data requests, taken private data access out of the ambit of this framework, and defined purposes for which data can be accessed. Above all, it recommends a separate Non Personal Data legislation for governing NPD.
View: Express vaccination is our saviour
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Last Updated: May 01, 2021, 05:32 PM IST
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Synopsis
There are no two opinions that the way out of the pandemic still remains the same – express vaccination till we achieve herd immunity. Israel has already done it and the US, UK and Russia are well on the way to achieving the same.
ET CONTRIBUTORS
India is reeling under the second wave of the pandemic. On April 25, 2021, we reported over 3.5 lakh cases of fresh infections from the coronavirus. This was the highest ever single day account since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from the steep surge in the rate of infections, another pressing concern is the rising fatality rate. Onwards April 19, 2021, we have been losing over 2000 lives daily to the virus.
Key takeaways
The IT Rules 2021 was spurred on by court cases (including the Prajwala case on child sexual abuse and gang rape imagery online) and by the Rajya Sabha Committee’s report on child pornography.
The government will bring in new standard operating procedures to be followed by intermediaries for compliance with the rules; they will not be notified in the gazette.
The government is open to revising the 5 million threshold up or down in the future if necessary, according to MEITY’s Rakesh Maheshwari.
According to MEITY official Rakesh Maheshwari, the Indian government’s intention with the IT Rules 2021 has always been to have a higher level of accountability for users from all intermediaries, particularly the significant ones. The IT Rules 2021 represent a sea change for how internet intermediaries, which include ISPs, search engines, social media platforms, and countless others, will govern their own services, a change that will have a direct impact on free sp