Digital Sovereignty: Meaning, Importance and Issues

Digital sovereignty or Data sovereignty is all about storage and protection of an individual’s personal data in digital form on cloud. Data sovereignty demands that the individual’s data which is stored in the binary digital form in the cloud, must be kept within the country in which the individual resides and it must be subject to the laws of that country.

Demand for Digital/Data Sovereignty

Digitisation of data makes it easy to duplicate, easily portable, large data storage and innovative solutions. However most of the data is stored in the public cloud and the data storage centres are not located within the country from where the data is uploaded.  It raises great concerns as security challenge for individuals, government and IT professionals. The concept of data sovereignty thus demands that the countries have their own data centres so that all the government related data from state and central departments, as well as individual’s personal data stored in cloud storage networks, should be located in servers within the country and not in foreign countries.

Importance of Digital Sovereignty for India

The proponents of Digital sovereignty within India call for it for not only projects such as Digital India and Make in India but also for security and well being of the country. For example, the Digital India initiative seeks to provide delivery of public services related to health, education, banking etc. via e-governance mode to citizens from metros to gram panchayats. Towards this, there would be a need to upload huge information in digital form on the cloud (such as beneficiary data, biometric information of beneficiaries and so on).  Thus, if there is absence of strong data security, it can be a recipe for disaster.

Similarly, there is a need to reap the digital dividend of faster growth, more jobs and better services by expanding affordable and safe Internet access to all. This can help India to be a breakout nation {a breakout nation is one that can grow faster than rivals in their income class, and expectations for that class}.  But leveraging the information technology needs data security and thus importance of data sovereignty is underlined in efforts to eradicate poverty and misery also.

This apart, Data Sovereignty also has its importance for Make in India initiative. This initiative tries to promote the local production of goods by not only domestic but also the multinational. The MNCs demand a high IT standards and digital safety to start and run their business. So, low IT standards and undermining the digital data safety, may act as major barrier towards Make in India also.

What needs to be done?

Towards infrastructure, there is a need to build and maintain strong data centres (SDCs). Towards policy measures, following can be suggested:

• Use of legal and regulatory frameworks to cloud computing and data sovereignty
• Restrictions on transfer of critical information related to health records, financial transactions and tax returns would to countries deemed unsafe or lacking in data protection laws
• Government can use licence regime for the cloud providers on conditions that the foreign company if want to provide service in India, is required to open local data centres in India

Current Government Policy on Digital Sovereignty

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has envisaged the need for building State Data Centre (SDC) as the part of core infrastructure development, and as a key-supporting element for supporting the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
• The cloud providers have been asked to place an “e-discovery” system to allow search and retrieval of data stored in the cloud, and this system can be accessed only by a government entity
• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology mandates data encryption as a “standard security process” for all sensitive and confidential data maintained by the government in the cloud
• MEITY has asked the cloud provider to report any incidence of unauthorized access of data, security breaches, and intrusions, either by government employee or by the cloud provider
• Information stored on the cloud should not be published or advertised by the cloud provider to any person or organization without permission from the government entity

Conclusion

Digital sovereignty cannot be undermined and should be seen first step for the success of Digital India, Make in India, various poverty eradication schemes and creation of a digitally empowered society and knowledge based economy.