CIO & LEADER-Issue-06-September_iPad

Insight
A
As governments of the world realise
the urgent need to tame the anarchic
world of the Internet -- dominated by a
couple of tech giants -- and write new
rules pertaining to users' rights, data
privacy and spread of false news and
extremist content, India too must shun
archaic regulations and implement
New-Age cyber laws.
The debate is now growing about
exercising some form of control over
the web when billions are communicating
daily over social media platforms,
smartphone use is on the rise
and data consumption is breaking all
previous records.
Look at how the Unites States has
brought Facebook under intense
scrutiny over Russian ads on its platform
during the 2016 US presidential
election, or how the European Union
in June slapped a record USD 2.7 billion
fine on Google after it found that
it "abused its market dominance as a
search engine by promoting its own
comparison shopping service in its
search results, and demoting those of
competitors".
Speaking at the United Nations last
week, British Prime Minister Theresa
May said technology companies must
go "further and faster" in removing
extremist content from their platforms.
In the meanwhile, there is widespread
criticism across the world,
including in India, about sharing of
user data on WhatsApp and its parent
company, Facebook.
Like the West, the time is ripe for
India to wake up from its slumber in
terms of cyber regulation and come up
with appropriate strategies to tighten
its cyber policies vis-a-vis the Internet,
say experts, adding that the existing
cyber law is not adequate to deal with
current realities.
"India does not have any detailed
legislation on data privacy on Internet/
social media platforms. India also does
not have a data protection law. The
“If big Internet
players want to
have access to the
India market, they
have to comply
with Indian
regulations.”
—Pavan Duggal,
SC Advocate & Cyber Law Expert
September 2017 | CIO&LEADER
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