GS Paper 2
Syllabus: Important aspects of governance and accountability, e-governance(applications)
Context:
- The Minister of State, Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship highlighted the rapid digitalization and the subsequent rise in data volumes necessitating a framework for harnessing the potential of this data.
- Government’s vision is to build a modern framework for Data Governance that will be a kinetic enabler of India’s Digital Economy.
Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy:
- Indian Datasets programme: It calls for the creation of an India Datasets programme, which will consist of non-personal and anonymised datasets from Central government entities that have collected data from Indian citizens or those in India. Private companies will be “encouraged” to share such data.
- The non-personal data housed within this programme would be accessible to start ups and Indian researchers(Non-personal data is any set of data which does not contain personally identifiable information).
- India Data Management Office (IDMO): The draft also calls for creation of an India Data Management Office (IDMO), which will be in charge of designing and managing the India Datasets platform.
- The IDMO will prescribe rules and standards, including anonymization standards for all entities (government and private).
- For purposes of safety and trust, any non-personal data sharing by any entity can be only via platforms designated and authorized by IDMO.
- No Selling of Data: The most significant change in this new draft is the omission of the most contentious provision in the old draft — selling data collected at the Central level in the open market.
Suggestions included:
- Consultative process informing the functioning of the IDMO
- Provisions for harnessing the future potential of integrated datasets and clarifications around the nature of engagement with private players.
- Furthermore, information and clarity on the operations of the India Data Management Office
- Access to annotated datasets for AI innovation
- Active collaboration with private sector and social impact firms to build data capacity
Practice Question
Q. With reference to Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy, consider the following statements:
- The non-personal data housed within this programme will not be accessible to start ups.
- selling data collected at the Central level in the open market is permissible.
Which of the following statements given above is/are correct?
a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2
Ans: d
Q. Critically analyze the recently released major provisions of the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy. (10M)
