RS Sharma, chairman, TRAI said everybody else in the digital ecosystem is a custodian of that data.

“I think it is very important that if I have produced the data and the data is created due to my activities then I have a primary right on that data. Ownership is a concept of a physical world. If I own a physical object, you cannot own it. It is to the exclusion of others while in a data sense, what can happen is that you can have multiple copy of the data. So this divisibility creates a problem in terms of defining ownership,” he said.

“However the more important term will be who should control the data. As a user, I must have control on my data and everybody else in the digital ecosystem is a custodian of that data. Therefore, whatever they do with that data, should be with my consent, my knowledge, these are very important things,” he added.

“The telecom space and sector now has new set of players,” said Sharma.

“General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has created a framework. What we are proposing is not something worse than GDPR. In fact, we have quoted GDPR in a number of places. Therefore, if all these entities can comply with regulations in Europe, why cannot they comply in India? In fact, to a certain extent, India is much more important because we are creating much larger amount of data. Today India is consuming data more than US and China put together. Therefore, the activity level – number of customers on many platforms are the largest customers. Therefore, why should the data of the Indian customer be treated somewhat differently than the data of the European customers by these entities,” he further mentioned.

First Published:Jul 17, 2018 3:02 PM IST