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The
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team issued a directive in
April asking tech companies to report data breaches within six
hours of "noticing such incidents" and to maintain IT and
communications logs for six months.
They also mandated cloud service providers such as Amazon and
virtual private network (VPN) companies to retain names of their
customers and IP addresses for at least five years, even after
they stop using the company's services.
The measures have raised concerns within the industry about a
growing compliance burden and higher costs.
India's junior IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said there will
be no changes despite the worries, saying tech companies have an
obligation to know who is using their services.
India has tightened regulation of Big Tech firms in recent
years, prompting pushback from the industry and in some cases
even straining trade ties between New Delhi and Washington.
New Delhi has said the new rules were needed as cybersecurity
incidents were reported regularly but the requisite information
needed to investigate them was not always readily available from
the service providers.
But the rules have caused widespread discontent. In a
closed-door meeting this week, many social media and tech
company executives discussed strategies to urge New Delhi to put
the rules on hold, according to a source with direct knowledge.
The source said European authorities require data breaches to be
reported within about 72 hours, adding that it was difficult to
report incidents in six hours.
Chandrasekhar, however, said India was being generous, as some
countries mandate immediate reporting.
The rules are set to be enforced from end of June. After they
were announced, NordVPN, one of the world's largest VPN
providers, said it may remove its servers from India.
Privacy activists have said the rules contradict the idea of VPN,
which is to safeguard identity of individuals such as
whistleblowers from surveillance.
"If you don't want to go by these rules, and if you want to pull
out, then frankly ... you have to pull out," Chandrasekhar told
reporters.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi;
Editing by David Clarke)
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