Idemia official says data protection law vital for India’s federated ID project

India must introduce its personal data protection legislation if it is to press ahead with its federated identity infrastructure to link IDs, stated Mathew Foxton, regional president and executive vice president for branding and communication of Idemia India, as reported by Business Standard.

Earlier this year, India held consultations with stakeholders on a proposed legislation to set up a federated ID system which will give Indians more control over their digital IDs and facilitate KYC and online identification processes.

The project, spearheaded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is coming under the Indian Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) 2.0 framework which seeks to make sure that all developments in the domain of technology agree with government organizations’ business perspectives.

The federated identity project would link an individual’s separate identity profiles such as passport and Aadhaar.

Participating in a webinar on the proposed ID structure, Foxton said the data protection legislation, which is still being worked on by Indian authorities, is a “must-have.”

“India has massive advancements, particularly in terms of national programs and as a country is well-positioned to build digital identity-based solutions and services. Even though a digital identity is required for a wide variety of activities online, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to implement ID and access systems,” said Foxton as cited by Business Standard.

An IT expert also quoted by the publication said while the project is being developed, there is a lot they are learning especially from private sector actors from where they are picking up best practices to build a solid and workable system.

India’s data protection regulation, premised on the Information Technology Act 2000, is yet to come into force. There have since been discussions and consultations by both government and private sector stakeholders about how to expand the scope of the legislation in order to make it more relevant and easily enforceable.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  data protection  |  digital ID  |  IDEMIA  |  identity management  |  India  |  legislation