DSCI has been looking at ways to enable market access to start-ups both in India and globally, identify customer and investor connect programmes and make India the destination for cyber security, whether it is for product R&D or for global in-house centres.In the wake of growing cyber attacks, the upcoming Data Protection Law, and increased focus on capacity building for cyber security, Data Security Council of India (DSCI), an industry body on data protection set up by Nasscom is planning to roll out initiatives for cyber security and data privacy besides building an ecosystem for the development of start-ups focusing on cyber security solutions in India. In a recent interview, Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI spoke about how DSCI, along with the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), is working together for the drafting of a data protection law. DSCI is one of the members of the constituted committee. It has participated in the committee deliberations and presented the industry perspectives on cross border data flow, localisation, India’s growing analytics industry and innovation on data, best practices of various global data protection regimes, and the need to take cognizance of a digital economy and balancing data protection regulations with industry growth and innovation.
“We will enable the right regime for cross border data flow, underlining the importance of data for analytics and innovation on data. We will study the regime for incentivising the data protection and privacy law in India. Hence, we will be putting all the intelligence till the final law comes out. We will be providing a comprehensive view to the committee,” she says. Another focus area for DSCI is to build a National Technology Repository for cyber security. “As part of the project, we will discover and showcase all the competencies across the country in 25 technology areas. In the first phase, we are looking at five areas: forensics, AI, blockchain, IoT and cryptology. We are studying the entire landscape as the competency may reside in freelancers, start-ups, large services firms, global in-house centres or it can reside in academic labs. Presently, we are studying and capturing insights from academia, industry members, and user organisations,” she said.
DSCI has been looking at ways to enable market access to start-ups both in India and globally, identify customer and investor connect programmes and make India the destination for cyber security, whether it is for product R&D or for global in-house centres. In line with the Prime Minister’s vision to make India a hub of cyber security products and services, Nasscom-DSCI Cyber security Task Force (CSTF) had last year launched the roadmap for developing the cyber security products and services industry to a $35 billion industry by 2025.
When asked about how its is shaping up, Vedashree says, “We started this in 2016, as of last year we were at $4.5 billion revenue in cyber security. We have about 100-plus product start-up companies and around 1.70 lakh people working in cyber security. Though the Indian cyber security industry is at a nascent stage, we have seen some of our entrepreneurs winning in global markets. As cyber security start-ups continue to face challenges in marketing and market access, it is important that government and investors come forward to support them at different stages of their lifecycles.”
By Sandhya Michu