Daily Digest Of Tech Policy News And Updates (April 21, 2021)
4 hours ago
Bringing you quick updates on the tech space, policy making and digital rights from India and across the globe.
How digital payments evolved during pandemic: PayU Report
Payment solution provider PayU published a report with information on how digital payments changed during the pandemic.
Streaming services saw a 144% increase in the number of transactions and a 139% increase in expenditure between 2019 and 2020.
Travel and hospitality saw a 86% drop in the number of transactions and expenditure.
Etech firms saw “a 78% increase in the number of transactions and a 44% increase in expenditure”.
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 2
India has taken the first steps towards digitisation of citizens’ health records with 6.30 lakh digital health IDs generated so far.
No violation of data privacy of citizens under National Digital Health Mission, Rajya Sabha told
India
Published: Tuesday, February 2, 2021, 15:51 [IST]
New Delhi, Feb 2: There is no violation of data privacy of citizens under the National Digital Health Mission as it enables appropriate use of health data with the consent of an individual, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
The ambitious National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) programme was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech last year. According to a draft proposal, everyone enrolled for the mission will get a Health ID free of cost and will have complete control over his or her data.
Credit: Aditi Agrawal
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare sidestepped a question in the Rajya Sabha, asking if the government would store Indian citizens’ data as part of the the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) with an Indian company, or a foreign one. It only replied that “[t]he selection of vendors for NDHM is compliant with various applicable rules and policies of Government of India”.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh, who asked the question, also wanted to know whether there was any violation of citizens’ privacy if the data was stored with an “external company”. The issue of how the health data of Indian citizens’ is stored assumed significance in recent weeks. The CoWIN ecosystem, the backbone of the Indian government’s COVID-19 vaccination effort, relies on Amazon Web Services (AWS), an arrangement that isn’t kosher even for health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, according to a report by The Ken. Bhushan is said to have favoured the u
Former TRAI chief RS Sharma to take over as CEO of National Health Authority
January 29, 2021
Former TRAI chief and UIDAI chairman Ram Sewak Sharma will take over as chief executive of the National Health Authority,
which is the implementation body for Ayushman Bharat as well as the National Digital Health Mission, reported Business Standard.
The appointment comes amidst rollout of India’s vaccination program against COVID-19; Sharma has recently been named the chairperson of the empowered committee for CoWIN, the government’s COVID-19 vaccine delivery platform. He will take charge on February 1, replacing Dr. Indu Bhushan, whose three-year term has concluded.