5 hours ago
The fintech and startup ecosystem that has emerged in recent years has a major governance issue: data breaches and leaks are not taken seriously. Unfortunately, the regulatory system has not woken up to the fact that the recent data breaches at Juspay and MobiKwik can significantly cause harm to idle users in the future.
The Indian government is yet to introduce a Personal Data Protection Law (PDP Law) in Parliament at a time when incidents of data breaches and personal information being sold on the darkweb are increasing year-on-year. The lack of a Data Protection Authority and a Personal Data Protection Law means that there is regulatory ambiguity in terms of who should respond to breaches and investigate them. Industry experts told MediaNama that the entire regulatory system needs to be strengthened, business models need a rethink and that companies need to be made more accountable, whether through the courts or through internal governance practices.