DailyPost 675
NOW, IT’s REGULATION THE WAY!
IT had a free run across the globe completely out of regulatory control since it’s inception. The private type internet control took care of the technical standards building an uniform system. The technical framework does not transform into business framework. And thus companies went the way did. As users & businesses moved onto the digital format, a deluge of data started landing into the company’s servers. A bulb lit up and the Company realised that Data can be used for lots of purposes; good, bad and ugly. The only single denominator was money.
The cash registers got ringing but there was a feeling that IT Giants had been trying to evade the law. Most cases it was. The anti-trust laws were played around with. The Techlash is a culmination of this trend. In the meantime, Data started to be getting used for variety of purposes & could easily be monetized. Data become an asset. Life’s transactions started getting recorded & stored by IT companies. The inner wheeling dealing of data remained unknown. Hacks and breaches followed & the user got to know that he was at a risk. His Data Asset was being compromised. Privacy also came into the picture. The IT fairy tale companies were the last to regulate themselves.
Some regulatory regulations & frameworks came into existence with minimal impact. It was too generic with not much of enforcement teeth. IT laws got enacted the world over. Some court judgements, rulings & penalties happened but it did not make a difference to the body fabric of the IT industry. With nations and citizens left into the lurch, Europe was first to react to this citizen’s cause. European Union’s GDPR was enacted, the companies were given a two year window to make it happen. It got implemented on the 25th of May 2018. The results are already visible.
Sanity is coming into the system. Ownership, responsibility & accountability is being forced on IT companies. The rules of the game has been made known to all. New Data Regime is on the horizon, India also moving in the same direction. Privacy is already a fundamental right. The Data Protection Act is on the horizon. Safe, secure data world is the promise.
A NEW REGULATORY DATA REGIME IS IN THE OFFING.
Sanjay Sahay