Draft Digital India Act will harmonise laws, regulate emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and incorporate industry input on blockchain and Web 3.0 regulations to protect digital citizens, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, on Monday.

He said Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) such as Aadhaar, CoWIN, and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been the key to unlocking innovation and solving the accessibility challenge for many Indian citizens and private players.

“India is actively working on multiple policies to further the country’s vision for a Global Standard Cyber Law Framework, alongside its efforts to enable programs. This framework includes key legislations such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, which focuses on respecting individuals’ rights while processing digital personal data. Other key legislations such as the National Data Governance Framework Policy aims to safely share non-personal and anonymised data for research and innovation, ensuring privacy and security,” said Chandrasekhar at the DPI Global Summit in Pune.

‘Trust and safety’

He further said that developing policies that promote security in the digital economy have ensured trust and safety in the digital economy, and the government also recently amended our IT Rules to combat misinformation.

“Finally, we have driven several initiatives such as FutureSkills Prime that has over 1.3 million sign-ups and 5,40,000 candidates have enrolled. Similarly, under PMG DISHA, we aim to train over 60 million people in digital skills,” he said.

Talking about security in the Digital Environment Globally and in India, he said with the rise of healthtech, fintech, e-commerce, AI and Internet of things (IoTs) companies, businesses now hold large data sets that hold sensitive and personal data of consumers.

“Sectorally, most cybercrimes are reported in the financial services sector, followed by the healthcare sector and crimes on social media. These are key sectors where data breaches not only incur economic costs, but also hurt consumer trust and business credibility. Meanwhile, security threats such as ransomware, data breaches, phishing attacks, denial-of-service attacks threaten ordinary people, businesses and governments,” he said, adding that such crimes and the consequent loss of trust could eventually slow down digital transformation and economic growth.