India’s data localisation plans hang in the balance as it will join the other Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries on Thursday in discussing the e-commerce chapter of the RCEP agreement. If India agrees to the provisions of Chapter 10 on e-commerce, as specified by most of the other countries, it will mean it won’t be allowed to impose data localisation rules on companies looking to do business in India. This would go against the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) norms on localisation of payments data that it had ordered in April 2018. This data is to include the full end-to-end transaction details, information collected, carried, or processed as part of the message or payment instruction. If India agrees to the wording as it is, then these rules by the RBI will also have to be reviewed, as would any future plans the government has to implement data localisation in any form.

Source: The Hindu October 09, 2019 18:45 UTC