Data Accessibility Policy:
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has come out with a draft Data Accessibility and Use policy.
Highlights of the policy:
- The policy proposes to improve data availability, quality and use in line with the decade’s current and emerging technology demands.
- Any data sharing shall happen within the legal framework of India, its national policies and legislation as well as the recognized international guidelines.
- All data and information generated, created, collected, or stored by the central government and authorised agencies shall be covered by the policy.
- All government data will be open and shareable unless it falls under a negative list of data sets, categorised under the negative list of datasets that won’t be shared; and restricted access and shared only with trusted users, as defined by the respective ministry or department, under the controlled environment.
- It proposes the establishment of an India Data Office (IDO) to streamline and unify data access and sharing among government and other stakeholders.
- In case of the institutional framework, the draft noted that every ministry or department should have Data Management Units, headed by Chief Data Officers, which will work closely with the IDO to ensure the implementation of this policy.
- India Data Council — comprising IDO and chief data officers — shall be constituted with the objective of undertaking tasks that require deliberation across ministries, departments and state governments.
