Mysuru: Hardly we have any laws in the country which are related to privacy breaches by media or by individuals, said Police Commissioner Subramanyeshwar Rao.
Speaking during a one-day seminar on “Cyber Security and Privacy–Technical and Legal Compliance” organised by Confederation of Indian Industry in association with STPI, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India at Infosys campus recently, he said, “The law enforcement has not caught up with the issue on privacy. A regular police officer who sits in police office is still wondering what is privacy as it is not defined in IPC. Though we have laws to deal with company related privacy issues, the Section 43 (a) concerning privacy and offence defined under 72 (a), we hardly have any laws in the country which are related to privacy breaches by media or individuals. So we the police are still wondering how to deal with privacy related breaches.”
“In recent days, the functioning of police has become more digitised. We are trying to bring digitisation of data wherever possible. Now one can see that a large number of police operations and police stations are on digital format. But still, does the law enforcement agency of today have technical capability outside? No we don’t, because selection of police officers into law enforcement is not based on technical aspect. We don’t have that method. We have a long way to go probably in creating manpower within the law enforcement agency. We need to upgrade.” He also called upon the organisers and participants that emphasis should be laid on not only being abreast about current issues but also on securing data. At the same time, he also requested universities to pitch in and start courses related to cyber, data security and legal aspects.
‘External breach can kill a company’
Bhaskar Kalale, Vice Chairman of CII Mysuru, who also spoke on the occasion, said, “When it comes to data breaches, there are two, internal and external breaches. Most of the data breaches are not intentional. But when it comes to external breaches, there are chances of a huge amount of loss to the company. According to a research to detect mega breach, it requires 365 days that is a year and it may cost $ 1.7 billion to the company. For a small company, it will be a huge and it will never be able to come out of the loss. If we are able to contain the breach within 30 days, the cost will come down but if we keep delaying, the cost will escalate and cause more loss to the company. Hence, we regularly need to keep tab on these issues and the company must have a process to check breach. S Radhakrishna, Convenor, IT and ITES Panel of CII Mysuru briefed about organising the seminar.
Experts conducted sessions on various topics including “Cyber Security Law to Cyber–Trends, Breaches and Dark Web” by Pranab Roy, Founder and CEO, Arridae Infosec Pvt Ltd and “Indian Privacy Law–New Challenges for Compliance” by N A Vijayshankar (Naavi), Founder, www.naavi.org. Panel discussion on “Dynamics of Cyber Security and Enforcement in Indian Context” was also held.
Participants from many IT related companies took part in the one-day seminar.
