CAIT asks PM Modi to exempt payment gateways from data localisation

Narendra Modi

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Wednesday said it has written to the Prime Minister seeking exemption of payment gateways from mandatory data localisation norms.

Although, the traders' body appreciated the move to safeguard data privacy it said that the there must be a distinction between the firms which have personal data and the payment firms which have financial data and mostly card numbers.

"The Confederation of All India Traders has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister to make a distinction between such companies or institutions those who have real-time data and others who use primary data for making transactions to happen," a CAIT statement said.

It further said: "Digital platforms (like Facebook, Amazon, Google) and banks have access to personal consumer data such as name, address, contact details. Such data should necessarily be stored in India to prevent any misuse, including for political purposes."

On the other hand, it observed that payment technology companies like Visa, Mastercard and RuPay which "only have a 16 digit card number which is stored with them, and as such that is not personally identifiable data should not be forced to be stored in India, as it does not serve any purpose with regards to law enforcement, or misuse".

The traders' body also sent a copy of the letter to the RBI Governor, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP President Amit Shah among others.

The deadline for compliance with the Reserve Bank of India's order ended on October 15 and financial technology companies still expect some exceptions for them.

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