National data governance policy to make anonymized data accessible: Sitharaman | Latest News India | Times Of Ahmedabad

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the government is working on a national data governance policy to enable access to anonymized data to start-ups in order to boost development.

The draft policy, as reported first by HT on April 9 last year, elaborates on the overall objective of the new framework.

“It will aim to ensure] greater citizen awareness, participation, and engagement with open data, increase the availability of datasets of national importance, and identify datasets suitable for sharing and improve overall compliance to secure data sharing and privacy policies and standards”, the draft stated.

It will also be the “first step in catalysing the era of Digital Government”, which will provide “greater scope for better, more informed decision making… while adhering to the highest data protection standards and commitment to the principles of data privacy”.

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A core component of the data governance framework will be the formation of an India Data Management Office (IDMO) under the IT ministry.

The new policy reform, that minister of state (MoS) for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar stressed, is that the anonymized datasets will be offered as part of the India datasets programmes to the AI (artificial intelligence) ecosystem, which will be a kinetic enabler for the digital economy.

“Datasets that represent India’s consumers is a huge opportunity for the next generation of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. It is an estimated opportunity of more than $200-$500 billion if leveraged properly”, he said.

“The datasets will be provided for governance research, which even the government can use to create better targeted policies, more AI researchers can look at technology solutions. For example, in education AI can help identify which district is lagging behind in what subject, or other parameters, he added, so that the government can talent-pool the teachers depending on that”, Chandrashekar had said.

“The policy has tremendous applications that will make the next generation of governance to be more impactful, efficient, targeted and with more lasting outcomes, making India a global leader in the field,” he said.