By Bhavana M. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on November 20, 2020 established standards for personal data protection for businesses in India to adopt. The BIS is India’s national standards body. The Data Privacy Assurance standard — IS 17428 — was published to promote the standardization of practice in protecting personal data for businesses that deal with the collection and processing of individual information. The standard is available to download from BSB Edge; we are not linking to a copy as reproduction is prohibited. Businesses have so far developed and adopted their own standards and practices to protect user data. The standards released by BIS seek to facilitate a consistent and approved practice of protecting personal data. Businesses might be interested in the standards given that BIS standards are generally accepted in other industries and are often used by the government to evaluate compliance. In formulating the requirements, experts from relevant industries, academia and the government have been consulted (see full list of entities below). IS 17428 provides for requirements that a business must comply with in order to promote an effective Data Privacy Management System. However, it is only complementary to the regulatory framework applicable for personal data protection and does not apply to businesses that process Non Personal Data. Given that India’s Personal Data Protection Bill has not yet been passed by Parliament, this standard may well be the closest there is to a reference point for businesses. The standard can be adopted by both data processors and…
