Continuing their pursuit to push for local storage of payment system data, Paytm and other domestic e-commerce/payment firms have said that 6 months is ‘practical’ enough for companies to adhere to the Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines, according to a report by the Times of India. While several ‘stake holders’ were of the view that it would take at least a minimum of two years to transfer user data of Indians to servers located in the country, domestic e-commerce companies felt that the move wouldn’t require more than six months, as directed by the RBI, the report added. Last week, Paytm asked the central government to push for storage of payment system data within the country and not allow mirroring of the data overseas. The central bank, in April, has mandated all payments system operators working in India to ensure that data related to payment systems operated by them is stored in the country. The move would have come into effect from October 15 this year, according to a report by the Economic Times. However, there is uncertainty over the implementation of the central bank’s directive as, the Data Protection Bill, 2018, a draft of which was submitted to the government last week, overrides all sectorial regulators and therefore all their directives. The bill requires all data fiduciaries to store a copy of users’ personal data in India and more worryingly, the bill also requires mandatory storage of ‘critical personal data’ within India only. The bill, however, failed to state explicitly the definition of ‘critical data’.…
