71% Indian firms upbeat on EU data privacy law: Survey

For nearly 71 per cent Indian enterprises, the European Union's Global Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) will help bring a sense of privacy in business and innovation in ideas, a new survey said on Monday.

According to the survey conducted by Deloitte India in alliance with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), out of the organisations that have taken action for GDPR readiness, 80 per cent have conducted general awareness campaigns for all their relevant stakeholders to identify their processes, which access personal or sensitive data. 

The findings showed that firms that are GDPR-ready will gain a competitive advantage as they will be able to use personal data in their innovations and digitisation.

"GDPR brings in a renewed focus to data privacy. While this is a new compliance imperative, it also provides a competitive advantage for businesses. In fact, our survey findings also infer that GDPR can be the new business opportunity for Indian firms," said Vishal Jain, Partner, Deloitte India.

When it comes to sectors, IT/BPM, Health, e-commerce, manufacturing and pharma are the five front-runners of the GDPR-readiness journey.

"The EU has been a key geography for Indian IT and has been servicing customers across several verticals including public sector," said Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI.

The small and mid-size EU companies would open up for business possibilities to Indian firms, given the ease of data transfer between organisations, the findings showed, emphasising on the need for a dedicated privacy team and a Data Protection officer (DPO).

"The need of the hour for India Inc is to develop a strategic roadmap of adoption for GDPR that is transparent and further allows them to build the next layer of customer trust," Jain noted.

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