The recent incidents of data thefts in the BPO industry have raised concern within the industry about data privacy, forcing the government to set up a regulatory body for the IT industry. The Department of Information Technology (DIT) and Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) is planning to set up an IT regulatory body, which will monitor the security and privacy aspects of IT and BPO companies.

The industry is looking at setting up the IT regulator on the similar lines of the telecom industry’s, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

The incident of selling credit card details of UK customers by a Delhi-based broker last month revealed the lack of monitoring agency and strict data protection laws.

A DIT official told Financial Chronicle that the department has already initiated this move to set up a separate regulator, which will monitor the security aspects of the companies, working on sensitive information. “The industry associations have supported this move to set up an agency. The regulator will look in to the cyber security space, which will also include data protection, data retention and data privacy,” he said.

Information security solutions provider Safe Net has highlighted the need of setting up a regulatory body to keep a tab on the industry security standards. Rana Gupta, head, India and SAARC, Safe Net said: “Every company follows different standards like the ISO 9000 or the CMM level 3 or 4. There is no universal benchmark being followed by the companies. Setting up of a regulatory body will ensure faith and reliability in the Indian IT industry.”

Pavan Duggal, Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert said: “The mechanism of data damages needs to be revisited. We need a regulator who would be able to recommend the measures to ensure robust growth for the industry.”