Lots of concerns have been raised regarding use cloud computing in India. Some of them have even challenged the desirability and rationale of use of cloud computing in India. Still cloud computing is a profitable industry and lots of commercial cloud computing vendors are pushing hard to impose the same for public delivery of services by Indian government.India has no legal framework for cloud computing and cloud computing regulations in India are missing. India has no dedicated privacy laws, data protection laws and data security laws. Even leading techno legal expert of India Praveen Dalal believes that India should not use Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing for crucial governmental services.
Further e-surveillance projects like Aadhar/UID project, national intelligence grid (Natgrid), crime and criminals tracking and networks systems (CCTNS), central monitoring system (CMS), etc are also beyond judicial scrutiny and Parliamentary oversight.
In these circumstances, use of cloud computing in India is a landmine for privacy violations. Indian government is imposing various projects without any legal framework and civil liberty safeguards. Any person or institution can take the sensitive and personal data of others and can use it for commercial purposes.
Take the example of telemarketing industry of India. The telecom policy of India is anti consumer that is openly violating privacy rights of Indians. The telemarketing lobby would never allow regulation of telemarketing calls and messages in India. Neither the ministry of communication and information technology nor the telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) is serious about protecting the privacy of Indian citizens.
Just like telemarketing, data and sensitive details, including biometric data held by unique identification authority of India (UIDAI), of Indians would pass into the hands of telemarketing industry and other commercial and advertisement companies.
In these circumstances, the only conclusion that is valid is that India is not yet ready for cloud computing and SaaS and adopting the same would be a big mistake on the part of Indian government.
