The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has proposed that government data, which has been collected at the Central level and has “undergone value addition/transformation”, can be sold in the open market for an “appropriate price”. The “value addition” would mean when the government data, which is collected by various line ministries, their departments and agencies are processed in a way such that “it can add value to a product or digital delivery of services,” an official of the IT Ministry said, asking not to be named. According to a draft of a new policy called ‘India Data Accessibility and Use Policy’, stakeholders such as researchers, startups, enterprises, individuals, and even government departments “will be able to access” this “enriched data” through various mechanisms of data licensing, sharing and valuation. The Ministry has sought public comments on the draft by March 18. These stakeholders can access such data through the India Data Office, which will be a new department created under MeitY. The move to make public data collected by Central ministries comes even as the government is deliberating on the Data Protection Bill. Though a Joint Committee of Parliament has already presented the final copy of its report on the changes that should be included in the Bill, government officials have said there could be more changes to it before it is tabled in Parliament for discussion and approval. A new framework for identifying “high value data-set” on the basis of the data’s degree of importance in the market, socio-economic benefits that can be derived from it, the impact of such data set on the country’s artificial intelligence strategy and performance on key global enterprises will also be chalked out. All the ministries and departments of the Central government will have to “identify, publish and maintain” their high-value dataset (HVD), while the framework to decide what will consist of HVD will be finalised by the India Data Council. As per the proposed draft, each ministry will have its own Data Management Unit, which will be headed by a Chief Data Officer (CDO). The CDOs at the central and state level, as well as the India Data Officer will together comprise of an India Data Council (IDC). It is this IDC which will define the framework for identifying HVDs of respective central ministries and their departments or agencies. Though all government data shall be open and shareable by default, ministries can notify if a said dataset under “a negative list” of database, which will not be shared. Databases placed under the “restricted access” umbrella will be shared only with “trusted sources” which will be defined by the respective ministries and their departments. “Each Central ministry/department shall adopt and publish its domain-specific metadata and data standards. These standards should be compliant with the interoperability framework, policy on open standards, institutional mechanism for formulation of domain-specific metadata and data standards and other relevant guidelines published on the e-govt standards portal,” the draft read. The draft also proposes a data sharing toolkit, which will be the broad umbrella to help respective central or state government ministries and departments “assess and optimally manage” the risks associated with the release and sharing of such data. The targeted outcome of the policy would be to allow “new generation of startups to bolster digital innovation for high-priority use cases and enter new markets”, apart from enabling “more informed policy making”, as per the draft.
