India taking action against spamming, says FM Sitharaman

The Indian government is taking action against activities like spamming and intrusion into privacy data, especially in the banking sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Addressing a group of Indian reporters at a news conference here on Saturday, Ms. Sitharaman said the government has withdrawn the old data protection bill and the new one is likely to come sooner.

In the meanwhile, action is being taken on spamming and unsolicited calls and messages. The government is working intensely to contain these kinds of activities which are not right, FM said.

“But of course, they keep coming. It’s not as if it is all extinguished till yesterday and today nothing has happened. They keep coming up like mushrooms, but the government is very seized of this matter and efforts are on,” the Finance Minister said in response to a question.

Even in the newer data or digital based kind of services, which are being extended to people like the account aggregator, there is a conscious attempt to make sure that consent of the data owner is used and used for that specific purpose for which the consent is given, FM said.

“There is a high level of monitoring in this, particularly in the banking sector, which I closely monitor. Even in the account aggregator where we came across some kind of misuse by some outsourced elements, we have clamped down severely,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

“You would have heard of the arrests of some people who misused these kinds of data apps for lending money. Particularly in Andhra and Telangana, we arrested a lot of nationals from one country who were misusing the data,” FM said, apparently referring to many Chinese citizens.

“So action is happening equally, preventive steps happening equally. But of course, that has to be kept up,” the FM said.