India’s DPI approach could yet rival the Brussels Effect

livemint.com:

fire. Five years after the GDPR came into force, concerns are being expressed about how inconvenient it is that everyone who has anything to do with Europe, no matter how remote, still has to comply with its provisions.

What’s more, even though it was originally designed to keep big technology companies in check, it is now abundantly clear that compliance with these regulations requires pockets so deep that it is only those very companies whose activities it was supposed to constrain that can afford to remain in compliance with all that it demands. Over its G20 presidency, India made a big push for wider global adoption of its Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach, a framework that, as I argue in my new book, presents a brand new approach to data governance.

It embeds regulatory principles directly into the code of the digital infrastructure, assuring compliance through the very act of participation. Not only does this reduce costs, it lowers the regulatory burden on nations that adopt this approach.

While there is no doubt that India is a large and commercially significant market (for many of the world’s largest technology companies, it is already the largest customer base by volume), market size alone will not result in this new data governance approach being widely accepted. What’s needed are strong regulatory institutions empowered to consistently deploy the DPI approach across different sectors with an eye to ensuring that each such deployment adheres to consistent governance principles.

This requires a commitment to the notion of techno-legal governance and a clear appreciation of all that it can achieve. It will require regulators adept at the art of policy formulation as well as equipped with the level of