Email interception must not hit corporates' interest: Assocham

Calls for adoption of security standards to protect and secure data

PTI | March 25, 2011



Amidst the government demand for accessing contents of telecom services and company emails, industry body Assocham today urged the telecom ministry to factor in the business interest of enterprises while intercepting corporate e-mails.

"We need to ensure standardised policies on adoption of security standards to protect and secure data, while preventing fraud and misuse," Assocham said in a letter to Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal.

It called for framing of guidelines to ensure that such free access to companies' e-mails does not undermine their confidence.

Government has asked telecom service providers to ensure that the content being transmitted on their network should be accessible by security agencies.

Assocham said enterprises are willing to cooperate in any investigation where interception is lawful and a clear case has been established of possible involvement in anti-national activity.

It said that foreign direct investment (FDI) could also be affected due to encryption of data of global firms operating in India.

It recalled that FDI inflows into India had declined by 25 per cent to USD 17 billion between April 2010 to January 2011 from USD 22.9 billion in the year-ago period.

Citing security concerns, the Home Ministry has asked the Department of Telecom to ensure that all telecom operators in consultation with providers of services like BlackBerry, Skype and GTalk inform the government by March 31, the deadlines by which the security agencies can intercept their services.





 

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