A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, led by former Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha, held a meeting with major companies including Apple, Paytm, Flipkart, and banks to address concerns regarding the safety of customer data and cybercrime issues. The meeting took place on Tuesday (July 4) and aimed to understand the measures implemented by these entities to protect customer information.
During the first round of discussions, banks briefed the panel about the safety measures they have adopted to secure customer data. Despite the recent increase in cybercrimes, the banks assured the committee that they have been able to effectively control such incidents through stringent safety protocols.
The second round of discussions focused on e-commerce businesses, including Apple, and their efforts to safeguard customer data. The companies were questioned about the measures they have in place to prevent data breaches and how they compensate customers in case of such incidents.
This meeting follows a previous gathering in June, where the committee engaged with fintech companies Razorpay, PhonePe, and CRED, as well as quantum computing startup QNu Labs, to address similar concerns. Industry body NASSCOM was also involved in the discussions.
Earlier this year, MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar informed Parliament that India witnessed 13.91 lakh cyberattacks in 2022. The rising number of cyber threats has prompted the Indian government, both at the state and national levels, to take proactive measures to tackle this issue.
In April, the Cyberabad Police in Telangana apprehended a data theft gang that had access to data from approximately 669 million user accounts across 24 states and eight metropolitan cities. The stolen data included information from various Indian tech startups such as BYJU’S, Vedantu, Paytm, PhonePe, Zomato, Policybazaar, CRED, BigBasket, and Upstox.
The discussions held by the Parliamentary panel highlight the increasing importance of data security and the need for companies and banks to prioritize robust measures to protect customer information in the face of evolving cyber threats.
