Financial Regulators and the Need for Data Privacy and Protection- Issues, Opportunities and Challenges

To date, India does not have a data protection legislation that unlike its European counterpart, US, UK or UAE, where dedicated legislations are in force. India is also not a party to any convention on the protection of personal data except the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which recognises the Right to Privacy. With the increased digitalization and the consequent risk of data breaches across borders, the policymakers in India are constantly in the process of drafting water-tight legislation and policies to ensure adequate data protection and to prevent the breach of personal data. The recent developments such as the development of Cert-Fin and the IFSCA, Gandhinagar are in the process of inception but to what extent will they be able to safeguard the associated risks is a territory yet to be explored. This paper is an attempt to primarily focus on legislations in India and their comparison with the legislation abroad with a  special reference to the financial regulators. Further, the Author tries to critically analyse the effectiveness of such legislations and proposed frameworks that the financial regulators came up with, followed by suggestions and recommendations which might serve as guidance in future.