eSignature Document for HR Safe

A document safe is a secure platform for storing and managing your important documents. airSlate SignNow offers a robust solution that ensures your documents are protected with top-notch security measures, including encryption and access controls, making it a reliable document safe for your business.

airSlate SignNow prioritizes document safety by utilizing advanced encryption protocols and secure servers to protect your files. Additionally, we implement strict access controls that limit who can view or edit your documents, ensuring that your sensitive information remains confidential.

airSlate SignNow offers flexible pricing plans designed to cater to businesses of all sizes. Our pricing is competitive and reflects the value of a secure document safe, providing cost-effective solutions that enable you to manage your documents efficiently without compromising on security.

Yes, airSlate SignNow supports integrations with various popular applications to enhance your document safety and workflow. By connecting with tools you already use, you can streamline document management processes while ensuring all your documents remain secure and easily accessible.

airSlate SignNow includes features such as advanced electronic signatures, secure storage, and audit trails, all of which contribute to its effectiveness as a document safe. These features not only protect your documents but also provide transparency and accountability throughout the signing and storage processes.

Electronic signing on airSlate SignNow enhances document safety by providing a secure and verifiable process for signing documents. It eliminates the risks associated with traditional signing methods, and all documents are encrypted and stored safely, ensuring that your agreements remain intact and protected.

Yes, airSlate SignNow offers a mobile app that allows you to access your documents securely from anywhere. This mobile solution ensures that your document safe is always at your fingertips, giving you the flexibility to manage and sign documents while maintaining the same level of security.

The HR field has seen constant improvements in the last decades, and big data and software is here to speed up this process. We have done this research to help all our colleagues in HR understand what is the role of Big Data in HR and how it could change the future of HR for ever. Hope it will help you, too.Big Data (BD) seems like a great match for Learning & Development (L&D) practices in organisations around the world. After all, it relates to the compilation and analysis of data sets most commonly related to human behaviour. By looking at a large amount of information gathered over extended periods of time, HR practitioners are able to identify patterns in human habits and interactions that can then be used to make razor-sharp decisions for sustainable staff improvement and satisfaction.The managing director of Daimler Benz claimed in 2017 that as computers are becoming more intelligent, they have started to deliver more precise and faster decisions than humans. IBM Watson already helps doctors in diagnosing cancer, four times more accurately than human doctors. There are companies who build a medical device (named after the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone to take a retina scan, a blood sample, and a breath test and that will analyse 54 biomarkers to identify diseases. So in a few years world-class medical analysis will be widely accessible, nearly for free. Watson is also reported to deliver legal advice (so far for fairly basic matters) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. As these trends unfold will artificial intelligence soon replace HR decision makers?However, others argue that there is no such thing as Big Data in HR. The idea that empirical methods can give an all-encompassing answer to big age-old HR questions is thoroughly rejected by authoritative sources like Harvard Business Review. HBR claims that Google’s Project Oxygen, a multi-year project that analyses people data and was poised to figure out what makes a good manager, has come to a conclusion that researchers had identified decades ago. Big Data’s role in HR, sceptics argue, is not one of acumen, but of analytics.Where is the challenge?Clearly, there is a debate about the pros and cons of applying Big Data to HR management.Part of the reason may lie in change management at the area of disruptive digitalisation. Traditionally, change management has been at the forefront of digitalisation, but also its biggest obstacle, because it relies so heavily on the personal attributes of the manager, and the willingness of employees to follow through with their plan.Professional services giant Deloitte is quick to point out that prior to embarking on a data-driven digital journey, change managers must align the entire organisation towards digitalisation and agree on the value it adds to the whole operation. Obviously this includes HR and L&D.The use of Big Data opens up a world of possibilities for L&D departments, but it is also a substantial challenge, according to Learning Wire. Those challenges include the imperfection of current tools, the lack of human skill in analysing the data, and internal resistance to this sort of generalised data-based decision making.And so it falls on leaders of all departments, change managers, and C-level executives alike, to tackle these challenges and turn them into opportunities.What opportunities does Big Data present to L&D?Challenges aside, there are some practices that have already taken root and have proven to work. All of them build upon existing HR methods, but also borrow heavily from other fields such as consumerism and marketing, which have benefited greatly from digitalisation.Little DataThe routine measurement of things such as number of participants, courses, hours spent, costs, duration, participant reaction, and amount learned has long been analysed by L&D managers. However, the fact that this is not typically cross-referenced with other metrics leaves most L&D divisions with “little data” instead of “big data”.Still, years of gathering this kind of information has allowed for the understanding of the impact of learning on employees. L&D departments nowadays are more aware of the impact of their work on overall productivity than divisions such as “talent acquisition” and “rewards”.These practices should be continued but, more importantly, they could be used as a base to build on and expand Big Data analytics.Employee-centric designThis has to do with designing L&D tools that cater to the employee, rather than the manager. It is a shift from so-called “instructional design” to “experience design”, phrases coined by senior Deloitte L&D analyst Josh Bersin. Experience design makes learning and information support easy and intuitive to use. It borrows from the IT term User Experience (UX), which puts ease and preference of use above all else. Designing apps, intranet resources and even non-digital tools with this philosophy in mind can be achieved via Big Data analytics by tracking the way employees use these instruments to learn.According to Bersin, L&D managers can no longer see themselves as trainers or instructors:“While instructional design continues to play a role, we now need L&D to focus on “experience design”, “design thinking”, the development of “employee journey maps”, and much more experimental, data-driven solutions in the flow of work.”Data-driven contentThe current L&D framework at companies around the world is similar to the way digital marketing is conducted. Guillermo Miranda, IBM’s Chief Learning Officer, describes it as being composed of various types of content, whose data on interactions and activities is meticulously collected and analysed. This data is then used to create intelligent systems to promote this content and monitor the way employees are using it in order to personalise it to their needs.Big Data is at the centre of this approach, since it is able to track the preferences of employees with regard to the content they are receiving and the way they are processing it. By the way, Facebook uses a similar algorithm in its News Feed, and that has helped turn it into a multi-billion company.See the complete analysis and research on the topic here!

Any industry involving a large amount of paperwork make use electronic signatures. In other words, all industries make use of electronic signatures because all of them have piles of paperwork to handle. Some examples of such industries include financial, life science, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.Industries such as the pharmaceutical industry, have a number of licenses and other paperwork that they have to handle and keep track of. It can be a tedious task to perform such cumbersome paper processes. Therefore, e-signatures can facilitate an organisation in keeping a track of all this paperwork, by signing electronically.Healthcare industries usually involve time-sensitive documents, which need to be urgently completed. But, it can take days in case of the traditional wet ink paper signatures for the documents to signNow the signer and back, if the parties are geographically scattered. But with electronic signatures, that is not the case. Geographical barriers do not play a role. Documents which earlier needed days to be completed, can now be signed and sent back within minutes, in the click of a button. Furthermore, it takes a long time to bring assets under management. The time taken by the signing process, if wet ink paper signatures are used, may even further delay the process. But by using electronic signatures, the whole process can speed up.Apart from these, there are many paper prone industries which require huge amount of paperwork and with the use of electronic signatures they can make their everyday processes smoother and more efficient.

First of all, getting rejected does not mean the “End of the World”.Disclaimer:The answer is going to be very long and this is my personal experience. Please read it till the end, I am sure you will get benefitted. If you want any personal suggestion, please comment on the answer and I will try to answer your query.Although I don’t want to share my personal story, let me share with you so that you might feel that you are not alone. There are others who felt almost the same.Almost 10 years back, I completed my B-Tech from Icfai University, Dehradun in Computer Science.That time, it was a big...

Document management software (DMS) came about to provide an automated way of organizing, capturing, digitizing, tagging, approving, storing, accessing, and completing tasks involving your business files and documents. Cloud-based document management software will even provide you a secure, central online repository of your documents where you can easily search and retrieve files and share with others. All these translate to efficiency, productivity, and savings. And you contribute to the paperless movement that’s good for the environment.AlfrescoIt is an Open source ECM that provides document management, collaboration, knowledge and web content management, record & image management, content repository, and workflow It supports the Common Interface File System(CIFS) that enables document compatibility with Windows as well as Unix like Operating Systems. Alfresco comes with API support and works as a back-end to store and retrieve the contents. Easy customization and version control are the best features of Alfresco but are quite complex to use.LogicalDOCLogicalDOC is an open source Java-based system and can be accessible by any web browser. This system can be accessed on your own network and it allows to create and manage any number of documents. Helps to improve productivity and collaboration of the document management system. Avails quick access and easy retrieval of contents. It uses Java Frameworks like Hibernate, Lucene, and Spring to provide highly flexible Document Management solution. Comes with a set of well-dFeng OfficeFeng Office is an open source DMS with a web-based collaboration platform. Some good features of Feng Office include time tracking, Gantt Chart, task management, and knowledge management. It is user-friendly and allows you to tag items. You can even track and mail the content to multiple users at the same time. The only drawback is that it makes some of its features paid-only with every update. defined API to integrate with third-party applications.NuxeoNuxeo is an open source system that manages the flow of contents through the business cycle. The proven system to reduces time consumption required for content search and retrieval. Provides a number of ways to capture the contents including image scanning. Audit logging is one of the good features that you can use to track the content and is an easier way too. Serves a rich set of APIs, robust platform, easy customization, and maintenance of projects. But it is quite tricky for beginners and some instance customization may become complex as well.signNowsignNow is an online document management platform that lets you create, deliver, and share documents online. It allows for legally binding e-signatures ad supports various document formats like PDFs, Docs, and other preexisting digital documents for faster paperless transactions and processes. The software works well with quotes, contracts, agreements, and other sales collateral, and is ideal for use by your HR, sales, marketing, finance, legal and operations departments. For that matter, any business or organization where document building, sharing, and delivery are integral to operation can benefit from signNow’s powerful capabilities.eFileCabineteFileCabinet is regarded as one of the most secure and scalable DMS today, offering enterprise capabilities at small business prices. It is a one-stop-shop document management solution which covers a variety of delivery modules, allows for easy and fast upload, and simplifies data migration. It offers workflow automation completely customizable to your business, advanced search to give you quick access to documents, out of the box integration to swiftly get you up and running, and data governance which guarantees that your data is always safe and compliant.SmartDocuments EuropeSmartDocuments Europe is a cloud document creation platform that gives you tools to build and assemble documents organization-wide anytime and anywhere. It offers a suite of template management features where you can easily create your own templates for letters, mailings, invoices, and more, using simple drag and drop functionality and an easy to use an editor. All templates are centrally managed and available in the Template Repository across the organization and across applications.SamepageSamepage is an award-winning project collaboration software that brings you collaborative tools, communications solutions, and document management capabilities in one cloud-hosted platform. Its all about productivity, and Samepage lets you achieve that through features and capabilities that include team chat, video conferencing, task management, file sharing, real-time document collaboration, and more. The software is designed to help teams of all sizes manage projects and get more done in a single easy-to-use workspace.To know more click here

When it comes down to choosing a good solution to manage your documents, whether you’re an individual, or part of a company, there are a few things to consider, and it basically boils down to what you need the software to accomplish, how much automation you want, how easy do you want it to be.A good all around option I’d suggest checking out it Kdan Document 365. It has some nice features to help you manage your PDFs (editing, signing, etc.,) and other kinds of documents you might be working with. If you’re part of a company, it’s easy to share and collaborate on projects/documents/presen...

The Information Technology Act, 2000 came into force on 17.10.2000 vide G.S.R No. 788(E) dated 17.10.2000 and for the first time, a legal definition of “Computer”, “Data”, “electronic record”, “Information” et al were provided. The said Act gave a legal recognition to the electronic records and digital signatures and in Chapter IX thereof provided for penalty and adjudication. Section 43 of the Act interalia provided that in case of unauthorised access, download or copying or damage to data etc, the person responsible shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation not exceeding one crore rupees to the person affected.Apart from civil liability provided under Section 43, Chapter XI (Sections 63 to 78) of the Act of 2000 provided for criminal liability in cases of Tampering, Hacking, publishing or transmitting obscene material, misrepresentation etc. Apart from the same, Section 72 of the Act provided for penalty in case of bsignNow of confidentiality and privacy and laid that in case any person who has secured access to any electronic record, Data or information, discloses the same to any other person without obtaining the consent of the person concerned, he shall be punished with imprisonment upto two years or with fine upto Rupees one lakh or with both.However, the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 were not adequate and the need for more stringent data protection measures were felt, the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 was enacted which came into force on 27.10.2009. The said Amendment Act brought in the concepts like cyber security in the statute book and widened the scope of digital signatures by replacing the words “electronic signature”. The amendment act also provided for secure electronic signatures and enjoined the central government to prescribe security procedures and practices for securing electronic records and signatures (Sections 15-16) The amendment Act also removed the cap of Rupees One Crore as earlier provided under Section 43 for damage to computer and computer systems and for unauthorised downloading/ copying of data. The said Amendment Act also introduced Section 43A which provides for compensation to be paid in case a body corporate fails to protect the data. Section 46 of the Act prescribes that the person affected has to approach the adjudicating officer appointed under Section 46 of the Act in case the claim for injury or damage does not exceed Rupees Five crores and the civil court in case, the claim exceeds Rupees Five crores. The amendment act also brought/ introduced several new provisions which provide for offenses such as identity theft, receiving stolen computer resource/ device, cheating, violation of privacy, cyber terrorism, pornography (Section 66A-F & 67A-C). The amendment act also brought in provisions directing intermediaries to protect the data/information and penalty has been prescribed for disclosure of information of information in bsignNow of lawful contract (Section 72A)With the enactment of the Amendment Act of 2008, India for the first time got statutory provisions dealing with data protection. However, as the ingredients of “sensitive personal data and information” as well as the “reasonable security practices and procedures” were yet to be prescribed by the Central Government, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology vide Notification No. GSR 313 (E) dated 11th April 2011 made the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information ) Rules, 2011 (the said rules). Rule 3 of the said rules defines personal sensitive data or information and provides that the same may include information relating to password, financial information such as bank account or credit card details, health condition, medical records etc. Rule 4 enjoins every body corporate which receives or deals with information to provide a privacy policy. Rule 5 prescribes that every body corporate shall obtain consent in writing from the provider of the sensitive information regarding purpose of usage before collection of such information and such body corporate will not collect such information unless it is collected for a lawful purpose connected with the function or activity of such body corporate and collection of such information or data is necessary and once such data is collected, it shall not be retained for a period longer than what is required. Rule 6 provides that disclosure of the information to any third party shall require prior permission from the provider unless such disclosure has been agreed to in the contract between the body corporate and the provider or where the disclosure is necessary for compliance of a legal obligation. The Body corporate has been barred to publish sensitive information and the third parties receiving such information have been barred to disclose it further. Rule 7 lays down that the body corporate may transfer such information to any other body corporate or person in India or outside, that ensure the same level of data protection and such transfer will be allowed only if it is necessary for performance of lawful contract between the body corporate and provider of information or where the provider has consented for data transfer. Rule 8 of the said rules further provide reasonable security practises and procedures and lays down that international standard IS/ISO/IEC 27001 on “Information Technology- Security Techniques- Information Security Management System- requirements “ would be one such standard.The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology further issued a press note dated 24th August 2011 and clarified that the said rules are applicable to the body corporate or any person located within India. The press note further provides that any body corporate providing services relating to collection or handling of sensitive personal data or information under contractual obligation with any other legal entity located within India or outside is not subject to requirements of Rules 5 &6 as mentioned hereinabove. A body corporate providing services to the provider of information under a contractual obligation directly with them however has to comply with Rules 5 &6. The said press note also clarifies that privacy policy mentioned in Rule 4 relates to the body corporate and is not with respect to any particular obligation under the contract. The press note at the end provides that the consent mentioned in Rule 5 includes consent given by any mode of electronic communication.Data Protection relates to issues relating to the collection, storage, accuracy and use of data provided by net users in the use of the World Wide Web. Visitors to any website want their privacy rights to be respected when they engage in e-Commerce. It is part of the confidence-creating role that successful e-Commerce businesses have to convey to the consumer. If industry doesn't make sure it's guarding the privacy of the data it collects, it will be the responsibility of the government and it's their obligation to enact legislation.Any transaction between two or more parties involves an exchange of essential information between the parties. Technological developments have enabled transactions by electronic means. Any such information/data collected by the parties should be used only for the specific purposes for which they were collected. The need arose, to create rights for those who have their data stored and create responsibilities for those who collect, store and process such data. The law relating to the creation of such rights and responsibilities may be referred to as ‘data protection’ law.The world’s first computer specific statute was enacted in the form of a Data Protection Act, in the German state of Hesse, in 1970.The misuse of records under the Nazi regime had raised concerns among the public about the use of computers to store and process large amounts of personal data.The Data Protection Act sought to heal such memories of misuse of information. A different rationale for the introduction of data protection legislation can be seen in the case of Sweden which introduced the first national statute in 1973.Here, data protection was seen as fitting naturally into a two hundred year old system of freedom of information with the concept of subject access (such a right allows an individual to find out what information is held about him) being identified as one of the most important aspects of the legislation.In 1995, the European Union adopted its Directive (95/46/EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (hereinafter, the Directive), establishing a detailed privacy regulatory structure. The Directive is specific on the requirements for the transfer of data. It sets down the principles regarding the transfer of data to third countries and states that personal data of EU nationals cannot be sent to countries that do not meet the EU “adequacy” standards with respect to privacy.In order to meet the EU “adequacy” standards, US developed a ‘Safe Harbour’ framework, according to which the US Department of Commerce would maintain a list of US companies that have self-certified to the safe harbor framework. An EU organization can ensure that it is sending information to a U.S. organization participating in the safe harbor by viewing the public list of safe harbor organizations posted on the official website.Data protection has emerged as an important reaction to the development of information technology. In India data protection is covered under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (hereinafter, the Act). The Act defines ‘data’ as, “‘data’ means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions which are being prepared or have been prepared in a formalized manner, and is intended to be processed, is being processed or has been processed in a computer system or computer network, and may be in any form (including computer printouts magnetic or optical storage media, punched cards, punched tapes) or stored internally in the memory of the computer”. Protection of such data and privacy are covered under specific provisions in the Act. In the recent past, the need for data protection laws has been felt to cater to various needs. The following analyses the position of data protection law with respect to some of the needs.Data Protection Law In Respect of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES)India started liberalizing its economy in the 1990’s and since then a huge upsurge in the IT business process outsourcing may be witnessed. Financial, educational, legal, marketing, healthcare, telecommunication, banking etc are only some of the services being outsourced into India. This upsurge of outsourcing of ITES into India in the recent past may be attributed to the large English-speaking unemployed populace, cheap labour, enterprising and hardworking nature of the people etc. Statistics have shown that the outsourcing industry is one of the biggest sources of employment. In a span of four years, the number of people working in call centers in the country supporting international industries has risen from 42,000 to 3,50,000. Exports were worth $5.2 billion in 2004-2005 and are expected to grow over 40% this fiscal year. US is currently the biggest investor in Indian ITES, taking advantage of cheap labour costs. Statistics indicate that software engineers with two-years experience in India are being paid about 1/5th of an equivalent US employee.Concerns about adequacy of lawBPO FraudsWith globalization and increasing BPO industry in India, protection of data warrants legislation. There are reasons for this. Every individual consumer of the BPO Industry would expect different levels of privacy from the employees who handle personal data. But there have been situations in the recent past where employees or systems have given away the personal information of customers to third parties without prior consent. So other countries providing BPO business to India expect the Indian government and BPO organizations to take measures for data protection. Countries with data protection law have guidelines that call for data protection law in the country with whom they are transacting.For instance, in, the European Union countries according to the latest guidelines, they will cease to part with data, which are considered the subject matter of protection to any third country unless such other country has a similar law on data protection. One of the essential features of any data protection law would be to prevent the flow of data to non-complying countries and such a provision when implemented may result in a loss of "Data Processing" business to some of the Indian companies.In the recent past, concerns have been raised both within the country as well as by customers abroad regarding the adequacy of data protection and privacy laws in the country. A few incidents have questioned the Indian data protection and privacy standards and have left the outsourcing industry embarrassed. In June 2005, ‘The Sun’ newspaper claimed that one of its journalists bought personal details including passwords, addresses and passport data from a Delhi IT worker for £4.25 each. Earlier BPO frauds in India include New York-based Citibank accounts being looted from a BPO in Pune and a call-center employee in Bangalore peddling credit card information to fraudsters who stole US$398,000 from British bank accounts.UK's Channel 4 TV station ran broadcast footage of a sting operation exposing middlemen hawking the financial data of 200,000 UK citizens. The documentary has prompted Britain's Information Commissioner's Office to examine the security of personal financial data at Indian call centers.In the absence of data protection laws, the kind of work that would be outsourced to India in the future would be limited. The effect of this can be very well seen in the health-care BPO business, which is estimated to be worth close to $45 billion. Lack of data protection laws have left Indian BPO outfits still stagnating in the lower end of the value chain, doing work like billing, insurance claims processing and of course transcription. Besides healthcare, players in the retail financial sector are also affected. Financial offshoring from banks is limited because of statutory compliance requirements and data privacy laws protecting sensitive financial information in accounts. In the Human Resource (HR) domain, there are many restrictions on sharing of personal information. In the medical domain, patient history needs to be protected. In credit card transactions, identity theft could be an issue and needs to be protected. Companies in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector and healthcare have excluded applications/processes which use sensitive information from their portfolio for offshoring till they are comfortable about the data protection laws prevalent in the supplier country.Since there is lack of data protection laws in India, Indian BPO outfits are trying to deal with the issue by attempting to adhere to major US and European regulations. MNCs have to comply with foreign Regulations so that they don’t lose on their international partners. There are problems involved in this. Efforts by individual companies may not count for much if companies rule out India as a BPO destination in the first place in the absence of data protection law.Today, the largest portion of BPO work coming to India is low-end call centre and data processing work. If India has to exploit the full potential of the outsourcing opportunity, then we have to move up the value chain. Outsourced work in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)-intensive areas such as clinical research, engineering design and legal research is the way ahead for Indian BPO companies. The move up the value chain cannot happen without stringent laws. Further, weak laws would act as deterrents for FDI, global business and the establishment of research and development parks in the pharmaceutical industry.Looking to the above scenario, we can say that for India to achieve heights in BPO industry stringent laws for data protection and intellectual property rights have to be made. . Thus, a law on data protection on India must address the following Constitutional issues on a "priority basis" before any statutory enactment procedure is set into motion:(1) Privacy rights of interested persons in real space and cyber space.(2) Mandates of freedom of information U/A 19 (1) (a).(3) Mandates of right to know of people at large U/A 21.Once the data protection rules are enforced in India, companies outsourcing to India are unlikely to dismantle the systems they have in place straightaway, and move data more freely to India. Hence ,the need for data protection laws would win over the confidence of international business partners; protect abuse of information; protection of privacy and personal rights of individuals would be ensured; there would be more FDI inflows, global business and the establishment of research and development parks in the pharmaceutical industry & impetus to the sector of e-Commerce at national and international levels would be provided.Data protection law in India (Present status):-Data Protection law in India is included in the Act under specific provisions. Both civil and criminal liabilities are imposed for violation of data protection.(1) Section 43 deals with penalties for damage to computer, computer system etc.(2) Section 65 deals with tampering with computer source documents.(3) Section 66 deals with hacking with computer system.(4) Section 72 deals with penalty for bsignNow of confidentiality and privacy. Call centers can be included in the definition of ‘intermediary’and a ‘network service provider’ and can be penalized under this section.These developments have put the Indian government under pressure to enact more stringent data protection laws in the country in order to protect the lucrative Indian outsourcing industry. In order to use IT as a tool for socio-economic development, employment generation and to consolidate India’s position as a major player in the IT sector,amendments to the IT Act, 2000 have been approved by the cabinet and are due to be tabled in the winter session of the Parliament.Proposed amendments:-The amendments relate to the following[22]:(i) Proposal at Sec. 43 (2) related to handling of sensitive personal data or information with reasonable security practices and procedures.(ii) Gradation of severity of computer related offences under Section 66, committed dishonestly or fraudulently and punishment thereof.(iii) Proposed additional Section 72 (2) for bsignNow of confidentiality with intent to cause injury to a subscriber.It is hoped that these amendments will strengthen the law to suffice the need.Data Protection Laws In Order To Invite ‘Data Controllers’.There has been a strong opinion that if India strengthens its data protection law, it can attract multi-national corporations to India. India can be home to such corporations than a mere supplier of services.In fact, there is an argument that the EU’s data protection law is sufficient to protect the privacy of its people and thus lack of strong protection under Indian law is not a hindrance to the outsourcing industry. To enumerate, consider a company established in EU (called the ‘data controller’) and the supplier of call center services (‘data processor’) in India. If the data processor makes any mistake in the processing of personal data or there are instances of data theft, then the data controller in the EU can be made liable for the consequences. The Indian data processor is not in control of personal data and can only process data under the instructions of the data controller. Thus if a person in EU wants to exercise rights of access and retrieve personal data, the data controller has to retrieve it from the data processor, irrespective of where the data processor is located. Thus a strong data protection law is needed not only to reinforce the image of the Indian outsourcing industry but also to invite multi-national corporations to establish their corporate offices here.Data Protection And TelemarketingIndia is faced with a new phenomenon-telemarketing. This is facilitated, to a large extent, by the widespread use of mobile telephones. Telemarketing executives, now said to be available for as low as US $70 per month, process information about individuals for direct marketing. This interrupts the peace of an individual and conduct of work. There is a violation of privacy caused by such calls who, on behalf of banks, mobile phone companies, financial institutions etc. offer various schemes. The right to privacy has been read into Article 21, Constitution of India, but this has not afforded enough protection. A PIL against several banks and mobile phone service providers is pending before the Supreme Court alleging inter alia that the right to privacy has been infringed.The EC Directive confers certain rights on the people and this includes the right to prevent processing for direct marketing. Thus, a data controller is required not to process information about individuals for direct marketing if an individual asks them not to. So individuals have the right to stop unwanted marketing offers. It would be highly beneficial that data protection law in India also includes such a right to prevent unsolicited marketing offers and protect the privacy of the people.Data Protection With Regard To Governance And PeopleThe Preamble to the Act specifies that, the IT Act 2000, inter alia, will facilitate electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies. It seeks to promote efficient delivery of Government services by means of reliable electronic records. Stringent data protection laws will thus help the Government to protect the interests of its people.Data protection law is necessary to provide protection to the privacy rights of people and to hold cyber criminals responsible for their wrongful acts. Data protection law is not about keeping personal information secret. It is about creating a trusted framework for collection, exchange and use of personal data in commercial and governmental contexts. It is to permit and facilitate the commercial and governmental use of personal data.The Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and Department of Information Technology(DIT) must also rejuvenate its efforts in this regard on the similar lines. However, the best solution can come from good legislative provisions along with suitable public and employee awareness. It is high time that we must pay attention to Data Security in India. Cyber Security in India is missing and the same requires rejuvenation. When even PMO's cyber security is compromised for many months we must at least now wake up. Data bsignNowes and cyber crimes in India cannot be reduced until we make strong cyber laws. We cannot do so by mere declaring a cat as a tiger. Cyber law of India must also be supported by sound cyber security and effective cyber forensics.Indian companies in the IT and BPO sectors handle and have access to all kinds of sensitive and personal data of individuals across the world, including their credit card details, financial information and even their medical history. These Companies store confidential data and information in electronic form and this could be vulnerable in the hands of their employees. It is often misused by unsurplous elements among them. There have been instances of security bsignNowes and data leakages in high profile Indian companies. The recent incidents of data thefts in the BPO industry have raised concerns about data privacy.There is no express legislation in India dealing with data protection. Although the Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced in Parliament in 2006, it is yet to see the light of day. The bill seems to proceed on the general framework of the European Union Data Privacy Directive, 1996. It follows a comprehensive model with the bill aiming to govern the collection, processing and distribution of personal data. It is important to note that the applicability of the bill is limited to ‘personal data’ as defined in Clause 2 of the bill.The bill applies both to government as well as private enterprises engaged in data functions. There is a provision for the appointment of, “Data Controllers”, who have general superintendence and adjudicatory jurisdiction over subjects covered by the bill. It also provides that penal sanctions may be imposed on offenders in addition to compensation for damages to victims.The stringency of data protection law, whether the prevailing law will suffice such needs, whether the proposed amendments are a welcome measure, whether India needs a separate legislation for data protection etc are questions which require an in-depth analysis of the prevailing circumstances and a comparative study with laws of other countries. There is no consensus among the experts regarding these issues. These issues are not in the purview of this write-up. But there can be no doubt about the importance of data protection law in the contemporary IT scenario and are not disputable.