Stories
Sovereign Cloud Rules Must Go Beyond Data Localisation: Industry
- •Industry executives state that India's proposed sovereign cloud framework must focus on technology control and access, not just data residency.
- •Tata Communications emphasizes that sovereignty involves the entire stack, including technology ownership, operations, and infrastructure hosting.
- •Experts like Tarun Wig of Innefu Labs suggest that workloads touching national security and defence should sit entirely offline and within government control.
- •Nakul Jain of Aplyd advocates for sovereignty assessed through local operational control, domestic encryption key ownership, and protection against foreign legal reach.
- •The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has formed a committee to develop a clear sovereign cloud framework for government data.
Key Questions Answered
Industry executives argue that the sovereign cloud framework must go beyond mere data residency to encompass technology ownership, operational control, and data sensitivity. They suggest graded controls where critical sectors like defense and law enforcement have strict safeguards, while other workloads use technical and contractual measures.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has constituted a committee to establish a sovereign cloud framework for government data, holding multiple meetings to determine where public sector information can be stored and who can access it.
Leaders like Tarun Wig of Innefu Labs suggested that servers handling national security, defense, or law enforcement should remain entirely offline and under government control to prevent foreign jurisdictional risks. Meanwhile, companies like Tata Communications emphasized evaluating the entire technology stack rather than just focusing on data residency.
