India will not compromise on data sovereignty: Ravi Shankar Prasad

New Delhi: Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said that India will not compromise on the country`s data sovereignty.

"Data is an asset. Data of Indians belong to the people of India and to the sovereign. We will not accept any compromise with data sovereignty of India," Ravi Shankar Prasad said at the Thakur Prasad Memorial Lecture here.

"If we have banned a few mobile applications on the grounds of national security, then we are also encouraging Indian application developers to build mobile applications," he added.

Earlier on July 9, Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that a fair data regime thrives only in a democratic ecosystem and any kind of data imperialism is unacceptable.

He also said that the Indian app economy is huge and there is a need to get into the habit of uploading apps that are made in India. The government on June 29, banned 59 apps, mostly Chinese, including Tik Tok and UC Browser that were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

The Ministry of Information Technology had said in a release that it has decided to block 59 apps in view of the information available that "they are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order".