In simple words
Companies must take reasonable security steps. At minimum: encryption or masking, access control, logs and monitoring, backups, keeping logs for one year, security terms in contracts with processors, and other technical and organisational measures.
- What this means for you
- Companies must protect your data with real security measures.
- What this means for businesses
- Map your controls to clauses (a) to (g). Keep logs and related data for one year unless another law says otherwise.
- Everyday example
- An online store encrypts card-linked data, restricts staff access and keeps access logs to spot misuse.
Who it applies to
Data Fiduciaries and, through contracts, their Data Processors.
Related sections and Schedules
Official textas notified
Source: MeitY copy of the Gazette, page 26. Printed dashes are shown as colons; the wording is unchanged.
(1) A Data Fiduciary shall protect personal data in its possession or under its control, including in respect of any processing undertaken by it or on its behalf by a Data Processor, by taking reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breach, which shall include, at the minimum,
(a) appropriate data security measures, such as securing of personal data through encryption, obfuscation, masking or the use of virtual tokens mapped to that personal data;
(b) appropriate measures to control access to the computer resources used by such Data Fiduciary or such a Data Processor, wherever applicable;
(c) visibility on the accessing of such personal data, through appropriate logs, monitoring and review, for enabling detection of unauthorised access, its investigation and remediation to prevent recurrence;
(d) reasonable measures for continued processing in the event of confidentiality, integrity or availability of such personal data being compromised as a result of destruction or loss of access to personal data or otherwise, such as by way of data-backups;
(e) for enabling the detection of unauthorised access, its investigation, remediation to prevent recurrence and continued processing in the event of such a compromise, retain such logs and personal data for a period of one year, unless compliance with any law for the time being in force requires otherwise;
(f) appropriate provision in the contract entered into between such Data Fiduciary and such a Data Processor, wherever applicable, for taking reasonable security safeguards; and
(g) appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure effective observance of security safeguards.
(2) In this rule, the expression “computer resource” shall have the same meaning as is assigned to it in Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000).