- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended setting up of an industry body for cloud service providers as part of a “light touch regulatory framework”.
- Trai said the Department of Telecom (DoT) may initiate setting up of the first industry-led body in this regard and require all cloud service providers (CSPs) to become its members.
- This body would lay down broad principles and procedures to aid its functioning.
- A registered industry body working in conjunction with DoT or TRAI would enable the stakeholders to discover the right spot in the continuum.
- The scope of CSPs may be initially limited to providers offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) in India or to customers in India.
- The category of Software as a Service (SaaS) providers may voluntarily enrol for membership, if they wish.
- The regulator mooted that the first industry body could be set up by DoT as a non-profit body in a three-step process —
- enrolment of CSPs operating in India;
- formation of an adhoc body to frame broad rules, organisational structure, election procedure; and
- Election of office bearers to take over its functioning as a regular industry body.
- Opposition to a regulatory framework is on the grounds that they are already subjected to various existing Indian laws, which are IT Act, 2000; Consumer Protection Act, 2019; and the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.
- They also claimed that while cloud computing is provided using the infrastructure of the telecom licensees, it is not a telecom service, rather it is an information technology service.
- Governance of CSPs in any form falls squarely within the jurisdiction of the IT Ministry which is tasked with developing policies for information technology and the Internet.
