Bangalore: Government plans to introduce the "Data Protection Act" in the winter session of Parliament, aimed at data protection and confidentiality of businesses in the country, a top ICT department official said on June 12.

"We are already ready with a draft of the Data Protection Act, which would help in building confidentiality of customers to outsource BPO work to third party vendors," Union IT and Communication Secretary Rajeeva Ratna Shah said in Bangalore at the inaugural of the "NASSCOM ITES-BPO Strategy Summit 2003".

He said though NASSCOM initiated the move, the response later has not been forthcoming for the act by both the industry body and the IT industry.

"The growth rate in captive BPO centres is 70 to 80 per cent, while the third party vendors are growing at 50 per cent or less is this because a lack of confidence among customers on third party vendors," Shah said.

He assured that a suitable data protection law would help build confidence among customers to outsource work from India.

Stating that the government had taken up a number of initiatives to ensure cyber, information and network security, Shah said a "cyber security assurance framework" was being set up for information security.

He said several standards based on British Standards 7799 were being worked and several security related products, developed in India were being rolled out shortly.

PTI