provisions of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 and the TRIPS Agreement.
The concerns and apprehensions of the MNCs are far-fetched and unwarranted. The TRIPS Agreement and the Copyright Act, 1957 provides sufficient safeguards for preventing violations of databases of MNCs. The data, information and details provided by the MNCs will get the protection of `Data Property" if the same involves intellectual creations within the meaning of Article 10(2) of the TRIPS Agreement. If they fail to satisfy the requirement of Article
10(2), still they will be protected as copyright. The brightest and the positive aspect of this situation is that even non-data items are also protected, both under the TRIPS Agreement and the Copyright Act, 1957. Thus, the MNCs should concentrate on their "business initiatives" rather than wasting their resources and time on unnecessary concerns.
(See
http://perry4law.blogspot.com/2005/05/mandates-of-wto.html for more details).
It must be appreciated that it is not the "enactment" of a law but the desire, will and efforts to accept and enforce it in its true letter and spirit, which can confer the most strongest, secure and safest protection for any purpose. The enforcement of these rights requires a "qualitative effort" and not a "quantitative effort". The "enforcement" problem cannot be "bypassed" and "labeled" as inadequacy of data protection laws in India. For instance, if we do
not enforce the provisions of Copyright Act, 1957 or the Trade Marks Act, 1999, properly, then we can again argue that these Acts need to be amended to accommodate the wishes of MNCs. Any objection of lack
of data protection laws in India is raised only due to the ignorance of the availability of data protection laws in India.
India has a sound cyber law regime and both paper based and electronic form data can be effectively and legally protected in India. Any objection regarding "insufficient" cyber law or Data
protection law is only a misconception and ignorance of law in this regard.
Now recently about 40 million credit/debit card particulars were reported to have been compromised in USA. This is a serious lacuna in data security amongst BPOs in USA. Surprisingly, none raised any
hue and cry regarding insufficient Data Protection laws in US.
It seems the difference between "Data protection laws" and their "enforcement" is not clear to the persons agitating against insufficient data protection laws in India. India has sufficient
data protection laws and these laws only require sound techno-legal enforcement.
The bottom line is that none can stop a determined and committed offender from committing a crime. It may be committed any where, including India.
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