Data Security Council of India (DSCI), Punjab Engineering College and the Times of India organized a day-long workshop on privacy and information security which was attended by more than 400 students across engineering colleges from Chandigarh and the surrounding regions. The Chief Guest for the occasion was Dr. N.S. Kalsi IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab.
The workshop aimed at helping participants understand about the current privacy landscape in India and data protection laws and regulations. It elucidated various aspects of privacy in the connected world, through a panel discussion, expert talks and case studies. The key themes around which deliberations were held, included, need for a data protection legislation in India, data breaches and privacy in a pervasive and ever-sensing environment, privacy and national security, and the right to privacy in India being a fundamental right, among others. Underscoring the growing demand of privacy professionals in the country, DSCI focused on how students can build their career in this domain.
Nandkumar Saravade, CEO, DSCI, said, "The student community today comprises of the next-gen leaders. With data privacy an emerging function in organizations, along with the possibility of a Privacy Law getting enacted in India looming large, there is a need to educate and raise awareness among this community. DSCI aims to nurture this community and increase their industry readiness in the domain, given the absence of any formal education that caters to present and future demands of privacy professionals in the country. Workshops like these are essential to involve the academia-student into the discourse to make them key stakeholders in the privacy ecosystem in India."
Quote from Director, PEC
Experts from the various fields conducted these sessions, including Sh. N.S. Kalsi, Chief Secretary Punjab, B. Chandrashelhar, IGP, SCRB, Sukant Gupta, Senior Advocate;; Sastry Tumuluri, Cyber Security Expert, CEO, Digital Self Defense InfoSec; Rahul Sharma, Senior Consultant, DSCI;; Manpreet Singh, Zonal Legal Manager, ICICI Bank; Dr. Sanjeev Sofat, Professor, CSRC and Deputy Director, PEC; Dr. Divya Bansal, Head, CSRC and Anchor, DSCI Chandigarh Chapter and Col. Pavitharan Rajan. "Privacy as an issue require serious deliberation and action to safeguard our future. Cyber Security Research Centre at PEC, Data Security Council of India and Times group have joined hands together to to create awareness about the importance of privacy and protecting personal information. A survey on Privacy awareness has also been conducted amongst 700+ students of the schools and the engineering colleges. The results will be out soon and we would be able to understand the privacy posture of the teens of the tricity. I would like to commend the efforts of CSRC, Times Group and DSCI in spreading the much required awareness amongst the students and the consumers."
About DSCI
Data Security Council of India (DSCI) is a premier industry body on data protection in India, setup by NASSCOM®, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cyber security and privacy. DSCI brings together national governments and their agencies, industry sectors including IT-BPM, BFSI, Telecom, industry associations, data protection authorities and think tanks for public advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach initiatives.
About Cyber Security Research Centre at PEC
- The Cyber Security Research Centre has been established at PEC in collaboration with Chandigarh Administration and NASSCOM with an initial funding of Rs 3 crores. The Centre has been set up with the mission to encourage, promote, facilitate and execute interdisciplinary research in areas of Information Security. The Centre was set up in the year 2007. The Cyber Security Research Centre has been established with the primary focus to conduct applied Research and Development on cyber threats and countermeasures, secure multi-level information sharing, resilient command and control network architectures, social media and data analytics.
- The Centre also aims to run educational programs and perform outreach activities and contribute towards framing of standards and guidelines, policies, metrics and practices to protect our nation's information and communication systems. The Centre closely collaborates with Industry, Government, Academia and other International Forums to foster research in the area. Drawing on the strengths from Computer Science and Engineering, the Center is progressing well to become a valuable regional and national asset for the development of readiness and incidence response for protecting nation's Cyberspace.
The research Centre engages itself in carrying out real time studies to collect data, conduct surveys and research, which contribute towards understanding of the problems and issues affecting users. The aim is to create technology rich environment conducive to constructive discussions and evolving thoughts, which will lead to innovative ideas in unwiring and digitizing the world securely at affordable costs.
