MUMBAI: The remits of the telecom regulator and the Telecom Commission<\/a> are in the process of being widened that may see them overseeing issues such as data privacy<\/a>, security and cybercrime<\/a>, which are currently being looked into by the IT ministry, people familiar with the matter said.

According to officials in the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai<\/a>), these changes, which will come through an amendment in laws, underline the fact that consumers access most of their data via mobile phones<\/a>, and hence the telecom department will need to get involved.

“We have to realise that subjects such as data privacy and security all flow through the telecom network. In fact, 93% of all such data is consumed on telecom networks, for example ecommerce, etc,” said a senior government official, who did not want to be named.

“Aspects of data privacy etc should all come under one ambit, and that should be the Digital Commission and the Digital Communications Regulator,” the official said.

Any change in the regulatory ambit of one of the two institutions — the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) or the TC — needs to be complemented by a similar widening of the scope of the other. This, since all of the regulator’s recommendations need to be cleared by the Telecom Commission (TC).

Recently, the cabinet approved renaming the Telecom Commission to the Digital Communications Commission (DCC) while industry watchdog Trai became Digital Communications Regulatory Authority of India. “These cannot be just name changes. One needs to keep in mind that this will be the policy<\/a> of the government, not of any ministry. Some changes need to be made in the remit of the Digital Commission and the Trai Act as well. It’s a work in progress,” said another senior official of the telecom ministry. Currently, the TC—an inter-ministerial body, which is the highest decision-making authority of the DoT—is headed by the telecom secretary.

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