Digital declaration draft has been approved to ensure data security says Airtel and GSMA chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal

With the aim to ensure data security and privacy, global telecom industry body GSMA has approved a draft **digital** declaration, GSMA Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said here on 25 January. [caption id=“attachment_4224391” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Bharti Mittal.Reuters.[/caption] Titled A Digital Future That We Support and Strive For, the digital declaration has been created along with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and **World Economic Forum** (WEF)’s Telecom Governance. “GSMA has a responsibility towards keeping data safe and secure. We have approved a draft digital declaration that will be sent to leading companies across the globe to get their comments in,” the Bharti Airtel Chairman said during a panel discussion titled Data Responsibility in a Fractured World at the World Economic Forum (WEF) here. The draft declaration talks about digital conduct, responsibilities and data privacy and security. The news came as the world prepared to observe “Data Privacy Day” on 28 January that aims to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices. “We are expecting a large participation from industries globally towards signing into the draft declaration,” Mittal told the audience. According to Mittal, data today sits in the hands of big companies. “Several people are today making living out of data. Governments are getting uncomfortable with a large amount of data. Cross-border flow of data is another big issue. We need to play a key role in framing the rules else we will lose control,” Mittal emphasised. “People have no issue if data rests with machines. They get upset if that data goes to humans. We need to make machines hack-proof and secure,” Mittal added. On re-skilling people towards disruptive technologies, IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty said the new technologies need to be guided into this world with a responsible stewardship. “We need to prepare the world’s workforce by re-skilling them to handle technologies like AI and Big Data and, ultimately, become better human beings,” Rometty said. “Today, companies have a huge amount of data but the searchable data for the public is only 20 percent and the rest 80 percent data belongs to firms and they have done nothing with it,” she told the gathering. According to Mittal, your data today is all over the globe. “Users must have choices and rights to move data from one provider to another. You must have control where the data will go,” he added.