ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Akriti Gaur

Akriti Gaur is a lawyer and doctoral candidate at Yale Law School. She is an Affiliate Fellow with the Yale Information Society Project. Currently, she is a Robina International Human Rights Fellow and study visitor at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg (views expressed are personal).

POSTS BY Akriti Gaur

12 March 2025

Akriti Gaur

Cross-Border Data Flows and India’s Digital Sovereignty

India’s data protection framework has been in the making for over a decade. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act was passed by Parliament in 2023, and the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were released in January 2025 for public consultation. In this piece, I argue that the draft Rules do little to clarify India’s murky position on cross-border data flows. The ambiguous wording of the text grants unfettered discretion to the executive in operationalizing the localization mandate. Moreover, the lack of legislative protections for citizen privacy, coupled with missed opportunities to establish robust institutional frameworks undermines India’s own data diplomacy project. Continue reading >>