By Mark Ballard for The
Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
The National Skills Registry (NSR) was set up in January by the
National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom),
India's government-sponsored IT trade body, to keep an eye on
employees in India's $20bn IT industry, who work with data
belonging to overseas clients, such as banks.
The decree will be one of the first instructions of the Self
Regulatory Organisation (SRO), which Nasscom said would be set up
to oversee the data security measures.
Nasscom vice president Sunil Mehta said: "The SRO would
subscribe that all members would have all their employees
registered in the registry.
"The SRO will prescribe a whole set of best practices, which
will include our adherence to global privacy laws in relation to
our data processing and outsourcing."
He said Nasscom, in conjunction with one American and one Indian
law firm, had already "drawn up the charter for the SRO, including
best practices".
The SRO is to establish its credibility by being spun out of
Nasscom after a year. The employee database will be operated
outside the industry, by National Securities Depository Limited
(NSDL), which manages India's stock exchange transactions.
Mehta said the rules governing the use of employee data had been
drawn up in a joint effort by Nasscom, NSDL and industry. He said
it was likely the guidelines would not be published.
Employees' considerations had been taken into account by
consulting lawyers, he said. "They don't have a union, but we did
focus group discussions to attain their views," Mehta added.
Nasscom said employees get to control the use of their data.
"All information is governed by the employee and nothing can be
done with it without the employee's consent."
The National Skills Registry is intended to guarantee that
employees are who they say they are. But employers have open access
to the data and, as well as proving identity, the registry also
includes career history, background checks and "verification
comments". Employers will also be able to link to the NSR from
their HR databases.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber is
leading a delegation to Bangalore and Delhi in India today to see
what British companies are doing in India and to improve links with
Indian trade unions.
© The Register
2006
