In today’s GST regime, the Centre and State Governments and taxpayers are utterly reliant on the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) for IT infrastructure and services. In such an era witnessing the leakage of Information like customer details, including names, emails, date of activation, and mobile numbers becomes a woeful situation. Not only these details but the information regarding Aadhaar or the Unique Identification Number is also at risk of the breach on GSTN.
In India, there are more than 50 million SMEs and 3,100 startups. In such a scenario when the GST Network (GSTN) is anticipated to crop 5 billion-plus invoices every month and about 15 million plus retailers digitalise their sales, there is a need for the nation to adopt stringent laws to curb citizens from data breaches as GSTN data not only contains personal but also financial details.
The year 2017 encountered the biggest data revelation when the information of 100 million customers was disclosed. The companies that bear attestation for highly secured data also filed complaints regarding the illegal access of systems.
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High-level data security over an online network in India has become an inevitable need to defend not only from crime and cyber attacks such as Ransomware and Petya but also from data crashes or illegal attempts to access information on the system.
Data security holds great value for every business and enterprise. For instance, the exposure of the invoicing details could consequence huge ravages for an enterprise as the invoice encompasses the cost of the item cost, further the damage becomes even more troublesome when a competitor gets to know such details.
In terms of data sensitivity, the GST information must be shielded by the best and high standard data security system. For this, we need a security system that guarantees data protection and the perseverance of tax-related information, a system that is highly stable with full-fledged backup to protect citizens from data breaches.
India holds the 23rd position among 165 countries on the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) as published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN telecommunications agency. This report apparently states that India is lacking behind in terms of accountability and security in comparison to the European Union (EU) companies, which follow rigid data security rules and standards. The GSTN data holds the same level of risk.
Indian media reports from the government as well as from private corporations are not reassuring enough. Several Cases regarding information breach such as disclosure of names, addresses, numbers and bank account details has happened so far.
In India, the government has already broken new grounds in the form of GST and demonetization to achieve digital governance and a cashless economy. Now the protection of official, private, and classified data becomes a high priority. The Indian Government must consider digital risks as a central area of concern to sidestep data breach circumstances, debit card forgeries and cyber crimes.