Indian Government May Ban Use Of Gmail and Yahoo Mail For Official Purposes

In an attempt to safeguard its sensitive data, the government of India might ban the use of email services like Gmail and Yahoo for official purposes by December this year. It will then proceed to route its emails through the official website NIC's email service.

DEITY or Department of Electronics and Information Technology, is the governing body thats responsible for drafting the policy of email usage in government establishments, offices and other related departments. Apparently, the policy is nearly ready. Once the department receives feedback from other ministries, things will be set in motion.

"E-mail policy of the government of India, as this policy will be called, is almost ready and we are taking views from other ministries on this. Our effort will be to operationalise it by mid or end-December," DEITY Secretary J Satyanarayana told reporters on the sidelines of a CII summit, according to HT.

Talking about the financai aspect, he added, "We immediately require about Rs. 4-5 crore to ramp up the NIC infrastructure. But, the total investment needed for the full operationability of the e-mail policy could be around Rs. 50-100 crore."

When implemented, the policy will cover about 5-6 lakh Central and State government employees for using the email service provided by National Informatics Centre (NIC).

These concerns have been raised since most free email providers are based on foreign soil, there by creating strong potential for security risks.

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