The government does not plan to monetise non-personal data through its recently launched platform, AIKosha, which hosts over 300 non-personal datasets from more than 10 entities, minister of state for electronics and information technology Jitin Prasada said on Friday.
“[M]onetisation of non-personal data has not been envisaged at the ‘AIKosh’ Platform. … The platform does not engage in the monetisation of data in any capacity; consequently, there will be no purchasers or subscribers,” Prasada said in a written response to Shiv Sena lawmaker Milind Murli Deora question in Rajya Sabha.
Deora had asked if the government had set up any mechanism to verify the buyers and subscribers of data from this platform.
Prasada said that while the option to buy and sell datasets is not available on AIKosha, users can download the datasets. To download datasets, individual users must first sign up for DigiLocker using their mobile number, while organisations must register via the ministry of electronics and information technology’s (MeitY) Entity Locker using Aadhaar. This approach aims to ensure platform security and the appropriateness of the datasets.
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The platform allows contributors to set access controls for the datasets and models they upload, in accordance with the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy 2012, he said.
The government launched AIKosha under the Datasets Platform pillar of its ambitious IndiaAI Mission on March 6 to provide access to multiple datasets and models for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Deora had also asked for details of the data protection standards on the platform. Prasada replied that the platform adheres to the relevant Indian laws, “Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Data Protection Bill. This compliance governs how personal, and usage information is handled, thereby ensuring legal accountability.”
The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act was notified in the official gazette in August 2023 but has not yet been brought into effect. The MeitY is currently examining the more than 6,500 comments it received during the consultation on the DPDP Rules, which began on January 3 of this year. These rules are crucial for operationalizing the Act.
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The datasets on AIKosha include those from the MeitY’s Digital India Bhashini division, with one dataset containing 1,684 hours of labelled speech data across 12 Indian languages, which could help develop tools for automatic speech recognition. Private companies such as Sarvam AI and Ola Krutrim have also uploaded their models to AIKosha.