The ownership of aggregate data remains a bone of contention between the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and stakeholders, including start-ups and SMEs, in the ongoing consultations over the draft e-commerce policy. The issue had come up for discussion during a recent meeting between industry representatives and DPIIT officials. While the draft e-commerce policy stated, “India and its citizens have a sovereign right to their data. Even after anonymization, the interests of the individual cannot be completely separated from the derivatives that may be obtained by analysing and drawing inferences from a certain set of data,” some of the technology firms that The Hindu spoke to said that they invest capital and resources to collect this data. Hence, so saying that it also belongs to the citizens is unfair. The policy added that business models of companies are increasingly centered around data with targeted advertisements and personalized recommendations “as a means to attain competitive advantage… the importance of ownership of data must not be undermined.” The government put out the draft e-commerce policy in February and had invited comments from all stakeholder till March 29.