Frequently Asked Questions

Data Security Council of India is a not-for-profit section 25 company, established by NASSCOM, as a Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) to promote data protection through best practices and standards, in line with the evolving global regulatory landscape.

DSCI initiated programs for best practices development, cyber security awareness, engagement with the government on data protection regulations, collaboration with the industry, and working with law enforcement agencies for handling cyber crimes. DSCI also aims at developing certification/ratings of organization in their preparedness for data protection, and for developing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism to establish itself as a self-regulatory organization.

DSCI was created to majorly serve as a catalyst for Data Protection to the IT/BPO industry. But, since its inception DSCI has been successful in reaching far beyond and caters to the following sectors:
˗ IT/BPO
˗ Banking and Financial Services
˗ Manufacturing
˗ Telecom
˗ PSUs
˗ E-commerce
˗ E-governance

DSCI stakeholders include:
- Board of Directors
- Govt. of India
- Steering Committee
- Chapters (There are over 975 members in 10 chapters established in all major cities of India)
- Corporate Members (Close to 600 small, medium and large scale companies)
- Legal & Regulatory Authorities

DSCI Best Practices for Data Protection are compiled under:

DSCI Security Framework (DSF), which is set of 16 best practices areas and defines strategic options, maturity criteria's and best practices models. The practices are build on core security principles of Visibility, Vigilance, Coverage & Accuracy and Discipline in Defence.

DSCI Privacy Framework (DPF), which discusses different role an organization perform from privacy perspective,  defines ‘privacy principles’ and their applicability to service provider industry, and provides best practices for privacy initiative of an organization.

DSCI offers membership to individuals as well as organizations. For individuals DSCI offers local chapter membership in individual capacity that comes at no cost to them. If you wish to become a chapter member, kindly write to us at info@dsci.in with “Chapter Membership - ” as the subject of your email. Do not forget to give your official contact details in the email.
While for organizations, DSCI offers a corporate membership. To enroll for DSCI membership, visit the Signup link on the top right corner of this webpage and register under a suitable category. If your organization is an existing member of NASSCOM, DSCI will not charge any membership fee. In this case you are required to provide your company’s NASSCOM membership ID at the time of registration. For more information, write to us at membership@dsci.in.

DSCI announces all its major events through its corporate website. Most of the events are meant for professionals from the industry except for a few closed door meeting. Interested participants can visit the upcoming events section of the website and register for event of their interest. Participation in close door roundtable meetings is by invitation only.

DSCI conducts many surveys to study upcoming challenges and trends in information security. Of these surveys, one survey which DSCI conducts year-on-year basis focuses on the state of data security and privacy in the IT/BPO industry. The surveys reports can be accessed from Papers & Reports tab on the homepage or from the footer of the website.

You can contribute papers and articles on DSCI website. To share your work with us, write to us at info@dsci.in with “Submission of ” in the subject line of the email. Also provide your official coordinated in the body of the email. The papers or articles will be reviewed by DSCI and shortlisted documents will be published on the website.