Keeping your data in India
A vendor says your data is on the cloud, but has not said which country. For most Indian businesses, that detail matters more than it sounds.
· 2 min read · For business owners choosing where their data is hosted
A vendor has told you your customer data will be hosted on the cloud, and you have not asked which country that cloud is actually in. For most Indian businesses, and especially anyone handling government, financial or health data, where your data physically sits matters, for the law that applies to it, and for how fast you can get it back if something goes wrong.
Why it matters
- India's data protection law applies to personal data of people in India, but if your data sits on a server abroad, a foreign government or court can also have a claim on it under their own laws.
- Some sectors, banking and payments in particular, already have specific rules about keeping certain data within India.
- If a vendor shuts down or a dispute arises, data on a server you cannot reach is much harder to recover.
What kept in India actually means
- The primary copy, and ideally backups, sit in a data centre physically located in India; major cloud providers have India regions for exactly this.
- Support staff who can access the data are not routing it through servers overseas for processing.
- You can ask for and get a straight answer, which region, which provider, in writing.
What it costs you
Hosting in an Indian data region does not usually cost meaningfully more than hosting anywhere else; major providers now have India regions at comparable pricing. The real cost of getting this wrong is not financial upfront; it shows up later, as a compliance problem or a slow, painful data recovery if you ever need to leave a vendor.
Questions to ask any vendor
- Which specific data centre region is our data stored in, and can we get that in the contract?
- Are backups also kept in India, or only the primary copy?
- If we leave, how do we get our data back, and in what format?
- Does this meet the requirements for our sector specifically, not just general data protection?
How we can help
We host client data in India by default and can show you exactly which region and provider your data sits with, in writing. Kaappu, our security and access product, adds control over who can see what, on top of where it is stored. See our services, or talk to us.
