Tamil Nadu focuses on ABC of tech policies

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami unveiled three new IT policies on - artificial intelligence, blockchain and cybersecurity - aimed at addressing the emerging growth areas in IT industry and e-governance. Nicknamed ABC policies and said to be first of its kind in the country, CM Palaniswami launched them at the CII Connect 2020 event on Saturday.
The policy on artificial intelligence is aimed to provide a framework for inclusive, safe and ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in the government domain and to build fairness, equity, transparency and trust in AI assisted decision making systems.
"It also aims to provide access to open data, data models, and computing resources. A regulatory sandbox will be build which can be used for researching, building and deploying AI-based applications by Start-ups, Private and Public Enterprises, and Academia," Santosh Mishra, CEO of the state's e-Governance agency said. The AI policy aims to help promote investments in AI R&D in TN.
The policy on blockchain technology is designed to bring transparency and efficiency to government processes, especially considering its huge role in e-Governance.
"Blockchain technology is not limited to the public sector and will be extended to the private sector too. It could be both disruptive and transforming. However, it will help transform the way public service will be delivered and formalize the informal sector too,." Misra said. Both the policies were drafted by the TN e-Governance agency.
The policy on cybersecurity aims to define the overall ambit of the cybersecurity-related agencies in the state, through formation of the Security Architecture Framework of Tamil Nadu. This policy was drafted by ELCOT in association with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.
Under the policy, security policies of each department will follow the Guidelines and Best Practices, as customised and defined to their specific assets. Under this policy, there will be a procurement policy to create and maintain testing infrastructure and facilities for IT Security, an e-Mail and e-Mail Retention Policy in all the servers to save space on e-Mail Server and a social media policy to determine how the government departments and its employees conduct themselves via the Web.