The Indian IT and IT enabled Services, in the eye of a storm for quite some time for data security and privacy protection, will get a image fillip following the decision of Nasscom to endorse certificates obtained by companies with Data Security Council of India or DSCI.

The certificate will ratify that the company has obtained international standards and that it follows globally accepted best practices in areas of data security and privacy protection, thus providing the much-needed confidence amongst clients to offshore more work.

The DSCI, launched formally last month, will be a not-for-profit organization that will be registered under Section 24 of the Companies Act. It will be a self-regulatory organization that would promote global standards and frameworks among Indian IT and BPO companies.

Kamlesh Bajaj who earlier headed the Information Risk Management (IRM) practice at TCS has joined DSCI as the chief executive officer a few days ago. Besides, former telecommunication secretary Shyamal Ghosh has joined the organisation as chairman, published media reports said.

DSCI will also have independent directors and one representative from the central government in its board. To start with, DSCI is coming out with a survey on the best practices being followed by the Indian IT and ITeS companies.

Nasscom has about 1,200 companies across the country as its members. It is estimated that almost half of them comply with most of the top standards available at the moment. The initial focus of DSCI will be on establishing its credibility first, so that "you cannot afford not to be a member of DSCI," said Ghosh.

Presently, no other country has a self-regulatory organisation to encourage IT-ITeS companies to follow standards. Bajaj said once the credibility of DSCI certification is established, the organisation might look for making it mandatory for all Nasscom members to comply to DSCI standards.