India To Soon Have Its Own DNS: Users’ Data Will Be Stored Within Country; Small ISPs Without Credible DNS To Benefit 

The government would soon be rolling out the Domain Name Server (DNS) in India, aiming to provide internet users with fast and secure browsing experience and at the same time ensure that the data of citizens are stored locally, the Hindu reports.

A DNS in an Internet directory, and helps to convert easy to remember domain names into IP addresses, and then used by the computers/machines to communicate. If a DNS works slowly, or completely fail to work, then internet users would be unable to find web addresses.

“The main aim of bringing our own public DNS is to ensure availability, particularly for smaller Interest Service Providers (ISPs) who don’t have credible DNS. Bigger ones usually have their own DNS,” an official from the IT Ministry said.

While pointing out that there are other open DNS servers, like the Google Public DNS, the official said the government’s system would stop internet users from visiting dangerous websites. The government's technology arm, National Informatics Centre (NIC) would be executing the rollout and is expected to complete within the next four to six months. The NIC already uses the public DNS within the government network.

The official, replying to whether the move would help the government to block content or surveillance, said, “If the government wants to block a website, we have a mechanism in place. We can send a list to the ISPs for reasons such as child porn or fake news, and they have to comply with the order.”

“If you use any public DNS, they access and use all your data. It is not that users will compulsorily need to shift to India public DNS. A user is free to choose any DNS,” he said while adding that users’ data in India would be stored within the country itself with the government’s public DNS.

Further, the ministry has also planned to reach out to end-users and educate them about DNS and teach them how to shift to the public DNS if they desire to.