UPI Data Security: NPCI Asks WhatsApp And Google If They Are Storing Data In India, And Current Progress Reports

National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) has sent a letter to Google and WhatsApp seeking their progress and operations into storing of data related to UPI payment service, which both firms offer.

RBI had set a deadline of 15 October for all payments companies to store data only in India.

“Companies say they store payments data in India but are keeping a mirror copy abroad. India, however, is looking at keeping everything locally,” the official said.

Google has not made any noise about its position on local storage, but is voicing support for the free flow of information outside the country. Whereas, WhatsApp has claimed that it has started storing data in India, but did not make it clear whether it stores only in India.

WhatsApp’s UPI-based payment is still waiting for approval from NCPI and is still in beta phase with about one million users. Google’s Tez, which now called ‘Google Pay’, has 30 million active monthly users in India.

Earlier this year, Ministry of Information Technology sent a letter to WhatsApp seeking clarity on issues such as two-factor authentication, data storage policies and sharing of data with parent company Facebook.