The Indian government is taking action against activities such as spam and intrusion into confidential data, especially in the banking sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Speaking to a group of Indian journalists at a press conference here on Saturday, Ms Sitharaman said the government had withdrawn the old data protection bill and the new one was likely to come sooner.

In the meantime, measures are being taken against spam and unsolicited calls and messages. The government is working hard to contain such kind of activities which are not good, FM said.

“But of course they keep coming. It’s not like everything died down until yesterday and today nothing happened. They continue to grow like mushrooms, but the government is very seized of this file and efforts are underway,” said the Minister of Finance in response to a question.

Even in new types of data or digital services, which are extended to people like the account aggregator, there is a conscious attempt to ensure that the consent of the data owner is used and used for this specific purpose. for which consent is given, said FM.

“There is a high level of control in this area, especially in the banking sector, which I monitor closely. Even in the account aggregator where we encountered some sort of misuse by some outsourced elements, we cracked down hard,” Ms Sitharaman said.

“You would have heard about the arrests of some people who misused this type of data applications to lend money. Especially in Andhra and Telangana, we have arrested many nationals of a country who used misused data,” FM said, apparently referring to many Chinese citizens.

“So the action is going the same way, the preventive measures are going the same way. But of course that has to be maintained,” FM said.