Government releases DEPA handbook for responsible AI training data collaboration

Key facts

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched a handbook on Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) for AI training, unveiled by IT Secretary S Krishnan at a roundtable in Bengaluru with support from the iSPIRT Foundation.
• The handbook outlines a techno-legal framework combining contractual permissions, controlled computing environments and privacy-enhancing safeguards, enabling institutions to collaborate on AI training data while retaining control of it.
• The framework incorporates data provenance, allowing the origin, permissions and use of data to be traced throughout the training process for accountability and transparency.
• Principal Scientific Adviser Ajay Kumar Sood explained that under DEPA the model travels to the data, enabling multi-party and cross-border collaboration.