Non-Personal Data & Proprietary Datasets

India does not currently have a standalone law governing non-personal data, though the government has issued discussion papers on the subject. Proprietary datasets are primarily protected through contract law (confidentiality agreements, data licensing terms, access restrictions), trade secret principles, and in some cases, database copyright under the Copyright Act. The legal landscape for non-personal data is still developing globally. In the EU, the Data Act and the Database Directive provide additional frameworks. We advise on building layered protection for proprietary datasets using contractual, technical, and IP mechanisms.

Under Indian copyright law, a database may qualify for copyright protection as a literary work if the selection, coordination, or arrangement of its contents involves sufficient originality and intellectual effort. However, the underlying data itself is not copyrightable, only the original structure or arrangement. This means someone can independently compile the same data without infringing your copyright, as long as they do not copy your original arrangement. For factual or machine-generated databases, copyright protection may be limited. We advise on combining copyright with contractual and technical protections to create a comprehensive protection strategy for valuable datasets.

A data licensing agreement should clearly define the dataset being licensed, the permitted uses (including whether the data can be used for AI training, analytics, redistribution, or derived product creation), restrictions on use, exclusivity or non-exclusivity, territory, duration, fees and payment terms, data quality representations, liability and indemnity provisions, and obligations on termination including data deletion or return. For personal data, the agreement must also address compliance with applicable data protection laws, consent frameworks, and data subject rights. For proprietary datasets, the agreement should address confidentiality, reverse engineering restrictions, and the ownership of any derivative works or insights generated from the data. We draft data licensing agreements tailored to the specific nature and commercial context of the dataset.

Personal data is any data relating to an identifiable individual, governed by data protection laws like the DPDP Act and the GDPR. Proprietary data is data owned or controlled by a business, not necessarily about individuals, protected primarily through contract and trade secret law. Public domain data is data that is freely available without restriction, either because it was never protected or because any applicable protection has expired. The boundaries are not always clear. Personal data can simultaneously be proprietary (e.g., a customer database). Publicly available data may still be personal data (e.g., social media profiles). Data sourced from government portals may be free to access but subject to licence terms. We advise on classifying data assets and applying the appropriate legal framework to each category.