Indian crypto exchanges ordered to record customer data for five years

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT has issued a new directive that requires cryptocurrency exchanges to collect and preserve a wide range of client data for five years, 60 days after the date of issuance on April 28. 

See related article: Indians see future in crypto, government sees revenue, FM says

Fast facts

• “During the course of handling cyber incidents and interactions with the constituency, CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) has identified certain gaps causing hindrance in incident analysis,” the IT ministry office said in its directive. 

• “To address the identified gaps and issues so as to facilitate incident response measures, CERT-In has issued directions relating to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents.”

• “This is a very thoughtful move from the IT ministry. We request even the income tax dept. to take balanced view about taxes and TDS,” Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder of Unocoin, said on Twitter. 

• The Indian government has taken several steps to track and curb local cryptocurrency trades. 
• A 1% tax deducted at source (TDS), which serves to assist monitoring transactions, kicks in on July 1.

• India imposed a 30% flat tax on all crypto income on April 1, where losses made in one cryptocurrency cannot be set off with gains made on other crypto investments. 

See related story: India to make life hell for crypto investors: MP