Compliance vs innovation: strikinga balance in quest for data security

AI industry leaders debated about how companies could aspire to innovate while ensuring compliance in data security and privacy in the AI era, here at The Hindu Tech Summit 2026, hosted by The Hindu, presented by the VIT, and co-presented by Sify Technologies.

The session titled ‘Data Security and Privacy in the age of AI: Balancing Innovation and Compliance’ featured Dheeraj Janbandhu, Senior Group Vice-President-IT, Digital Business, Indian Bank; Vijay Anand Chidambaram, AI Data Analytics Leader, Amazon; and V.S. Kanchana Bhaaskaran, Vice-Chancellor, VIT; and moderated by Srinivasalu Thayam, CTO, Aravind Eye Care System.

Speaking about how AI can be used in an enterprise successfully, Mr. Chidambaram said there were several layers that needed to be built to achieve it. “ChatGPT and Gemini are general purpose AI. How do you take AI to an enterprise and be successful? How do you comply with local laws etc.? To start with, there are multiple layers… you need to have the data and make it AI-ready. Then you need a compliance mechanism — to protect what AI can see and cannot see. Do you have the interconnectedness of all departments? Fourth layer is implementing the company’s policies and the fifth layer is productisation,” he said.

Mr. Janbandhu spoke about the importance of “consistency of data” and protecting the customer’s data. “Data is very important when we implement AI models. Data should be consistent and protected from thefts. Organisations that have good data governance frameworks will have an advantage. There are cyberfrauds and crimes happening everyday. We must ensure that the design is perfect… and ensure compliance simultaneously,” he said.

Dr. Bhaaskaran said that the use of AI in institutions presents a concern. “At VIT, there are 1,100 odd high-end GP enabled workstations for UG, PG and research scholars. They are accessible from home and hostels. We do use third party AI tools, but they cannot substitute a teacher. We need to be careful about data privacy – we are using third party AI as a black box. We still want to enable education and research.”