P@SHA’s Policy team has released a policy analysis examining the draft National Data Governance Policy 2026, consolidating feedback from member companies and benchmarking the draft against global data governance frameworks.
The paper analyzes the policy’s six core pillars: data custodianship, AI and cyber governance, the WASL data exchange system, privacy rights, the proposed new PDA regulator, and data sovereignty.
Drawing on member consultations, the paper flags three areas of concern: ambiguity in the scope separating public and private data, mandatory data residency requirements, and unclear rules around cross-border and remote data access.
Based on this analysis, P@SHA recommends that the government clarify data scope and classification, ease residency requirements, and adopt a phased rollout supported by a regulatory sandbox to test implementation before full enforcement.
The analysis is available now.