Pursuant to Section 5 of the Telegraph Act and the Telegraph Rules, the Government has the power to temporarily possess licensed telegraphs and order the interception or disclosure of messages sent through such devices. The definition of a telegraph is fairly wide: it means any appliance, instrument, material, or apparatus used (or that is capable of being used) for transmission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images, and sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, visual, or other electromagnetic emissions, radio waves or Hertzian waves, or galvanic, electric, or magnetic means. It is not clear whether a court order is required to access the data.

Under the Agreement for Provisions of Internet Services, ISP License holders must maintain a log of all users connected to the service they are using and outward logins through an ISPs computers, which must be made available to the Telecom Authority at all times. ISP License holders must also provide to authorized intelligence agencies at any time a complete list of subscribers made available on the ISP website with password controlled access. A complete list of the records that must be maintained and provided for security purposes to authorities is set out in the link. ISPs are regulated and operate under a license issued under the Telegraph Act, 1885. Under the Telegraph Act, any interception of messages may only be carried out pursuant to a written order by an officer specifically empowered for this purpose by the State or Central Government. The officer must be satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so in the interests of the security and sovereignty of India. However, such a requirement appears to be only for interception of messages and not for storage of subscriber related information.
The CMTS and the BTS Licenses identify several categories of records that must be made available and provided for security purposes to the Telecom Authority or authorized Intelligence Agencies. For example, under the BTS License, a designated person from the Central/State government has the right to monitor the telecommunication traffic in every switch and any other point in the network set up by the TSP. Further, TSPs are required to make arrangement for monitoring and simultaneous calls by Government security agencies at the location desired by the Central/State government. Along with the monitored calls, the following records should be made available: (i) called/calling party numbers; (ii) time/date and duration of interception; (iii) precise location of target subscribers; (iv) subscriber numbers if any call-forwarding feature has been invoked by the target subscriber; (v) data records for even failed call attempt. Since the BTS is provided under the aegis of the Telegraph Act, any conditions related to interception pursuant to an order of an officer of the State/Central Government may apply here.

Section 69 of the Information Technology Act 2000, as amended by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, gives the central and state governments the power to direct any agency to intercept, monitor or decrypt, or cause to be intercepted, monitored or decrypted any information transmitted, received or stored through any computer resources. The government must be satisfied that this is necessary in the interest of the sovereignty, security or defense of India. The government may require any subscriber or intermediary or any person in charge of the computer resource to extend all facilities and technical assistance necessary to decrypt the information.

Under Rule 4 of the Information Technology Rules of 2021, a "significant" social media intermediary (defined as a social media intermediary having number of registered users in India above 5,000,000) must appoint a Chief Compliance Officer who must ensure compliance with the Rules and will be liable in any proceedings relating to any relevant third-party information, data or communication link made available or hosted by that intermediary where he/she fails to ensure that such intermediary observes due diligence while discharging its duties under the Rules.

According to the License Agreement Guidelines, the Internet Service Provider licensee shall maintain all commercial records, call detail records, exchange detail records, and IP detail records with regard to the communications exchanged on the network. Such records shall be archived for at least two years for scrutiny by the Licensor for security reasons and may be destroyed thereafter unless directed otherwise by the Licensor.
Data retention requirements were previously in place under the “License Agreement for Provision of Internet Services” by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India.

Banking information must be stored for 10 years "from the date of cessation of the transactions between the client and the banking company, financial institution or intermediary, as the case may be".

As per the SEBI Listing Regulations, a listed entity (i.e. an entity which is listed on the stock market) is required to have a policy for the preservation of documents. The SEBI Listing Regulations require that records, books, papers and documents of the company be preserved as per the following classifications:
- Schedule I - to be preserved permanently. Documents listed under these schedule include incorporation documents, share certificates, register of minutes of board meetings, register of members etc.
- Schedule II – to be preserved for eight years. Documents listed under this schedule include books of accounts, attendance register of board meetings, register of debenture holders etc.
- Schedule III – to be preserved for a minimum period of five years or such higher period as may be determine by the board of directors of the company. Documents listed under this schedule include register of stock options, register of directors and key managerial personnel, disclosures made under applicable company laws etc.
As per the SEBI Listing Regulations, documents set out in Schedule I and II can be kept in electronic mode. The complete list of documents under each schedule is set out in the SEBI Listing Regulations.

Direction 5 of Direction No. 20(3)/2022-CERT-In mandates data centres, virtual private server providers, cloud service providers, virtual private network service providers to mandatorily collect and retain certain subscriber related information in accurate manner, for a minimum period of five years after the subscriber is no longer availing the underlying services. These data sets include subscriber names, period of hire including dates, IPs allocated and used, e-mail address along with IP and time stamp used at time of registration, purpose of availing the services, verified address and contact numbers, and ownership pattern of subscribers. Virtual asset service providers, virtual asset exchange providers and custodian wallet providers must also maintain KYC information and records of financial transactions for period of 5 years. Specific to transaction records, Direction No. 20(3)/2022-CERT-In state that information must be maintained accurately in such a way that individual transaction can be reconstructed along with the relevant constituents such as IP addresses, time zones, transaction ID, public keys or equivalent identifiers, addresses or accounts involved, nature and date of transaction, amount transferred, etc.

India has not joined any agreement with binding commitments to open transfers of data across borders.

While India does not yet have a data protection law, it has sectoral laws on data protection applicable to internet service providers, telecom service providers, banking information and certain corporate entities. For internet service providers and telecom service providers requirements are set out in the Internet Service Provider License and the Unified Access Services License respectively and for banking information, data protection requirements are set out in the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records of the Nature and Value of Transactions, the Procedure and Manner of Maintaining and Time for Furnishing Information and Verification and Maintenance of Records of the Identity of the Clients of the Banking Companies, Financial Institutions and Intermediaries) Rules, 2005.

Rule 7 of Information Technology Rules 2011 states that export of sensitive personal data or information within or outside India is permissible provided that the same standards of data protection required in India are adhered to, and that transfer is necessary for the performance of a lawful contract or has been consented to by the provider of the information. Sensitive personal information includes passwords, financial information such as bank account or credit/debit card details, sexual orientation, physical, mental health condition, biometric information, among others.

In April 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a one-page directive stating that, within six months, all payment data held by payment companies should be held in local facilities. The Directive noted that this would help the RBI gain "unfettered supervisory access" to transaction data, which it needs to ensure proper monitoring.
Following a negative response from international payment companies such as MasterCard, Visa and American Express, the RBI has proposed (in "Frequently Asked Questions" of its website) to ease this restriction, so as to allow payment firms to store data offshore, as long as a copy was kept in India. The RBI has further clarified that for cross border transaction data consisting of a foreign component and domestic component, a copy of the domestic component may be stored abroad, if required.
With respect to processing of payment transactions outside India, the RBI requires that the data must be stored only in India after processing and should be deleted from systems abroad and brought back to India no later than 24 hours after processing. Any subsequent activity such as settlement processing after payment processing done outside India, this must be undertaken on a real time basis pursuant to which the data must be stored only in India.
The RBI has clarified that banks, especially foreign banks, can continue to store banking data abroad but in respect of domestic payment transactions, the data must be stored only in India.

According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) Maintenance of Insurance Records Regulations, 2015 (Regulation 3(9)), "Insurers are required that [...] (ii) the records pertaining to policies issued and claims made in India (including the records held in electronic form) are held in data centres located and maintained in India." In addition, the 2017 Regulations on Outsourcing of Activities by Indian Insurers provide that Indian insurers, even in cases where they outsource their services outside India, must retain all original records in India.

In 2015, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued guidelines for a cloud computing empanelment process under which cloud computing service providers may be provisionally accredited as eligible for government procurement of cloud services. The guidelines require such providers to store all data in India to qualify for the accreditation.
In addition, Section 2.1.d of the Guidelines for Government Departments on Contractual Terms Related to Cloud Services requires that any government contracts contain a localization clause mandating that all government data residing in cloud storage networks is located on servers in India.
Furthermore, Section 1.17.4 of the Master Service Agreement: Procurement of Cloud Services outlines, among other things, that cloud service providers must offer cloud services to the purchaser from a MeitY-enrolled data centre which is located in India, the data must be stored within India, and must not be taken out of India without explicit approval by the purchaser.

Rule 3(5) of the Companies (Accounts) Rules 2014 provides that if company books and papers (or back-ups of them) are kept electronically in any location, they must also be periodically stored on a server physically located in India.