Today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made some key announcements while presenting the Union Budget for the financial year 2023-24.

She said that the government is working on a National Data Governance Policy, which will be the “first step in catalysing the era of Digital Government”.

Here are five things you should know:

1) The National Data Governance Policy will adhere to the “highest data protection standards and commitment to the principles of data privacy”.

2) The policy will ensure that the research and innovation ecosystem will be able to safely access non-personal and anonymised data from government and private entities, enabling innovative fintech services.

3) The India Data Management Office (IDMO) will be formed under the IT ministry, which will “aim to ensure greater citizen awareness, participation and engagement with open data” and “increase the availability of datasets of national importance” among other things.

4) The government is expanding the scope of DigiLocker, which will allow individuals, enterprises — micro, medium and small — and charitable organisations to avail more documents easily.

5) DigiLocker and Aadhar will be used to simplify KYC by setting up a one-stop solution for reconciliation and updating of the identity and address of individuals, which are maintained by government agencies, regulated entities and regulators.