Tsaaro is India’s premier Data Protection services provider.
The minimum total cost of the leaks in India reached up to Rs 14 crore in 2020 as reported by an IBM study. This statistic puts India as one of the top countries in cybercrime. The Work from Home (WFH) scenario has led to a massive digital shift. According to a digital monitoring firm, 15 billion credentials are up for sale with the close of the pandemic spawned lockdown.
Founded in January 2021 by Akarsh Singh and Rohit Jain, Tsaaro is India’s premier Data Protection services provider. Headquartered in Bangalore, Tsaaro is backed by the IT founding team and is a technology compliance-focused company. Enabling an efficient data secure environment for businesses by building robust security systems, Tsaaro is widely acknowledged for its Data Protection services including Regulatory Assessment, DPO as a Service, Vendor Assessment, Privacy Risk Management and Product Assessment.
Apart from the company’s B2B business, Tsaaro expanded its services to the B2C market, with ‘Tsaaro Academy’, where the company provides premiere privacy training and certifications. Tsaaro Academy, which was founded the same year, now offers a variety of IAPP certifications, including the CIPP/e, CIPT, and CIPM. Apart from these imperial privacy certificates, Tsaaro Academy’s exclusive practical approach-based certification programme, Data Protection Officer (DPO) Certification Course, Data Privacy Fundamentals (DPF) was also created. Tsaaro Academy is currently giving live training to over 500 privacy professionals in the Asia Pacific and has one of the highest IAPP certification passing percentages in Asia.
Below is the interview interaction with Mr Akarsh Singh, CEO and CoFounder, Tsaaro.
1. We would like to hear about the journey of Mr. Akarsh as a young entrepreneur.
Akarsh is the CEO & Co-Founder of Tsaaro, a Data Privacy, and Cybersecurity company. He is a Fellow in Information Privacy (FIP) by IAPP, the highest certification in the field of Privacy. He also possesses certifications in CIPT, CIPM, CIPP/e, and ISO 27001 Lead Auditor. At Tsaaro, he heads the Privacy Consulting team and is responsible for leading the management, designing its strategy, and implementing the same. He is young privacy professional with an extensive experience in data privacy as he previously worked with a Big 4, where he assisted several IT/ITes organizations to strategize, build and operationalize their Cyber Security Framework & Privacy Programs.
2. What was the idea and thought processes behind the creation and execution of Tsaaro?
In the journey of assisting several organizations with their strategies, planning, and handling of Privacy programs & Cybersecurity frameworks, he recognized the need of spreading awareness regarding Data Privacy and Cybersecurity for startups and SMBs who are unable to secure their data and systems due to lack of affordable and personalized services. To solve this problem statement, Akarsh decided to leave his Big 4 job behind and started Tsaaro with his close friend Krishna Srivastava, a cybersecurity expert with prior experience in risk consulting and data privacy compliance.
3. What are Tsaaro’s future plans?
In the near future, Tsaaro will continue to act like a warrior in Data Privacy to empower clients’ businesses and stop malicious behavior to create an efficient data secure environment. Tsaaro aims to spread awareness regarding the importance of having Data Privacy programs and Cybersecurity systems in place for all organizations and break the myth that such data privacy practices are only for Fortune 500 companies. While we have been successful in acquiring over 30 clients from four different countries in a short span of time, we believe this is just the beginning and we cannot wait to solve the data privacy hurdles of more organizations.
4. What is your take on Data Protection Bill?
I believe that Data Protection Bill is a necessary and important step taken by the Indian Government to govern the movement and storing of data within the country. The need for data protection is at its peak in the world, with the highest number of data breaches being reported in all lifetimes. While it is great to see the measures taken by the Government to regulate the movement of data, we wanted to deep-dive into the several possibilities, recommendations as well as a general overview of data privacy experts and professionals in response to the Data Protection Bill which can be found here.
5. What kind of response Tsaaro is getting from various sectors like Gaming, Retail, Healthcare, and other fields in the market?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Tsaaro has been receiving a tremendous response from businesses that function online due to the lockdown. While all workplaces were going remote, it became a necessity to have a robust data privacy program and security system in place to secure the data shared by users, customers, as well as remote employees. Healthcare businesses were majorly affected due to the worldwide pandemic making it necessary for them to comply with HIPAA and GDPR. The gaming sector saw a boom during the pandemic due to online schools and colleges and we saw a huge demand from gaming startups to ensure that the personal and sensitive data of their users are safe and secure.
6. Can you please explain the B2C model of Tsaaro and how can it help a common man or a group in daily life?
While Tsaaro’s business model is majorly focused on catering to the requirements of B2B, we have taken it as a responsibility on ourselves to serve a common man and group of people with all the top and premium privacy resources like privacy updates from across the world on daily basis, information regarding privacy jobs available in the market, general data privacy awareness through free webinars, weekly newsletters, and by providing free access to Privacy templates that can be used by people in their businesses, or daily life. Our aim is to educate more and more people each day about their rights concerning privacy and how they can secure their data.
7. What do you want to say on the urging need for data privacy in the gaming sector?
Post pandemic when all the jobs and chores turned virtual, Tsaaro received heightened interest from eSports gaming platforms for data privacy solutions due to the increasing number of users and subscribers making it difficult to take proper care of the security of user’s data. It is no surprise that the gaming industry is becoming more sensitive toward data privacy issues and wants to have effective protection for user data, especially in times when a possible data breach could impact the reputation and goodwill of the companies. The industry is undeniably thriving and growing in popularity among people of all ages. With our experience in catering to the requirements of clients from the gaming sector, we at Tsaaro have built turnkey solutions and services for businesses to help them protect the personal information of their customers.
