Recognising email as an important mode of official communication, the government is upgrading the legacy email system to a cloud based, secure and scalable system.
This upgrade is being carried out through M/s Zoho Corporation Ltd, a reputed Indian software service provider, selected through an open competitive process, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada informed the Rajya Sabha.
This model ensures timely upgrades, quick scaling up, seamless migration of existing accounts, and the integration of modern office productivity tools—such as word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software with email service.
The security architecture of the e-mail platform has been defined rigorously to protect critical government data. The solution mandates that all email data be encrypted both at rest and in transit, with specific requirements for end-to-end encryption using RSA 256 and TLS 1.3 standards.
The contract with the service provider ensures strict adherence to data sovereignty. The service provider has ensured that the cloud-based solution, including Primary and Disaster Recovery data centres, are physically located within India, and no data can be shared or replicated outside the country.