NEW DELHI: The country’s law enforcement agencies are backing the Reserve Bank of India’s push for data localisation by the payments industry as this will make it easier for them to track online transactions and social media interactions involving wrongdoing of any kind. The RBI ’s deadline to set up data centres in the country ends on October 15.The security agencies have raised the issue of data localisation at the highest levels of the government several times over the past few years, said a senior government official aware of cyber security developments. At one point, it was also thought that the country should have its own email platform, he said.The investigative and intelligence agencies' difficulties in carrying out cross-border probes intensified when they tried to dig deep into the alleged fraud by Nirav Modi and his associates. Similarly, terror funding through banking channels has not dried up. Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin’s second son Syed Ahmad Shakeel, arrested by the National Investigation Agency ( NIA ) in August, had allegedly received funds through Western Union.The security agencies are of the firm view that the practice of what they referred to as colonisation of Indian data has to end due to “national security concerns” that are getting sharpened amid the government’s growing push for Digital India, a senior official said on condition of anonymity. “China has done that. Why can’t India have unfettered supervisory access to cross-border information?”“It’s strange that for our own data we have to be at the mercy of foreign countries,” the official said. With RBI insisting on compliance by its deadline, global financial service companies, especially those from the US, are trying to put pressure on the government to have a dialogue with the American industry to seek a relaxation of the rule. The firms mainly affected are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal Apple , Discover, First Data, Money Gram and Western Union since they do not have data storage centres in India.In the last week of September, representatives of MasterCard, American Express, PayPal and Amazon met economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg to share their views in the backdrop of the payments industry vigorously pushing for mirroring of data instead of storing them in servers in India. PayPal India did not respond to ET's questions. The US-India Business Council (USIBC), a leading India-America business advocacy group, has cautioned against the government move by stating that it would “impact two-way trade and investments in both the countries.”“If all countries require their data to be held only in local servers, the services industry in India will also suffer,” Nisha Biswal, president of USIBC at the US Chamber of Commerce, told ET. “While we understand the government’s objective on data localisation, we think there are other options through which the Go-I’s goals and objectives can be met and also create a situation where it is viable for industry,” she said. “Companies are willing to work with the government on these issues. However, we believe that interim deadlines only add to the confusion.”Top government officials aware of the developments said RBI has told companies such as Visa and MasterCard to delete the entire trail of transactions stored on servers abroad and keep them in India. What these firms fear is the collateral impact of the RBI directive if they were to comply with it. Visa, for instance, uses the services of other solution providers which by default would also have to fall in line. So these companies are only interested in data mirroring— a step that would not cost much and help retain the existing infrastructure, said sources in the payments industry.RBI has conveyed that the payments industry can hire servers till they have their own infrastructure if they are unable to meet the data localisation deadline, said top government sources. Payments industry executives said that US firms are trying to garner support from European countries, including the UK, to put forth a combined strategy to seek moderation of the data localisation policy.