New Delhi (TIP)- The Lok Sabha on Thursday, August 3, allowed the introduction of the long-awaited Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 by means of a voice vote, even as Opposition MPs objected to the introduction of the proposed law and called for it to be referred to a Parliamentary committee.
This is India’s second attempt at framing a privacy legislation, and comes after at least three previous iterations of a data protection law have been considered, and shelved, by the government.
Under rules that allow them to protest the introduction of proposed laws, Opposition members opposed the introduction of the Bill, demanding that it be officially referred to a Parliamentary panel for further deliberation. Calls for referring the Bill to a Joint Committee of Parliament were also made. Opposition MPs also spoke about their concerns around excessive government exemptions present in the Bill, and expressed concerns around the potential dilution of the Right to Information Act, 2005.
However, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that none of the issues raised by Opposition members were related to the government’s legislative competence and that the Centre was ready to have a detailed discussion on the Bill, including all the allegations levelled by Opposition MPs.
The Bill is a crucial pillar of the overarching framework of technology regulations the Centre is building, which also includes the Digital India Bill — the proposed successor to the Information Technology Act, 2000 — the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, and a policy for non-personal data governance.
Last August, the government withdrew from Parliament an earlier version of the data protection Bill that had been almost four years in the making, after it had gone through multiple iterations and a review by a Joint Committee of Parliament, and faced pushback from a range of stakeholders including tech companies and privacy activists.
The proposed law will apply to processing of digital personal data within India; and to data processing outside the country if it is done for offering goods or services, or for profiling individuals in India.
It proposes to set up a data protection board that will adjudicate on matters related to violations of the provisions including data breaches. It also offers wide ranging exemptions to the Central government and its agencies, a proposal that has drawn ire of Opposition MPs and privacy activists.
The Bill requires entities that collect personal data — called data fiduciaries — to maintain the accuracy of data, keep data secure, and delete data once their purpose has been met.
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi called for division, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi asked for the Bill to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee. Congress MP Manish Tewari said that there was a distinction in the way the Bill applied to different entities. “It applies with full force to non government entities, and the entire government is going to be exempt from it,” Tewari said. TMC’s Sougata Roy opposed the Bill’s introduction saying that the final version was completely different from the one first proposed last year. Source: Indian Express