Industry consultants divided over Govt choice to withdraw Personal Data Protection Bill

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Industry consultants divided over Govt choice to withdraw Personal Data Protection Bill

Industry consultants are divided over the federal government’s choice to withdraw the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019, and change it with a brand new ‘complete authorized framework’ and ‘modern digital privateness legal guidelines’ for regulating on-line area.

The invoice was revoked after practically 4 years of it being within the works, the place it went by way of a number of modifications together with a evaluate by a Joint Parliamentary Committee and confronted pushback from a spread of stakeholders together with tech corporations and privateness activists.

“The withdrawal of the PDP bill is personally disappointing to me, especially since the industry has already been waiting for four years for this draft to be taken forward,” Dr Rishi Bhatnagar, Chairman, IET Future Tech Panel informed indianexpress.com.

According to consultants, the proposed Bill careworn on the localization of information and lacked a bifurcation to accommodate private and non-personal datasets individually. “There were parts of the proposal that included obtaining of citizen-consent for the usage of personal data and special exemptions to probing agencies from the Act. These aspects of the Bill seem to be collectively responsible for triggering the withdrawal of it,” stated Bhatnagar.

However, for Kazim Rizvi, Founding Director, The Dialogue, a New Delhi-based assume tank, the withdrawal of the “Data Protection Bill 2021 is the right move as it had various shortcomings and concerns, notably around the lack of independence of the Data Protection Authority (DPA), restrictions on cross-border data flow, the inclusion of non-personal data and broad exemptions to the executive for data processing.”

The Bill had been broadly criticized for being biased towards the info assortment entity. For occasion, if any consumer desires to withdraw their consent from sharing their information, it’s potential however the consumer must give “a valid reason” or bear the authorized consequence for such withdrawal. Moreover, what constitutes a “valid reason” can also be subjective.

Another main disadvantage of the Bill was a proposed provision known as information localisation, underneath which it will have been obligatory for corporations to retailer a replica of sure delicate private information inside India, and the export of undefined “critical” private information from the nation could be prohibited.

Bhavya Sharma, Founder, Bhavya Sharma & Associates, a authorized agency, believes that it’s a matter of concern that there are nonetheless “no governing provisions pertaining to digital data protection.” Experts hope {that a} new privateness regulation shall be enacted by subsequent yr. “The new bill must balance state interest, business interest, and individuals’ privacy concerns on the same keel,” notes Rizvi.

Meanwhile, Bhatnagar believes that the brand new Bill can solely stand out if the framework comprises rules which can be at par with international requirements. “The re-framing of the Bill can also be enhanced by the inputs of IT thought leaders and experts, where ground realities and existing problems in the IT ecosystem can be touched upon with clarity,” he provides.

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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS

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