Data Protection Bill

No proposal is under consideration at present to rework the Constitution based on the recent introduction of the "she/her" pronouns while referring to all genders in the Digital Data Protection Bill, 2022, the government said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday. In a written reply, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said drafting of legislations in line with the government's philosophy of empowering women is an evolving and innovative practice. He was responding to a question on whether based on the recent introduction of the "she/her" pronouns while referring to all genders in the Digital Data Protection Bill, 2022, the government plans to rework the existing pronouns in the Constitution. "Drafting of legislations in line with the government's philosophy of empowering of women is an evolving and innovative practice and no such proposal to rework the Constitution is under consideration at present," he said.

The legislation will empower the cross-border flow of data across all countries "by default" unless a country features on the negative list

The new draft will allow cross-border transfer of some users' data with "certain notified countries and territories"

Congress MP Karti Chidambaram has termed as "untrue" Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's statement that the parliamentary IT committee has given a "thumbs up" to the revised draft of the data protection bill, and said the bill has not been formally sent to the panel. Karti Chidambaram's party colleague and former chief of the parliamentary IT panel Shashi Tharoor called for widespread consultation on the bill. Vaishnaw on Thursday said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has given a "thumbs up" for the revised draft of the data protection law. Vaishnaw, a bureaucrat turned politician who presently handles the IT portfolio, said an advanced copy of the revised bill on data protection was shared with the committee. Reacting to Vaishnaw's remarks, Congress' Lok Sabha MP and member of the IT panel Karti Chidambaram said, "IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said the Standing Committee on Communications and IT has approved the draft Digital Perso

According to sources, the Bill will shortly get presented to the Cabinet and is ready to get tabled in Parliament during the ongoing Budget session

Top court wants Indian users to know that they are under no obligation to accept the platform's 2021 privacy policy in order to be able to use it

Data localisation is storing the data, critical and non-critical, within the boundaries of a country

The proposed legislation should also clarify that in the event of conflicts with sectoral rules and regulations

Significant controls and exemptions to the government under the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill 2022 are likely to make it harder for companies to invest in data centres and data processing activities in India, according to global technology industry body ITI. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has floated draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022 and has invited comments on the same till January 2. "The Bill grants significant controls to the executive arm of GOI (Government of India) and delegates much of the detailed rulemaking authority to separate, as yet undefined processes. GOI is also afforded a broad exemption from the Bill's application, which could make it harder for companies to invest in data centers and data processing activities in India," ITI said in its submission. ITI represents global technology majors such Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Apple etc. The draft DPDP has exempted government-notified data fiduciaries from several ...

The ministry released the fourth version of the much-awaited data privacy law in India on November 18

Provisions on non-personal data, criminal penalties, hardware certification scheme, and statutory data residency requirements among those axed

Vaishnaw said that as the PDP Bill gets finalised, on cross-border data flows, the government will ensure that the approach focusses on strengthening data protection without disrupting data flows

The government is mulling exempting early stage startups from complying with norms under proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill, an official source said. The exemption may be for a limited period to assist startups in developing their business models and to ensure that innovation is not stifled due to compliance burden. "Meity (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) is mulling to improve upon the bill to exempt early stage startups from the provisions of DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection) bill. "This may be for a limited time period in cases where they may be doing some kind of data modelling etc to develop their solution," the source, who did not wish to be named, said. The draft DPDP has proposed exemption only for government notified data fiduciaries and data processing entities when it comes to data collection, data sharing, giving information around data processing etc. Last week, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar had sai

'Real process of openness' and listening to feedback in preparing legislation, he says

The conflict between the RTI Act and the draft personal data protection bill needs to be resolved, says the communications minister

The government will not be able to violate the privacy of citizens under the proposed data protection law as it will get access to personal data only in exceptional circumstances like national security, pandemic and natural disasters, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. Speaking during an online discussion, the minister said the National Data Governance Framework Policy has provision for handling anonymisation of data -- which is not part of the draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022. Chandrasekhar also said the proposed Data Protection Board -- which will adjudicate matters related to data protection -- will be independent and will not have any government officer on the board. While responding to questions around privacy on Twitter Live on Saturday evening, the minister re-phrased the question of a participant to clarify the stand of the government and provisions in the draft DPDP Bill 2022. "Let us say that the government wants to

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday allayed concerns over the extent of independence of the government-appointed oversight body proposed in the draft data protection Bill, saying just like RBI and SEBI the architecture of the new body will ensure its autonomy on issues. Vaishnaw, who was speaking at Times Now Summit 2022 also countered criticism around the draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill and questions around surveillance and said the risk of terrorist threats and cyber threats, as well as the changing nature of global warfare have to be kept in mind. These realities have to be considered, and a balanced view has to be taken. Supreme Court, he said, has set clear processes on surveillance, with many checks and balances. To questions being raised on just how independent the proposed Data Protection Board will be, the minister made it clear that independence and autonomy come from law, and cited the strong reputation enjoyed by RBI, SEBI, all over the world. Sin

MeitY on Friday released a draft version of the much-awaited data protection law, in the fourth such effort since it was first proposed in July 2018

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill is a more forceful attempt to legislate a Chinese-style surveillance state in the world's largest democracy