Digital Personal Data Protection Act is world-class legislation: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Sunday said that The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, recently passed by the Parliament is a world-class legislation. “The Digital Personal Data Protection Act is a world-class legislation. On August 15, 2021, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the term ‘techade,’ reflecting his vision of a future full of technological opportunities for students, young Indians who will be part of the workforce tomorrow,” the minister said while having an interaction with students, start-ups, and prominent citizens from the state in Bengaluru on Saturday.

He further claimed that he had introduced a private members’ Bill in the Parliament, asking for privacy to be recognized as a fundamental right back in 2010, but the Then Congress government did not do anything in this regard. The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 which seeks to set out requirements for firms collecting data online, with exceptions for the government and law enforcement agencies.

It also lays down the obligations of entities handling and processing data as well as the rights of individuals. The Bill, which was passed by voice vote in the absence of Opposition leaders who earlier walked out of the House, applies to the processing of digital personal data within India where such data is collected online, or collected offline and is digitised. It will also apply to such processing outside India if it is for offering goods or services in India.

The Bill amends the Right to Information Act, 2005 to remove public interest exemptions on disclosing personal information. The RTI Act currently allows public authorities to disclose personal information, such as officials’ salaries, when it is in the public interest. The Bill would remove these caveats and completely disallow disclosing personal information.

The Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 7, proposes a maximum penalty of Rs 250 crore and a minimum of Rs 50 crore on entities violating the norms. Personal data may be processed only for a lawful purpose upon the consent of an individual. Consent may not be required for specified legitimate uses such as the voluntary sharing of data by the individual or processing by the State for permits, licenses, benefits, and services.

However, Rajeev Chandrasekhar further said that this vision aims to establish contemporary and relevant laws tailored to Indian requirements along with platform obligations. “The forthcoming companion legislation is known as the Digital India Act, which is set to replace the 22-year-old IT Act. The Digital India Act will deal with the whole ecosystem of technology. Previously, data privacy conversations in our country used to start and end with the GDPR. It was almost a trend to regard anything foreign as the best. But we decided to design an Indian bill ground up instead of deriving inspiration from the GDPR. We have looked at the Indian internet with the 830 million Indians who use the internet and by 2025-26 it will be 1.2 billion Indians. We are the largest connected country in the world. We deserve to be setting our own standards in any conversation about technology for the future rather than borrowing anything from the EU or US,” the Minister added.

While highlighting the government’s commitment to treating citizens’ personal digital data with utmost importance, the Minister emphasized the significance of imposing substantial penalties. “These penalties serve a vital purpose — to ensure industries and platforms adhere to this law. This law is creating a new regime. We will allow companies and industries a transitional period. The era of misuse, the era of exploitation, the era of believing that Indian citizens don’t have rights comes to an end with this law. This bill is an important marker to catalyze the innovation ecosystem because it removes any ambiguity of what an entity is supposed to do when privacy is being declared as a fundamental right,” Chandrasekhar said. PTI