The draft of PDP Bill was first tabled in Parliament in December, 2019. In January 2020, a JPC or Joint Parliamentary Committee was constituted to study it.

The Joint Parliamentory Committee took up the Bill for discussion since January, 2020 and held 66 sittings spending 160 hours for deliberations on the Bill and discuss it clause by clause. There were 800 representations to the committee. It consulted the other concerned ministries, stakeholders and other members themselves. They have finalised the Bill after building consensus on all aspects of the final draft.

There were concerns about the proposed privacy law. There were concerns about the access given to the government to citizens’ data without consent. There was the issue of including the non-personal data in the new law. There was concern about the absence of judicial participation in selecting the head of the regulatory body.

It is to be seen how the data is to be stored. There are Standing Committee recommendations on important legislations being non-binding on the government.

There was high concern about Section 35, which allows the Centre to exempt its agencies from some or all of its provisions for national security and public disorder. Members were in favour of tightening the exceptions. Some had sought its total removal.