The Joint Parliamentary Committee for Data Bill has adopted its draft report on the proposed legislation on 22 November, 2021. The government officials claim that the report has been adopted unanimously, but it seems a few opposition members have submitted dissent notes or are in the process of doing so.
The panel received 93 recommendations for the bill. The Bill has 99 clauses. The report is expected to be tabled shortly in the winter Session, 2021.
The dissenting notes pertain to sections 35 and 12 of the draft legislation. The opposition objects to section 35 restricting privacy issues to the activities of private companies. The section exempts the government and its agencies as their activities are in public or national interest, and individual privacy is secondary. Such a blanket exemption cannot be given, and some checks must be put.
Section12(a) (i) grants certain exceptions for the government and its agencies.
Private companies would be given two years to migrate to the new data protection regime, whereas there is no such stipulation for the government agencies.
The Supreme Court emphasized privacy in Puttaswamy case in August, 2017. However, the Bill is applicable to only a small section of Indians.
There are suggestions to make social media accountable for the posts on their sites. There should be penalties for breaching data and its illegal sharing. There should be restrictions on data accessed by children.
Leave a Reply