Privacy law will hold Big Tech to account: Vaishnaw

India's new privacy law, which received the President's assent late on Friday, will mean greater accountability for Big Tech, Union minister for electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said, adding that behaviour tracking without specific user consent will be deemed illegal.

- Binayak Dasgupta

In an interview, the minister spoke on the crucial next stepsthe forming of the Data Protection Board and the drawing up of the rules under the Act - and said that there will be hectic efforts for implementation in the next few months. "The rulemaking is going on in parallel. The rules will also be in very clear language, they will be agile and with an ability to change with technology," he said, adding that the rules will be brought to Parliament in the next few months.

The minister added that the rules will also bring greater accountability for large companies such as Meta and X (formerly Twitter) that are often accused of leveraging usage patterns of their users to create behaviour profiles and target advertisements.