Landmark data bill reaches Parliament

The central government on Thursday presented the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill in Lok Sabha, its second attempt to create legislation governing data privacy and protection in the country.

- Gulveen Aulakh & Shouvik Das

“This new bill, after it is passed by Parliament, will protect the rights of all citizens, allow innovation economy to expand, and permit the government’s lawful and legitimate access in national security and emergencies like pandemics and earthquakes," said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology.

“The DPDP bill is a global standard—contemporary, future-ready, yet, simple and easy to understand," he said, adding that the bill was drafted after exhaustive consultations with a multitude of stakeholders.

The bill envisages penalties of up to ₹250 crore per instance in the case of a data breach, lower than the ₹500 crore penalty that was proposed in the earlier draft issued in November last year.

It further adds that the Centre will decide which companies will be deemed as “significant data fiduciaries" based on multiple factors, such as its “risk to the rights of the data principal (users)", “potential impact on the sovereignty and integrity of India", “risk to electoral democracy", “security of the State", and more.

A government official said on condition of anonymity that Section 10 of the bill, which mandates a significant fiduciary to have a local office and a data protection officer (DPO), was inserted “to make privacy provisions much stronger."