Data Protection Bill Will Put An End To Misuse Of Customer Data: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Calling misuse of customer data a violation of privacy, Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that India’s upcoming digital Data Protection Bill would end this data misuse and fine violating companies.

In a tweet, Chandrasekhar said, “This type of “misuse” of custmr data violates #Privacy n #DataProtection expectations”. He was responding to a tweet by The New York Times about tech giant Google agreeing to pay $392 Mn in privacy settlements with 40 US states for tracking customer location data.

“India’s #DigitalDataProtection bill will put a stop to this – & ensure that any Platform/Intermediary that does this will face punitive & financial consequences,” the minister added.

The Personal Data Protection Bill of 2021 covered the processing of personal data, sensitive personal data, and non-personal data. It also had recommendations about regulations on social media platforms and data localisation. 

The draft bill aimed to bring a wide-reaching set of rules and regulations to India’s digital economy, as there is no overarching regulatory framework for the same.

First drafted by a panel led by retired Supreme Court Judge BN Srikrishna in 2017, the draft Bill was introduced in December 2019 in the Lok Sabha.

After receiving criticism from a joint parliamentary committee (JPC), the 2019 draft was pulled and replaced with a 2021 draft. However, the government withdrew the Bill in August 2022.

The government cited the compliance burden as one of the reasons for withdrawing the Bill. It said that the draft bill would have significantly increased the burden on Indian startups. 

Back then, Chandrasekhar had said, “Big tech firms would have just hired more lawyers to comply if there was a complicated privacy law. The burden of such legislation would have hurt startups.”

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is drafting a new bill to replace the old draft and it is expected to be tabled in the Lok Sabha soon.

In September, Union Minister for Electronics, IT, Telecom and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the MeitY is looking to table the new data protection bill by the Budget Session.

“We have to draw that fine balance between privacy, innovation, making sure that the regulation is highly implementable,” he said in an interview with Sansad TV.

The lack of data protection norms has been felt by India’s digital landscape for quite some time. The regulatory framework being used right now is a patchwork of existing norms which do little in the way of regulating the ecosystem.