Draft National Data Governance Policy Under Finalisation: Centre

The Draft National Data Governance Policy has been prepared and is under finalisation, the government said in its implementation document for Budget 2023-24 announcements.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the launch of a National Data Governance Policy to enable access to anonymised data in her Budget speech last year.

The policy is expected to address one of the major hiccups for adoption of AI in the country – the lack of datasets – by enabling widespread access to anonymised data.

The government first introduced the draft National Data Governance Framework Policy in 2022 to ensure that non-personal data and anonymised data from both government and private entities are safely accessible to the research and innovation ecosystem.

In February 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) also issued the draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy to facilitate government data sharing, but it faced criticism for various reasons. In May 2022, the ministry released the draft National Data Governance Framework, replacing the earlier version.

It is still not clear if the mandate for sharing anonymised data under the framework released in May 2022 applies to government entities only or includes private entities as well.

Meanwhile, India got its data protection law earlier last year. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on August 7 and in the Rajya Sabha two days later. On August 11, President Droupadi Murmu finally granted her assent to the Bill to become an Act.

The DPDP Act directs setting up a Data Protection Board of India to ensure its implementation. In case of any personal data breach, the board will be responsible for looking into the matter, inquiring into the breach and imposing penalties.

The Centre may release the administrative rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules and notify the final version of the Bill soon.

Last month, executives from social media and internet intermediaries met with senior officials from MeitY. The discussions focused on crucial topics, including child gating, the formulation of consent architecture, and the delineation of rights and obligations for data principals.