Opposition MPs Suggest 40 Amendments To Draft DPDP Bill

The draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill, 2022 has received fresh comments from the opposition MPs in the Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT). The MPs have raised concerns over the DPDP Bill, 2022 and reportedly suggested close to 40 amendments to the draft Bill.

Some of the raised concerns include the centralisation of power, a lack of independence of the Data Protection Board, blanket exemptions to some data fiduciaries and exceptions provided to the government in the draft Bill.

Karti Chidambaram, along with Jawahar Sircar and John Brittas told ET that they plan to raise these issues in the next meeting of the committee. “We may have more than 40 suggestions for the draft Bill in its current form,” Brittas said.

The development comes weeks after the Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw claimed that the Parliamentary Standing Committee has given its assent to the draft DPDP Bill, which was refuted by the standing committee’s member and Congress MP Karti Chidambaram.

A major concern of the standing committee members was a lack of independence of the Data Protection Board in the current structure of the draft. Incidentally, many industry experts have already raised concerns about the same issues in the past.

According to Brittas, the draft Bill does not uphold the 2017 Right to Privacy verdict of the Supreme Court, which protects privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution, and this was a major concern, Brittas said.

The MPs also told ET that there was no clarity on the timeline for when the draft Bill would be introduced in the Parliament, as it was supposed to be introduced in the second half of the Budget session.

Sircar’s issues were with the Data Protection Board, along with the clause on deemed consent, which has, again, been flagged as a major concern by many experts.

“The government has unchecked and unbridled powers with the Data Protection Board. With the deemed consent clause, the data fiduciary has access to the personal data of patients (who get treated at healthcare facilities) and authorises it to share with anyone. Another concern is the impact the Bill has on the RTI Act as it proposes to amend it,” Sircar was cited as saying.

At the same time, Chidambaram told ET that he raised concerns about the centralisation of power, lack of independence of the Data Protection Board, exemptions to certain data fiduciaries and the government and a lack of attention to protecting children’s data.

He added that it was concerning that the government has exempted itself and its agencies from adhering to provisions of the Bill, citing national security. 

Adding to the conversation, Brittas was cited as saying, “National security and national interests are not the monopoly of the government alone. National security should not be a ploy to defeat the purpose of the Bill.”

The draft Bill, which is still yet to be introduced in Parliament, replaced the draft Data Protection Bill in August 2022. The government closed the public consultations for the draft Bill on January 2.