Privacy Of Citizens Will Not Be Violated With DPDP Bill 2022, Says IT Minister

The questions around Indian citizens’ data privacy have taken an uproar with the release of The draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022 on November 18, 2022. In a recent interaction with Inc42, Justice Bellur Narayanaswamy Srikrishna also indicated that if the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, gets passed as it is, it will not be able to safeguard citizens or individuals from the poaching of data and its misuse by government agencies.

However, the government has assured that the privacy of the citizens under the proposed data protection law will not be violated, reported the Times of India.

Minister for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar addressed these concerns during a Twitter Live on Saturday, November 26th.

“It (government) will get access to personal data only in exceptional circumstances like national security, pandemic, and natural disasters,” he said.

He further said that the National Data Governance Framework Policy has a provision for handling anonymisation of data — which is not part of the draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022.

“The proposed Data Protection Board — which will adjudicate matters related to data protection — will be independent and will not have any government officer on the board,” he added.

Earlier in July 2022, the minister indicated that the draft bill calls for the establishment of the India Data Management Office (IDMO). The office will oversee the formulation of all specific standards and guidelines on all aspects of data storage and data anonymisation.

The policy aims to provide an institutional framework for data/datasets/metadata rules, standards, guidelines and protocols for sharing of non-personal data sets while ensuring privacy, security and trust. It also envisages private companies sharing non-personal data with startups as part of the new framework.

The government has also proposed a penalty of up to INR 500 Cr for non-compliance with the Act.

The proposed Data Protection Bill has come after a long haul. It was first introduced in 2017 by panel led by retired Supreme Court Judge BN Srikrishna. However, the government withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2021 in August this year after 81 amendments were proposed by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC).

Going forward, it is expected that this bill will put an end to misuse of customer data by any platforms or intermediaries. The proposed bill has not only attempted to put in place a clear definition of personal data, but have also allocated certain rights to users regarding usage of their personal information by different platforms.