New draft to be brought soon, says Parliament

After debating and backing the Personal Data Protection Bill for years, the government on Wednesday finally put an end to it, with a goal to bring a fresh draft by the next budget session of Parliament. The Joint Committee of Parliament JCP's review of the bill in the year 2019 suggested many amendments which led to the need for a new comprehensive legal framework, as the JCP recommended 81 amendments in a bill of 99 sections, which the Centre hopes will fit into the comprehensive legal framework. It made 12 major recommendations above that. The bill has been withdrawn and a new bill will be presented for public consultation, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union minister.

Without compromising any of the principles of privacy or the SC judgement. We have completed the Parliament's process today and we will take the new draft through the approval process very soon. The minister said that we should be able to get a new law passed by the budget session.

How did the parliamentary committee react?

Members of the JPC welcomed the decision to withdraw the legislation, saying it was better to bring new legislation after more than 80 amendments suggested by the panel. After so many amendments suggested by the panel, it makes sense to bring fresh legislation that will be comprehensive and includes all suggestions made by the committee, according to Chaudhary, chairman of the parliamentary committee.

The 2019 law, now withdrawn, proposed stringent regulations on cross-border data flows, and gave Indian government powers to seek user data from companies. This was seen as part of the Centre's move to impose stricter regulation of technology giants.

Big Tech was concerned that the law could increase compliance burden and data storage requirements.

The Bill had proposed a new proposal to regulate non-personal data, a term used by companies that analyze it as a critical resource to build their businesses. The parliamentary panel JCP suggested that such non-personal data should be included in the purview of the Privacy Bill.

A section of the Bill that was now defunct proposed the use of personal data without the explicit consent of citizens.

In the interest of sovereignty of India, it exempted government agencies from the law, which may have allowed agencies to misuse access. This was strongly opposed by the MPs for the Opposition, Members of Parliament. What IT industry association said?

India's IT industry body opined that the new draft must emphasize more on data protection along with include earlier Bill's feedback.

India's Techade is being shaped by accelerated digitisation and policy measures that enable access and inclusion. Data is the cornerstone of Digital India and the new framework for Personal Data Protection can build on the learnings from the implementation of data privacy laws and stakeholder feedback on the earlier bill. The fundamental imperatives will be to operationalise the fundamental right of privacy and enable data protection in a way that grows trust in data-driven businesses and allows data-led services to grow in a safe and trusted manner, according to Nasscom.