Data Protection Law Passed in India’s Parliament Amid Privacy Concerns

A data protection bill that seeks to strengthen oversight of the biggest names in technology and impose penalties on companies for data breaches was adopted by Indian members of parliament on Wednesday amid concerns from a number of organizations regarding the rights of citizens to privacy.

According to Information Technology and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the legislation will put restrictions on the movement of data across international borders and give a framework for the establishment of a data protection authority to oversee compliance on the part of tech corporations.

Opposition parliamentarians and digital experts have raised concerns over proposed legislation that could grant the government and its agencies access to data about users from companies and the personal information of individuals without their consent. These critics argue that the bill would enable the collection of personal information in a country where digital liberty has been on the decline since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge of the office in 2014.

Concerns have been raised by digital experts regarding the potential impact of legislation on the well-established Right To Information law, enacted in 2005, this law has granted citizens the ability to request and obtain data from public officials, including information on state employee salaries. Experts in the digital field are apprehensive that the proposed legislation may undermine the effectiveness of this landmark law.

Digital rights group Access Now has issued a statement expressing concerns over proposed legislation, highlighting potential risks to privacy and excessive exemptions granted to the government. The group argues that the absence of an independent regulator could further empower the government’s influence over personal data and potentially lead to increased censorship.

The Digital Personal Data Protection bill was approved by the upper chamber of Parliament and will eventually need to be signed by the ceremonial president of the country in order to become law. This signature is merely a formality. On Monday, it was approved by the chamber of the lower house of the Parliament.

The government of India has made its third attempt to pass legislation that upholds the fundamental right to privacy for every citizen. This development comes nearly six years after India’s top court delivered a landmark judgment affirming privacy as a basic right, a decision that was widely celebrated as a victory for individual freedom.

Advocates for the legislation have emphasized the urgent need for a data protection law in a country like India, where incidents of fraudulent transactions and data breaches are alarmingly common. They argue that such a law would play a vital role in safeguarding individuals’ personal information from being exploited for commercial or political purposes.

India passed broad regulatory rules that put social media businesses and digital platforms directly under the control of the Indian government for monitoring and regulation in 2021. The administration of Modi stated that it was necessary to do so in order to stop the spread of false information and hate speech, as well as to offer users more authority to report content that they find offensive.

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