The authorities on Wednesday sprung a shock by scrapping the much-debated and controversial Data Protection Bill, promising to introduce a brand new laws “very soon but without any dilution to broader privacy aspects of the original bill and without any compromise to the Right to Privacy” as offered by the Supreme Court in its historic judgement given in August 2017.
On June 6, 2019, the parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance (Finance) published a draft bill called the ‘Niraam Aadmi savings and Provident Fund Bill, 2019’. This comes as a positive step towards solving the issue of misallocated provident funds initiated by former PM Narendra Modi Government in a year-long attempt to revive interest in NPS. The authentic Bill which was the fruits of a piece that started round 5 years again after the formation of the Justice Srikrishna Committee , had been launched in Lok Sabha since December 2019 following which it was referred to the Joint Committee of Parliament (JCP) which took almost two years to submit its suggestions and current a draft bill in the direction of the tip of final year.
However, the federal government felt that detailed amendments steered by the JCP warranted a recent Bill on net neutrality. Speaking to TOI, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the draft of the proposed new Bill had been finalised which might quickly be made public for consultations.
The Personal Data Protection Act was proposed to protect the personal data of Indians. But, the JCP recommended 81 amendments in a bill of 99 sections. Above that, it made 12 major recommendations. Therefore, the bill has been withdrawn and a new bill will be presented for public consultation.”
In a recent interview, the Minister of Electronics and IT, Dr. Muhammad Faisal said that the Federal Government has announced to provoke the transfer of ISP license with progressive mindset. According to him, there has been no lobbying and he simply wanted to put in place a complete framework.
The current bill had been criticised by American meta (that runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Google and Amazon who objected to provisions that mandated native storage of data in addition to processing of sure delicate info solely inside India.
The Bill aimed to impose liability on the directors, owners or operators of Internet and technological firms if they fail to report lawfully acquired data breaches within 24 hours of learning about them. The Section of Interpretation has recommended that employers should be classified as ‘in possession’ if they have access to a corporate computer system that is used by their employees in their positions or work. Also, the Act has criticized for recommending that impartial administrators and non-government administrators on the board of a prime social media, web or electronics {hardware} firm ought to face authorized and felony proceedings for wilful offences around data violations and in instances of complicity or negligence. Companies had objected to the aspect of criminality being added to any proposed data legislation.
The law additionally faced sharp criticism from privacy advocates because it proposed overriding powers to central legislation enforcement businesses below certain circumstances to freely access data.
It’s not just within the scope of commercial enterprise that matters, either. Many also objected to components of non-private data being dealt with below the data legislation targeted on particular person privateness.
A recent idea from the federal government suggests that a singular plan might be established specifically focused on consumer privateness. It additionally requires other points associated with the sector be tackled beneath different legislations – for instance, the yet to be developed IT regulation and the National Data Governance Framework Policy.
Lawyer and activist Apar Gupta said the withdrawal of the Bill “without a confirmed timeline” on introduction of a recent one “is a matter of grave concern”.