The Busy Brains
10 Jul 2023
India's long-awaited Digital Personal Data Protection Bill has been given approval by the Union cabinet. Learn about the key provisions of the bill, which aims to protect citizens' privacy and regulate the processing of personal data.
India is one step closer to implementing its digital personal data protection rules as the Union cabinet has granted approval to the 'Digital Personal Data Protection Bill', according to multiple reports on Wednesday. The bill is expected to be presented during the upcoming session of the Parliament.
The Indian government has been working on updating its IT laws, including digital data protection, for several years. While a Digital India Act is already in progress, the new digital personal data protection bill is a condensed version of its previous iteration.
The primary objective of the bill is to regulate the processing of digital personal data in a way that safeguards citizens' privacy. It also aims to empower individuals to have better control over the information they share online.
Under the bill, data fiduciaries, which are entities collecting personal data from individuals, must provide notice explaining the purpose of data collection. A "Consent Manager" should be available for users to review and manage their provided consent, and this entity must register with a Data Protection Board established by the government. Data fiduciaries are required to obtain "verifiable parental consent" when collecting data from minors.
Furthermore, data fiduciaries must no longer retain a user's information (referred to as a "data principal") once the purpose for keeping that data is fulfilled. The bill grants users the right to review, correct, and remove their provided data. They also have the ability to nominate someone else to handle their data in the event of death or incapacitation, and they have the right to file grievances with the data fiduciary.
However, the bill includes exemptions for certain cases. It provides government-wide exemptions for activities related to the interests of India's sovereignty, integrity, security, friendly relations with foreign states, maintenance of public order, or prevention of incitement to any cognizable offense.