It is reported that the Union Cabinet has approved a version of the Personal Data Protection Bill to be tabled in the Parliament. It is expected that the Bill will be tabled any time.
The industry observers are waiting eagerly to see if the “Anti Data Localization Lobby” has been able to persuade the Government to drop the earlier proposition. This was the most vocal opposition to the earlier version. On the other hand a lobby did develop highlighting the “Data Sovereignty” principle. We need to see if the Government has yielded to the lobby.
There are some unconfirmed reports that some provisions of the Intermediary Guidelines that was issued as a change in the notification under ITA 2000 could be also included in some form in the Bill. We need to wait if this is done.
One of the provisions that we eagerly await is regarding the “Non Bailable” nature of the offences which perhaps need to be changed into “Bailable”. The Data localization issue can be handled in due course since the Act anyway has the provision to set up a separate date for implementation of this provision.
Let us wait and see whether the wishes of the Anti Data Localization lobby have been accommodated.
It would be interesting to see how the Opposition would react to the Bill. Will they oppose it for the sake of opposition? or go with the tide to bring a formal data protection regime in India?
Naavi’s Cyber Law College would be launching its new Certificate Course on PDPA from this Saturday the 7th December 2019 and would be the first such formal course to incorporate the new version of the Bill. It is expected that the Bill gets passed at the next session in February and the DPA would be in place by April 2020.
Naavi
