E-Paper
Digital Personal Data Protection Bill: IFF seeks transparent consultations
The government last week released the draft for public comments three months after withdrawing a previous data privacy bill
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights organisation, has asked the Union electronics and information technology ministry to hold “transparent and deliberative public consultations” over the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDPB).
The government last week released the draft for public comments three months after withdrawing a previous data privacy bill. The new bill aims to protect digital personal data, provides for penalties over data breaches, and seeks to allow data transfer abroad.
In a letter to the ministry, IFF said it appreciates the draft has been put out for public consultation but it would have preferred if it made available a white paper underlining the issues it considered while developing the “comprehensive legal framework”, of which the bill will be a crucial part.
IFF urged the ministry to keep the drafting and review process for a draft Digital India Bill and the DPDPB aligned with the pre-legislative consultation policy. “The process must also respect several healthy precedents for public consultations set in the past, including provisions to send comments/submissions within a reasonable duration (no less than 30 days), making the comments publicly available and allowing for counter comments.”
IFF called for the need to update the Information Technology (IT) Act. “The government must, in collaboration with multiple and diverse stakeholders, work towards building a statutory framework that safeguards ordinary Indians. In addition to an open, transparent, deliberate public consultation.”
It asked the ministry to publish a white paper underlining its intent and understanding behind introducing any forthcoming governance framework for the digital ecosystem.
In July 2021, IFF told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that the IT Act was originally promulgated to govern e-commerce and it would need to be updated to reflect significant technological, policy, and legal developments as well as modern technological realities
