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House panel on Personal Data Protection summons Ola, Uber, Jio, Airtel
A key topic that may be discussed in meetings of the panel is a provision of the draft data bill that asks tech giants to share non-personal data.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection has summoned cab hailing apps Ola and Uber, and telecom giants Bharti Airtel, Jio Infocom, Jio Platforms and Truecaller for its next set of meetings to be held in the first week of November, according to the Lok Sabha website.
The Committee has asked the companies to make detailed submissions about their policies related to data collection, data protection, artificial intelligence and privacy of consumers, people familiar with the matter said.
The JPC, led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian Meenakshi Lekhi, already heard from Twitter, Amazon, Google, PayTm and Facebook on the issue last week.
The JPC is meeting large tech companies to understand their view on personal data protection. India’s Personal Data Protection bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha last December. Among other provisions, it proposed a national regulator to protect the personal data of individuals.
A key topic that may be discussed in meetings of the panel this week is a provision of the draft data bill that asks tech-giants to share non-personal data, comprising elements such as traffic density mapped by companies like Google maps and Uber, with the government when asked.
The government, which presented its draft non-personalized data-sharing framework in July, defines it as “any data that is not related to an identified or identifiable natural person, or is personal data that has been anonymised”.
The government has argued such sharing of data will help formulate better and more efficient policies. The framework talks about the creation of a data market for sharing of data that will be regulated. In case a business claims that the data can’t be shared, it has to justify its decision it to the regulator.
This particular provision was controversial with pushback from industry leaders who said companies use non-personal data to boost revenue and may suffer losses.
Earlier this week, the panel asked tech giant Google and fin-tech company One 97 Communications, which runs Paytm, to explain their relationship with China, according to people familiar with the matter.
Google officials reiterated that the company walked out of China on its own, but the panel was keen to know if its products or services have any links with China since Google owns Android, the software used by many Chinese phone makers.
Paytm, the people said, admitted that Chinese company Alibaba is an investor but that none of the investors has a say in the company’s running.
One of the people quoted above added that Google officials were grilled about the need for regulating the company, especially on the content part of its business.
According to one member of the JPC, Google maintained that India should avoid data localisation requirement as it is ill-fitted to protect privacy and security. The tech giant also claimed that the move to localise data is not in sync with open trade commitments and modern data protection standard, this person said.
