To begin with, the government on Wednesday vaulted a surprise as it impaled the much-criticized, and contentious Data Protection proposed legislation from Parliament, promising to introduce a new legislation very soon but without any preparation to wider privacy aspects of the original bill and without any concession to the Right to Privacy as bestowed by the Supreme Court in its historic judgment given in August 2017.
Meanwhile, the original proposed legislation, which was the culmination of a work that began around five years back after the formation of the Justice Srikrishna Committee, had been introduced in Lok Sabha in December 2019 following which it was referred to the Joint Committee of Parliament which took nearly two years to submit its recommendations and present a draft bill towards the end of last year.
Government to propose new legislation for Data Bill
However, the government introspectively thought that comprehensive modifications proposed by the JCP legislated a new proposed legislation, instead of undergoing through a heavy patchwork on the existing bill. Giving a statement to TOI, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw retorted that a draft of the proposed present proposed legislation had been finalised which would soon be made public for modifications.
Moreover, the minister said the government had decided to begin the move with a progressive mind-set. The present proposed legislation had been criticised by top internet giants such as Americans Meta, Google and Amazon who arraigned to facilities that mandated localized deposit of data as well as processing of certain sensitive information only within India.
Legislation arraigned by several establishments
In summary, the proposed legislation had been arraigned for advocating that individualistic administrant and non-executive directors on the board of a top social media, internet or electronics hardware company should face legal and criminal proceedings for wilful offences around data violations and in cases of connivance or dereliction of duty.
As a result, establishments had protested to the element of criminality being added to any proposed data law. Aside from internet establishments, the proposed legislation had also seen objections from privacy advocates as it proposed overriding powers to central law enforcement agencies under certain conditions to effortlessly acquire data.