India’s data protection bill has been in the works since early 2018. After the judgment in the Puttaswamy case holding privacy to be a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, the government established a committee under Justice BN Srikrishna which came up with recommendations on India’s personal data protection law. Based, on the recommendations of the committee, the draft bill was prepared. However, the bill has been doing the rounds of parliament ever since and has undergone significant changes.
The parliamentary select committee that is now discussing the Personal Data Protection Bill has talked about introducing the concept of “digitally-enabled consent” for any use of a person’s data and its management.
At present, the user gets one chance in the beginning to give access to data that cannot be changed later, but removing this the government wants to provide to the user’s option to give and withdraw consent in real-time. They have talked about outlining the functions of the company to properly explain the scope of data sharing and usage by the company based on which the user can form an informed opinion. And based on their understanding of the proper scope of usage of their data, the users can give digital consent through the use of their digital signature.
Apart from this, the bill has also undergone other significant changes over its draft. It has been 3 years since the bill was introduced and Government has yet not tabled the bill in the parliament which is putting data of many Indians at risk amid an increase in cyber attacks.
