NEW DELHI: The Central government has informed India's top court that it intends to introduce the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, in the Parliament "at the earliest."
The centre's affidavit to the apex court stated, "MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) initiated a stakeholder consultation exercise on the draft Bill, inviting comments from the public on 18.11.2022, the last date for receipt of which was 2.1.2023. MeitY is in the process of collating and analysing the feedback and suggestions received, with a view to take the draft Bill forward. As is evident from the above steps taken and consultations initiated, MeitY, subject to fulfilment of procedural requirements, intends to introduce the aforesaid bill in Parliament at the earliest."
Centre’s response has been filed in a plea which is currently being heard by the constitution bench. The plea was filed by two law students - Karmanya Singh and Shreya Sethi - challenging WhatsApp's privacy policy of sharing users' personal data with Facebook as a violation of their fundamental right to privacy.
Further, MeITY in its affidavit said the Ministry has also framed IT (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data of Information) Rules, 2011 to protect the personal data of users.
The affidavit also said, "section 72A of the IT Act provides that any person, including an intermediary, who, while providing services under the terms of a lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain discloses, without the consent of the person concerned, or breach of a lawful contract, such material to any other person, shall be penalised."
MeITY’s affidavit also said, "Central Government, in exercise of its powers under the Information Technology Act, 2000 ['IT Act"], has made the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. These provide, inter alia, that an intermediary, including a social media intermediary, shall observe due diligence as specified in the rules while discharging its duties."