NEW DELHI: The Union government on Wednesday withdrew the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill 2019 from the Lok Sabha, saying it plans to bring in comprehensive legislation soon.
Announcing the decision, Union Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the Joint Committee of Parliament has looked at the bill in detail and made 81 amendments and 12 recommendations toward a comprehensive legal framework on digital ecosystem.
“Considering the JPC report, a comprehensive legal framework is being worked out. We will present a new bill that fits into this framework,” said Vaishnaw.
The original bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2019, had evoked strong protests from Opposition parties and civil society members who alleged the proposed legislation gave sweeping powers to the government to access the personal data of citizens.
The bill was later referred to the JPC led by BJP MP P P Chaudhary. Among a slew of recommendations, the panel suggested a single law to deal with both personal and non-personal data.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, who is a member of the JPC, told this paper that he has flagged his main concerns as providing the government with powers to give blanket exemption to its probe agencies from the provisions of Act.
“When privacy is a fundamental right, how can the government be allowed to exempt themselves from ensuring the privacy of a citizen?” he asked.
He also said that the government should bring in the new law at the earliest.
“We only hope that the government does not take too long to bring in the new Bill because Indians are still vulnerable to data theft and there is no legal framework to protect the privacy of data,” said Gogoi.
Echoing similar concerns, Prateek Waghre, policy director at Internet Freedom Foundation, said the government should take JPC’s recommendations into account before bringing in a new bill.
“The problem is that while on the one side we are debating the bill, the government is pushing ahead with a lot of other frameworks and digitisation programmes in the absence of a data protection regime,” he said.
Expressing disappointment, Congress MP Manish Tewari said better legislation could have emerged had the bill been debated in the House.
He said he had rejected the original data protection bill in toto in the dissent note since it split the data universe into government, which was exempt, and the private sector where it would apply with full rigour.
“Big Tech never wanted this Law. Big Tech won, India lost,” he said.
New bill likely in Winter session
The government is likely to hold wide public consultation before bringing the new legislation to Parliament in the Winter session, sources said.
There could be multiple bills dealing with privacy and cyber security