Reworked Personal Data Bill may relax rules on data localisation

Oct 10, 2022

Synopsis
​​“The internet is global and has data as its underlying basic element. For a robust internet innovation ecosystem, there has to be (a) flow of data. However, we also recognise that in our national interest, there are requirements of protecting a digital nagrik’s data protection and privacy rights,” Chandrasekhar said.

The revised version of the personal data protection (PDP) bill is likely to contain relaxed provisions on data localisation or crossborder flow of data but will ensure that all data belonging to Indian citizens remains available for law enforcement agencies or any other government organisation which is legally entitled to access such data, minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar told ET in an exclusive interview.

“The internet is global and has data as its underlying basic element. For a robust internet innovation ecosystem, there has to be (a) flow of data. However, we also recognise that in our national interest, there are requirements of protecting a digital nagrik’s data protection and privacy rights,” Chandrasekhar said.

Cross-border flow of data will, therefore, be permitted as long as the government is able to access the data legally and such data of citizens is safe even if it is stored in cloud architecture, he added.

Provisions over data localisation in the previous draft of the PDP Bill- —withdrawn earlier this year—that mandated certain types of data to be necessarily stored in India had invited significant criticism from companies, especially foreign tech companies and the governments of US and Europe along with Indian startups.

ET had reported last week that the revamped PDP Bill is in the final stages of being finalised and may be released for public consultation by October end or the first week of November.

The data protection bill will also go through extensive consultations with academia, subject, and legal experts before it is presented to the Parliament for passage, Chandrasekhar said, adding that “it is not something that we are going to rush through in a hurry” and there is “no artificial timeline” but will be done “soon”.

The ministry of electronics and IT is also likely to publish the final draft of the updated Information Technology Rules (IT) of 2021 this week. A major update of the Rules will be the government setting up the grievance appellate committees (GACs) to address concerns of users against social media platforms. The GAC will be “three-member” panels and may be in tens or hundreds if such a need arises, said Chandrasekhar

[The Economic Times]