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Business News/ News / India/  Government proposes referring data protection bill to joint select committee
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Government proposes referring data protection bill to joint select committee

Prasad said the joint select committee should finalize the report before the Budget session of Parliament
  • The minister’s comment came amid protests from the opposition which claimed the proposed law compromises citizens’ right to privacy
  • Information and Technology minister Ravishankar Prasad. (Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint)Premium
    Information and Technology minister Ravishankar Prasad. (Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint)

    New Delhi: Information Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday proposed setting up of a joint select committee of both houses of Parliament for a wider discussion of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.

    “Since the bill is compassionate (towards the needs of the citizens) and other countries are also looking forward to this law, the bill should be discussed by committee comprising members from both the houses of the Parliament (Lok and Rajya Sabha)," Prasad said before the bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha.

    The Bill, which got the Union Cabinet’s nod last week, seeks to lay down a legal framework to preserve the sanctity of “consent" in data sharing and penalize those breaching privacy norms.

    Prasad further said the joint select committee should finalize the report before the Budget session of Parliament, which is expected to begin in the last week of January.

    “Let the Parliamentary process examine it in the most detailed manner possible and the select committee will have good number from the opposition from both the houses," he said.

    The joint committee will comprise 20 members from the Lower House, including Meenakshi Lekhi, Tejasvi Surya, Saugata Roy, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Kanimozhi, among others. There will be 10 members from the Rajya Sabha.

    “In order to constitute a sitting of the Joint Committee the quorum shall be one-third of the total number of Members of the Joint Committee," according to information available on Lok Sabha website.

    The minister’s comment came amid protests from the opposition which claimed the proposed law compromises citizens’ right to privacy.

    In line with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the government last year introduced a draft personal data protection bill to regulate the use of an individual’s data by the government and private companies. Currently, there are no laws on the use of personal data and preventing its misuse, although the Supreme Court upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right back in 2017.

    The earlier version of the draft was prepared by a high-level expert group headed by former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna. However, inter-ministerial consultations delayed its approval.

    The current draft is a sharp contrast from the earlier version as it proposes to give power to the Centre to exempt government agencies from the provisions of the bill on grounds of national security, raising concerns pertaining to privacy.

    Similarly, the government is also entitled to direct a fiduciary—any person or entity that processes data—to get access to non-personal data to provide better services to citizens. For instance, the government can use non-personal or anonymous data for research or any other purpose.

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    Published: 11 Dec 2019, 04:56 PM IST
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