Worried that the big fish at big companies that misuse your personal data might escape the long hand of the law? Rest easy. Executives and heads of companies that are caught knowingly or "recklessly" engaging in data theft and the illegal processing of your sensitive personal information could be jailed for up to five years if the recommendations of a recently-submitted draft Bill on data protection are accepted by the government.
While submitting its recommendations for a data protection law to the Centre on Friday, the panel led by Justice B N Srikrishna has proposed that such executives should face criminal proceedings, reported the Times of India on Sunday. Further, the report said that not all members of the committee were in agreement with this proposal.
The national daily has detailed the proposals made by the panel.
Here's what the B N Srikrishna committee's draft Bill proposes:
Here are some other recommendations made by the panel:
What is the panel and what was it formed to do?
The government had constituted the 10-member committee in July 2017 to recommend a framework for securing personal data in the increasingly digitised economy and also to address privacy concerns and build safeguards against data breaches.
Headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, the panel handed the report to Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday, wrapping up nearly one year of deliberations that touched upon sensitive and controversial issues.