Parliamentary panel adopts draft report on data protection bill

The Joint Committee of Parliament on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 adopted its draft report on the proposed legislation on Monday, after several rounds of meetings, depositions and red flags from the opposition members amid heightened concerns over privacy in the wake of the Pegasus revelations, with several MPs from the Congress, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and other parties submitting dissent notes.

Government officials claimed that the report was adopted "unanimously", but a few opposition members said they had submitted their dissent notes or were in the process of doing so before the November 24 deadline set by the committee chairperson PP Chaudhary.

The panel received 93 recommendations for the Bill, which has 99 clauses. The report is likely to be tabled before the end of the first week of the winter session of Parliament, which begins on November 29.

The dissenting notes pertain primarily to sections 35 and 12 of the draft legislation. The Opposition members have objected to section 35, stating that privacy issues arise only where operations and activities of private companies are concerned. The section stipulates that the government and its agencies are exempt as their activities are in public and national interest and treats individual privacy as secondary.

Section 12(a)(i) grants certain exceptions for the government and its agencies from the provision of consent. The opposition members were not in favour of blanket exemptions and wanted to put in some checks.