Union IT minister argues that data bill strikes the right balance between rights, commerce & innovation

The UAE digital minister recently saying that “the future will have Indian fingerprints on it for everyone and everywhere,” sums up India’s expanding presence and stature in today’s fast-digitising world and changing technology value chains. From three decades of being a consumer of all technologies we have become architects, designers and producers of tech platforms, solutions, devices and products – Young Indians are confidently innovating in domains ranging from Space to Deep Tech, AI to web3, the internet to electronics and semiconductors.

India, with over 820 million internet users, soon to touch 1.2 billion, has become the world’s largest connected democracy, with the largest presence on the global internet. Unlike China’s walled off and heavily censored internet (or intranet), the internet in India is open, accessible and interconnected to the global digital network, just like Western democracies. With India assuming presidency of G20 and also council chairmanship of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, it seems a natural fit for a leadership role in shaping the future of technology, in particular this new era of technology policy and governance.

PM Modi’s goals for India are clear: A decade of technology opportunities, “IndiaTechade”, and an immediate target of a $1 trillion digital economy. To meet these goals, the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) is piecing together a policy framework to strengthen India’s position in the global digital economy – around principles of openness, safety and trust, and accountability.

In technology policymaking presents a unique challenge. Agile and dynamic tech developments require agile and responsive governance. This has become even more important as much of the rise in consumer data misuse, user harm and online criminality is because governments around the world have lagged in framing laws and regulations to swiftly respond to the rapidly shifting and growing challenges of crime, harassment and political interference on the internet and tech space.

To tackle these challenges, legislation needs to address the present but also be ready to change gears as and when required. Hence, MeitY’s new forward-looking approach to internet-related matters includes having an unwavering focus on enhancing accountability, safety and trust, without increasing the regulatory burden. It also puts emphasis on laws that can quickly adapt to changing tech needs with new rules and regulations.

An opportunity, not burden

Since the 2017 Right to Privacy judgment, policymaking on the digital economy focuses on trust, growth and governance. There is no standard playbook out there, notwithstanding the recent proliferation of “experts”.

Our government has been on a journey to design a legislation that safeguards the interests of data principals (consumers/citizens) without stifling innovation. Stakeholders ranging from consumers to startups to investors have been involved at every step. The Modi government has welcomed consumer and industry feedback, examined it in detail, and taken cognisance of concerns that were justified. That our PM agreed to our request for withdrawal of the last version of the Data Bill in August 2022 because of how cumbersome it had become, and despite the time spent on it, is a testament to the openness of the process.

Between then and now, we went back to the drawing board – established a comprehensive future-ready framework for our digital economy and ecosystem consisting of IT Act & IT rules, cybersecurity directions, National Data Governance Framework Policy, the Digital Data Protection Bill, and soon to be unveiled Digital India Act (as a successor to the 22-year-old IT Act).

Within this future-ready cyberlaw framework, the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 achieves the objectives of protecting citizens’ right to data protection, ease of doing business, and government’s national security and emergency requirements – and establishes a design to achieve the three seemingly contradictory goals of data protection, facilitating innovation and governance. DPDP will usher in deep permanent behavioural changes in our data economy and put legal brakes on the rampant misuse of personal data as well as the toxic practices of doxxing, gaslighting and cyber trolling.

Apart from its simple language and design, the salient features of the DPDP Bill are:

• Citizen/consumer (Digital Nagrik) rights to data protection are well-protected.
• Data fiduciaries’ obligations are clear, precise and unambiguous. Data minimisation, consent, purpose and storage limitation, swift and transparent adjudications of data breaches by the data protection board are principles that have been coded into the Bill.
• Compliance burden is proportional and minimal.
• The adjudicating authority, the Data Protection Board, is independent and has a specific role of adjudicating disputes and determining financial penalties in the event of breaches. Its independence and performance are assured by the oversight of the high court where appeals of its orders lie.
• All standards for the larger data ecosystem will be set by MeitY through its India Data Management office.
• Cross-border data flow is to be conditional – only to trusted jurisdictions that will ensure data protection rights of Indian consumers will be protected. This will balance the interests of startups/software firms, for whom data flows across geographical boundaries are a mainstay.
• No compromise on the government’s need to access data for emergency purposes like law enforcement, pandemics and natural disasters.
• The Bill is aligned to the tests of legality, necessity and proportionality as laid out by the Supreme Court.
• India will be well-positioned as a safe destination for data processing, helping the growth of its cloud and data centre industry.

Policymakers & stakeholders as partners

We are on the final leg of our journey for the DPDP Bill – it is open for public consultation. Constructive feedback and comments are welcome. We are engaging with all stakeholders – sectoral groups, academicians, industry bodies, lawyers. We believe the consultative process of governance will incubate policies that act as catalysts for the digital economy. Its success would mean that in the coming decade of policy governance, policymakers and stakeholders will work as partners.

With the global-standard and future-ready framework of laws and rules now taking shape, a safe and trusted, consumer rights-protected, enabling environment for the India Techade is falling into place. As the world’s largest connected democracy and as a pre-eminent nation in using technology to improve the lives of citizens and to create more opportunities for youth, India under PM Modi is charting a new course for both its own and the world’s future digital economy.

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