The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 has been released by the Justice BN Srikrishna-led committee. The Bill to create a data protection law has been submitted to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in New Delhi. Reports indicate that a recent draft of the bill amends the Right to Information Act (RTI), now allowing public officials to withhold personal information. It also extends the Aadhaar body UIDAI’s monopoly on filing complaints under the Aadhaar Act. In addition, the law will also compel Parliament to establish a law to oversee intelligence agencies and their way of collecting information.
In a response to an RTI query, the Ministry stated that the bill, which has been passed after a year of consultation, will go to the Cabinet to be approved for introduction in the Parliament after it is approved from the IT Ministry.
With the increasing efforts towards digitising India through digital services, the data protection law has been a dire necessity since long. In its entirety, the bill will aim at protecting the rights of the Indian citizens in the digital space through increased privacy and appropriate laws in place.
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