The Indian government unexpectedly withdrew a proposed bill on data protection that a panel of lawmakers had been laboring over for more than two years, saying it was working on a new law.
The abandoned legislation, Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, would have required internet companies like Meta and Google to get specific permission for most uses of a person’s data, and would have eased the process of asking for such personal data to be erased. Countries worldwide have been adopting such steps, including in Europe with the General Data Protection Regulation.
But privacy advocates and some lawmakers complained that the bill would have given the government excessively broad powers over personal data, while exempting law enforcement agencies and public entities from the law’s provisions, ostensibly for national security reasons.
Salman Waris, a lawyer at TechLegis in New Delhi who specializes in international technology law, said the bill was “a bad draft from the inception,” because it would have given the government broad powers to store, use and control the large amounts of data it gathered on its citizens, including fingerprints and iris scans.
In a note to the parliamentary panel last year, Manish Tewari, an opposition politician from the Indian National Congress party, said the bill created “two parallel universes — one for the private sector, where it would apply with full rigor, and one for the government, where it is riddled with exemptions.”
Featured News
BHP Unveils £31bn Mining Megamerger Proposal with Anglo American
Apr 25, 2024 by
nhoch@pymnts.com
ByteDance Prefers Shutdown Over Sale of TikTok Amid US Ban Threats
Apr 25, 2024 by
CPI
FCC Votes to Restore Net Neutrality Rules
Apr 25, 2024 by
nhoch@pymnts.com
Apple Rejects Spotify’s Updated App Over In-App Pricing Disclosure
Apr 25, 2024 by
CPI
FCC Set to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules Today
Apr 25, 2024 by
CPI
Antitrust Mix by CPI
Antitrust Chronicle® – Economics of Criminal Antitrust
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
Navigating Economic Expert Work in Criminal Antitrust Litigation
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
The Increased Importance of Economics in Cartel Cases
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
A Law and Economics Analysis of the Antitrust Treatment of Physician Collective Price Agreements
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
Information Exchange In Criminal Antitrust Cases: How Economic Testimony Can Tip The Scales
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI