Digital personal data protection bill, 2022  obliges the multinationals while doing little for Indian users

After shelling the data protection bill in August 2919 the government has come up with a new data protection bill. The proposed law would be the latest regulation that would regulate how companies like Facebook and Google process and transfer data in India. In fact, the earlier bill on data protection was withdrawn due to hectic lobbying by the multinational companies that have made a killing using the data of Indian users. The earlier privacy bill had proposed stringent restrictions on cross-border data flows. Though the Modi government had initially tried to reign in the multinational companies by making data sacrosanct, then succumbed to the pressure of tech giants who had been clamouring for easing of the regulations and lessening the compliance burden on them. The multinational companies in fact used the US pressure to dilute the privacy bills. India has presently more than 760 million internet users and a huge amount of data is generated which is available to the companies operating in the digital space. Ironically the European country has stringent rules for data protection where the same companies work without much fuss. The Indian government has said that it would specify countries to which entities managing data can transfer the personal data of users. The law would also come with financial penalties of up to 2.5 billion rupees for breaching the provisions of the law. The government would have powers to exempt state agencies from provisions of the bill "in the interests of sovereignty and integrity of India" and to maintain public order, as per the draft proposal, which is open for public consultation until Dec. 17.

A big drawback of the latest privacy bill is that it gives a lot of leverage to the government. it would allow the government to access and use the data if it so desired in the national interest. The government has said it acknowledged that "national and public interest is at times greater than the interest of an individual". Allegedly global best practices have been studied and reviewed data legislation in Singapore, Australia, and European Union while making the new proposal. At the end of the day, the new law would enable the government to have unconditional access to any data if it invoked the national security clause, thereby accessing any individuals data and using it without his consent throwing the maxims of personal data protection to winds.