Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022

In the month of August 2022, The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Government of India) had withdrawn Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, owing to multiple recommendations received through public consultation. As revised version of its predecessor, the Government released Digital Personal Data Protection Bill on November 18, 2022. This bill is a part of a list of legislations that includes IT rules, National Data Governance Framework Policy and a new Digital India Act.

The key highlights of this bill include, but not limited to the following:

Applicable to digitized data
Providing itemized notice and to be accessible in English or any other languages mentioned in the constitution of India
Penalty for non-compliance up to INR 500 crores
Deemed consent
Right to nominate as a data subject right and many more.

Obligations such as data localization and privacy by design are omitted, currently, and there are certain open-ended requirements in the bill which could play an important role in determining the future of data protection.

Overall, this bill provides greater emphasis and encourages organisations to digitize personal data. Additionally, it is an important and significant start for data protection regime in India.