Data bill: A right call by the govt
Hindustan TimesThe government this week withdrew from Parliament the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, informing Lok Sabha members that a new “comprehensive framework” would be brought in instead. In the case of the most recent work on the law, these discussions yielded suggestions that were far removed from what the Srikrishna version and even the government’s approach envisioned. Nations that updated their laws to be in step with today have multiple pieces of legislation, such as the European Union’s privacy-focussed General Data Protection Regulation, its intermediary-focused Digital Services Act, and its mainstay e-commerce regulation, the Digital Markets Act. The starkness is best captured in the fact that on August 24, it will have been five years since the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy ruling that held privacy to be a fundamental right.