The Union Cabinet Wednesday approved the draft data protection Bill, paving the way for its introduction in the Monsoon session of Parliament. If passed, the law will become India’s core data governance framework, six years after the Supreme Court declared privacy as a fundamental right. The Bill is one of the four proposed legislations in the IT and telecom sectors to provide the framework for the rapidly growing digital ecosystem.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, approved by the Cabinet, is learnt to have retained the contents of the original version of the legislation proposed last November, including those that were red flagged by privacy experts. Wide-ranging exemptions for the Central government and its agencies, remain unchanged. The Central government will have the right to exempt “any instrumentality of the state” from adverse consequences citing national security, relations with foreign governments, and maintenance of public order among other things.
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