New Data Protection Bill Draft Proposes Rs. 500 Crore Penalty For Big Tech Defaulters

The government of India released a new data protection bill draft on Friday, proposing a penalty of up to Rs. 500 crore for those who fail to comply with its provisions.

The latest draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 comes in after the original bill in 2019 proposed a penalty of Rs. 15 crore or 4% of a company's global turnout for not following the legislation.

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User data privacy in India under the draft

According to the latest draft, India will set up a data protection board, enshrined with enforcing the bill's provisions. "If the Board determines at the conclusion of an inquiry that noncompliance by a person is significant, it may, after giving the person a reasonable opportunity of being heard, impose such a financial penalty as specified in Schedule 1, not exceeding rupees five hundred crore in each instance," the draft said.

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The data protection bill draft proposes a graded penalty system for data fiduciaries that will be enforced if companies access the personal data of Indian users without following the provisions. These hefty penalties will also be applicable to the data processor; any entity that processes data for the data fiduciary.

Also read: Explained: What Is Data Protection Bill, Why Has The Bill Been Withdrawn

In case the data fiduciary or data processor fails to protect against breaches of personal data in its possession, a penalty of Rs. 250 crore will be levied.

This draft is a work in progress for the contentious bill, that comes in the wake of global concerns about Big Tech overreaches and their role in election engineering, hate speech moderation, and private data leaks.

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This draft of the bill is open for public comment till December 17, PTI reported. In August, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw withdrew the Personal Data Protection BIll, 2019.

Also read: New Data Protection Bill With Updated Concerns To Be Passed Before Budget Session

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The government claimed that many loopholes remained in the bill, compelling them to withdraw it until it had become more robust. It's a very delicate matter - will the government override the power of Big Tech giants for its own gains or to give more power to citizens in terms of what happens to their data? Only the latter can bring in the sense of transparency this government expects from companies that have historically focused on making profits.

What do you think about the state of user data safety in India? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.

References

Press Trust of India. (2022b, November 18). In new data protection bill draft, govt proposes penalty of up to Rs 500 crore. India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/new-data-protection-bill-draft-government-raises-penalty-crores-2298839-2022-11-18