Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 | |
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Parliament of India | |
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Citation | Act No. 22 of 2023 |
Territorial extent | India |
Passed by | Lok Sabha |
Passed | 7 August 2023 |
Passed by | Rajya Sabha |
Passed | 9 August 2023 |
Assented to by | President of India |
Assented to | 11 August 2023 |
Legislative history | |
First chamber: Lok Sabha | |
Bill citation | Bill No. 113 of 2023 |
Introduced by | Ashwini Vaishnaw Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Minister of Communications, Minister of Railways |
First reading | 3 August 2023 |
Keywords | |
Consent, Data privacy, Data breach | |
Status: Not yet in force |
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (also known as DPDP Act or DPDPA-2023) is an act of the Parliament of India to provide for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognises both the right of individuals to protect their personal data and the need to process such personal data for lawful purposes and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. [1] This is the first Act of the Parliament of India where "she/her" pronouns were used unlike the usual "he/him" pronouns. [2] [3]
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology set up a committee to study issues related to data protection. The committee was chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Justice B. N. Srikrishna. The committee submitted the draft version of Personal Data Protection in July 2018. [21] The report was later modified several times by the Government of India and, after receiving the approval of central cabinet, the draft legislation was tabled in the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. [22]
The Bill aims to: [23]
to provide for protection of the privacy of individuals relating to their personal data, specify the flow and usage of personal data, create a relationship of trust between persons and entities processing the personal data, protect the fundamental rights of individuals whose personal data are processed, to create a framework for organisational and technical measures in processing of data, laying down norms for social media intermediary, cross-border transfer, accountability of entities processing personal data, remedies for unauthorised and harmful processing, and to establish a Data Protection Authority of India for the said purposes and for matters connected there with or incidental thereto.
It provided for extensive provisions around collection of consent, assessment of datasets, data flows and transfers of personal data, including to third countries and other aspects around anonymized and non-personal data. [24]
The revised 2019 Bill was criticized by Justice B. N. Srikrishna, the drafter of the original Bill, as having the ability to turn India into an "Orwellian State". [lower-alpha 1] [25] In an interview with Economic Times, Srikrishna said that, "The government can at any time access private data or government agency data on grounds of sovereignty or public order. This has dangerous implications.” [25] [26]
The role of social media intermediaries is being regulated more tightly on several fronts. The Wikimedia Foundation is hoping that the PDP bill will prove the lesser evil compared with the Draft Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018. [27] [28]
Forbes India reports that "there are concerns that the Bill gives the government blanket powers to access citizens' data." [29]
The bill after being tabled was referred to the JPC which was chaired by Meenakshi Lekhi. After it received criticism from stakeholders, opposition and experts the bill was withdrawn from the Parliament of India on 3 August 2022. [30]
Source: [31]
The Bill provides for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognizes both the rights of the individuals to protect their personal data and the need to process such personal data for lawful purposes and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 is the draft version of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, initially the government has released its the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 on 18 November 2022 for public consultation till 2 January 2023 and approved the revised version of the earlier draft which was released for public consultation making it the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023. [32] [33]
The Act protects digital personal data (that is, the data by which a person may be identified) by providing for the following [1]
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) share similar principles but differ in key aspects. The DPDPA-2023 applies only to digital personal data, while GDPR covers all forms of personal data. [36] Unlike GDPR, DPDPA-2023 does not distinguish between personal and sensitive personal data. [37] Both laws grant similar rights to individuals but differ in their approach to legal bases for data processing. [36]
Feature | Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA-2023) | General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) |
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Scope | Regulates digital personal data processing; includes extraterritorial application for offering goods/services in India. | Covers all personal data, digital or otherwise; applies to any organization processing data of individuals within the EU, irrespective of location. |
Type of Data | Limited to digital personal data. | Covers all personal data, including non-digital. |
Legal Basis for Processing | Consent required with some legitimate use cases (e.g., employment, legal obligations, emergencies). Does not include contractual necessity or legitimate interests. | Consent required with explicit bases including legitimate interests, contractual necessity, legal obligations, etc. |
Data Principal Rights | Right to access, correction, erasure, grievance redressal. Unique rights: appoint another to exercise rights on data principal’s behalf in event of death/incapacity. | Rights to be informed, access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, objection, not to be subject to automated decisions. |
Cross-Border Data Transfers | Permitted unless to jurisdictions restricted by Indian Government. | Permitted based on adequacy decisions. |
Under section 18 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the Data Protection Board of India, an adjudicating body, will be established. [38] [39] [40]
The Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw and the then MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated in press that the Central government is setting up the Data Protection Board of India which will be an adjudicating body. It is a body that adjudicates the dispute between those whose personal data has been given to a platform and the platform which has in turn breached the obligations under the law. [38] [41] [42]
The Act has made exemptions [45] from the regulations related to the Act, they are:
The Act is only applicable to the data collected digitally and when offline data gets digitized. Not having the applicability on offline personal data was criticized as there is no framework on how such data is handled. [46]
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