Dr Subhajit Basu co-authors opinion piece on withdrawal of India's Data Protection Bill
The article is titled “The Rise and Fall of the Indian Data Protection Regime”.
School of Law expert in Associate Professor in Information Technology Law Dr Subhajit Basu and Aafreen Collaco (Ph.D. candidate at O.P. Jindal Global University) have co-authored an opinion piece on the withdrawal of India's Data Protection Bill.
They argue that “India's proposed Data Protection law had "inherent design flaws" as the government refused to address concerns raised by the critics. The proposed law could have turned India into an "Orwellian State" as it provided the government with sweeping exemptions.
Unfortunately, instead of going through the amendments suggested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which would have been a less time-consuming and less expensive process, the complete withdrawal of the Bill has created uncertainty. It also raises far more fundamental questions about India's overall legislative strategy”.
The Government of India failed to appreciate or ignore the significance of the proportionality principle in data protection.
The piece also states "the withdrawal of the data protection bill is a huge setback for the world's largest democracy. Currently, the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act, 2000) governs disputes related to a data breach; however, the ambit of the IT Act 2000 is not wide enough to encompass sensitive issues involving data breaches. It is a necessity for India to introduce a comprehensive data policy to govern citizens’ personal data sooner than later".
Dr Basu will participate as a distinguished speaker in the Roundtable entitled – “Non-Personal Data Governance and its Interface with Personal Data Protection: Emerging trends in India and the EU” - on 24 September 2022 where he will discuss some of the issues raised in the opinion piece. This roundtable is part of the activities envisaged under the Jean Monnet Chair with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, organised by Jindal University.
Jindal University has been awarded the Jean Monnet Chair by the European Union (EU) for the project entitled "Multi-dimensional Approaches to the Understanding of the EU Data Protection Framework."
