Data Protection Bill: Raising more concerns than satisfying them
In an era of technological advancement, where the growth of the digital economy has meant the use of data as a critical means of communication, the Personal Data Protection Bill is proposed to ensure the informational privacy of individuals, and ensuring empowerment, progress and innovation The Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, and referred to a Joint Select Committee (JSC) following a voice vote. Well, according to parliamentary procedure, the Bill could also have been referred to the departmental committee, which in this case, would be the parlimentary standing committee on information technology, headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. However, it didn’t happen that way and Tharoor objected to the proposal of sending the Bill to the JSC and also wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to register "strong concerns" with Prasad's proposal. He said the Committee on IT has a mandate and a parliamentary responsibility to ...