New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India (EGI) said it was "deeply concerned" over a number of clauses of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (2023) which lays down the obligations of entities handling and processing data as well as the rights of individuals.
The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday and will now be tabled in Rajya Sabha, the Indian Parliament's Upper House. It will become a law if it gets RS nod too.
The Bill was tabled in the Lower House by Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on August 03, 2023.
Besides other things the bill proposes a maximum penalty of Rs 250 crore and minimum of Rs 50 crore on entities violating the norms.
The norms will apply to personal data collected within India from data principals online, and personal data collected offline, but subsequently digitised. It will also apply to such processing outside India if it is for offering goods or services to individuals in India.
Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Sunday, a day before the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (2023) was passed in the Lok Sabha and later passed by the members, said it could be used to widen the government’s existing powers of censorship because Clause 37(1)(b) of the Bill will allow the Union government to censor content on vague and unspecified grounds ‘in the interest of the general public'.
“We are deeply concerned about the lack of exemptions for journalists from certain obligations of the law, where the reporting on certain entities in public interest may conflict with their right to personal data protection", the Editors Guild said in a statement released Sunday. "The Justice Srikrishna Committee report had noted that ‘If journalists were made to adhere to the grounds of processing personal data, it would be extremely onerous for them to access information’, and that ‘mandating grounds of processing like consent would mean that accounts that are unfavourable to the data principal would simply not get published’,” the Guild said.
“We are deeply concerned about the lack of exemptions for journalists from certain obligations of the law, where the reporting on certain entities in public interest may conflict with their right to personal data protection", the Editors Guild said in a statement released Sunday.
"The Justice Srikrishna Committee report had noted that ‘If journalists were made to adhere to the grounds of processing personal data, it would be extremely onerous for them to access information’, and that ‘mandating grounds of processing like consent would mean that accounts that are unfavourable to the data principal would simply not get published’,” the Guild said.
The Editors Guild also raised concerns that the Bill could “unreasonably widen the scope of exemptions” available to public information officers of government ministries and departments to reject RTI applications on the simple basis that the information sought ‘relates to personal information’.
“While exemptions provided to the government and its instrumentalities are near-absolute, the Data Protection Board [DPB] to be constituted thereunder has not been provided sufficient independence and rulemaking powers,” the statement said, noting that because all members of the proposed board will be appointed by the Union government, its “independence remains in doubt”.
The Editors Guild also urged the Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, to place the Bill before the Parliamentary Standing Committee for deliberation on the issues raised, as well as to reconsider those provisions.
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