New Delhi: Activists associated with the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) Wednesday raised concerns over the consultation process on the latest Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, that was released in November.
In a letter addressed to Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the activists wrote that the government has not adhered to the “minimum standards for public consultation on draft legislations” by making it available only in the digital medium, and in English alone.
The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was released by the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) on 18 November and was made open for public consultations before sending it for Cabinet approval.
The NCPRI was established in 1996 and is a platform of advocacy to raise awareness around the Right to Information Act and its legal ramifications.
The letter states that the pre-legislative consultation policy adopted by the Centre in 2014 mandates the feedback process be widely publicised through print and electronic media, or in any other format that is considered necessary to reach affected people.
“Given the wide ramifications of the draft Bill, it is crucial that it be put through a more rigorous and extensive process of public consultation. While MeitY has invited feedback on the draft Bill, the manner and procedure of inviting public feedback does not do justice to the established principles of pre-legislative consultation,” the letter reads.
One of the major issues raised in the letter was that suggestions made by the public would not be disclosed, which they said defeats the purpose of a public consultation.
“The submissions will not be disclosed and held in fiduciary capacity, to enable persons submitting feedback to provide the same freely,” MEITY said in its note accompanying the draft Bill. “No public disclosure of the submissions will be made.”
“The very purpose of public consultation — to encourage free exchange of ideas and concerns — is defeated by this kind of secrecy,” the letter to Vaishnaw said. “Further, information held by public authorities is subject to disclosure as per the provisions of the RTI Act and therefore, no arbitrary pre-conditions of confidentiality can be imposed.”
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Draft Bill only in English
Another concern flagged by the activists was that the draft Bill is available only in English, not in any of the languages included in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.
“Given that the proposed legislation will affect people across the country, at the very minimum, the text and the accompanying notes must be made available in Hindi and other regional languages,” the letter said. “Further, providing only an online mode to give feedback completely excludes hundreds of millions of people in the country who would not have the necessary digital know-how and resources to engage with the process.”
Key concerns of the draft Bill have mostly been around clauses regarding cross-border transfer of data, the age bar for parental supervision, and the concept of “deemed consent” which allows companies to forgo explicitly seeking data for certain essential services.
The signatories of the letter include Anjali Bhardwaj, Aruna Roy, Shailesh Gandhi, Venkatesh Nayak, and Nikhil Dey, among several others.
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