Digital Personal Data Protection Bill skirts key issues

The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 did not consider several critical issues such as the regulation of hardware and devices and localisation of data with retrospective effect, which have been opposed by the global tech giants.

Abhishek Malhotra (managing partner, TMT Law Practice) said: “The draft Bill has watered down the objective of a data privacy and protection framework. It appears to give a simpler framework for people to be able to adopt seamlessly.”

“Unfortunately, however, the scope and applicability provisions have also been curtailed and limited to where the collection is online or digitised and where Indians are targeted for profiling. This is a departure from where the focus was on the entities, their activities and their presence,” Malhotra said.