Draft data protection Bill allows processing without consent in some cases

The much-talked about legislation to protect personal data will allow processing of private data without explicit consent of the owner of the information for credit scores, debt recovery, security, operation of search engines and whistle blowing.

The draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which is likely to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in the next couple of days, bars storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual.

It, however, provides for exemptions for “reasonable purposes” such as “prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud, whistle blowing, merger and acquisitions, network and information security, credit scoring, recovery of debt, processing of publicly available personal data, and the operation of search engines.”