New bill lets personal data be used without consent  in some  cases

New Delhi: The Personal Data Protection Bill, which is to be tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, seeks to allow processing of personal data without the consent of the owner for several “reasonable purposes” ranging from the operation of search engines to whistle-blowing, according to an official with knowledge of the matter.

The bill, while seeking to preserve the sanctity of individual consent, allows for several exemptions for prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud; whistle blowing; mergers and acquisitions; network and information security; credit scoring; recovery of debt; processing of publicly available personal data; and operation of search engines.

According to the draft, personal data may be processed without obtaining consent if such processing is necessary for the purposes specified by regulations after taking into consideration certain factors such as public interest.