‘New data protection bill likely to be tabled in winter session’

The government told the Supreme Court on Thursday that the new data protection Bill would be introduced in Parliament soon. It indicated that the Bill may be tabled in the next (Winter) session.

The information was shared with the apex court when it resumed hearing of a case pertaining to instant messaging platform WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy. The case is being heard by a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice KM Joseph.

Appearing on behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said WhatsApp cannot discriminate between its Indian and global users. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, who represented the petitioners, said Indian users have been deprived of their fundamental rights. “The same platform operating in other countries, especially in the European Union, has higher standards of privacy and those standards are not prevalent in India,” Divan argued.