Opinion | A blueprint for an effective data protection authority

The announcement last week of the items of legislative business for the winter session of Parliament caused a mild furore in some of the policy circles that I inhabit. Twenty-fifth on the list of new bills scheduled for “introduction, consideration and passing” was the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, and many took this to mean that we would finally get to see the draft of India’s privacy law that the government has been working on. This excitement is a bit premature given the Union cabinet is yet to approve the draft. However, what seems clear is that we have moved into the endgame. Once the draft has been green-lighted by the cabinet, the bill would be placed before Parliament and, in due course, become law.

That is when the real work would begin. What most people don’t seem to realize is that unlike most other Indian laws, the Personal Data Protection Bill only lists a set of broad principles that lays down the contours of privacy in the country.