Union Min Ashwini Vaishnaw says Centre committed to protect citizens' privacy

Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday assured that the central government was fully committed to protecting the privacy of individuals, citing the Data Protection Bill. The Union Minister stated that the proposed Bill would further strengthen the legal framework around privacy.

The Minister, however, remained tight-lipped on concerns raised by opposition MPs who have offered dissent notes to the Joint Committee of Parliament (JPC) on the Personal Data Protection Bill, after the panel adopted its report at its meeting on Monday. Speaking about the concerns raised by the Opposition over several provisions of the Bill, Vaishnaw said, "the Joint Committee of Parliament has completed their deliberations and will be presenting the report to the Parliament. Then only one should comment." 

"The government is "very" committed to protecting the privacy of citizens and residents," he added.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was speaking at the inauguration of a three-day workshop 'Aadhaar 2.0'. He said that the concerns raised earlier on Aadhar have already been addressed "meticulously". "The concerns which were there (on Aadhaar) have been addressed very meticulously, through a very long process in which the Supreme Court judgment came, a lot of regulations have been made. Those things have been settled. The Data Protection Bill will further strengthen the legal work," Vaishnaw said.

Oppn gives dissenting notes

Meanwhile, several Congress MPs including Manish Tewari and Jairam Ramesh gave dissenting notes to the law objecting to the government's powers to intrude in privacy, lack of adequate safeguards, and etc. Hailing the 'best spirit of parliamentary democracy', Ramesh claimed that JPC had functioned successfully and must be done more often. The bill will be tabled in the coming session. Similar notes of dissent were penned by TMC MPs - Derek O'Brien and Mahua Moitra objecting to clauses that exempted any govt agency from the application of the act. BJD's Amar Patnaik has also submitted a dissent note on the bill.

What is Personal Data Protection Bill? 

The Bill aims to lay down a framework for the processing of personal and private data by public and private entities, allowing exemptions for certain kinds of data processing, such as processing in the interest of national security, for legal proceedings, or for journalistic purposes.

It also has a data-localization clause, which states that certain critical personal data must be stored solely within the country and also calls for national-level Data Protection Authority (DPA) to be set up. The Bill which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2019 was recommended to a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

(Inputs: PTI)

(Image: PTI/UNSPLASH)