The Personal Data Protection Bill, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament this session, will categorise personal data into three categories: personal data, sensitive personal data, and critical personal data, MeitY Minister of State Sanjay Dhotre informed the Lok Sabha in a written response. This is in line with the recommendations made by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee. DMK MP Shanmuga Sundaram K. had also asked if the Srikrishna Committee had made any recommendations on "non-personal and supersensitive data". Dhotre did not address that. This is despite the fact that the Srikrishna Committee, in its report, A Free and Fair Digital Economy: Protecting Privacy, Empowering Indians“, recommended that the government come up with a law to protect community data where a community is identifiable. The government, as it said in the Economic Survey, has been considering monetising its databases by selling the data to private companies. In the last Parliament session, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari had informed Rajya Sabha that the ministry had provided 87 private and 32 government entities access to the Vahan and Sarathi database, and has collected Rs 65 crore so far by giving such access. To that end, MeitY formed a new Committee of Experts to focus on non-personal data, and to come up with a related data governance framework. Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan is heading the committee. The committee has been holding private consultations with multiple stakeholders, and it isn't clear whether there will be public consultation for regulation of non-personal data. Thus…
