This summary has been made based on the submission uploaded on the ORF website. The author and/or MediaNama have only produced a summary of this document and are not liable for the veracity of the said document. Exemptions in national interest must not extend to all provisions of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, and must be granted by law rather than through executive orders, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) said in its submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee. As per the submission, Section 42 of the 2018 Bill is a good point of reference as it made necessity and proportionality necessary conditions for exempted processing, thereby conforming to the 4-step test laid down in the Puttaswamy judgement. ORF also recommended that exempted government agencies must still be obliged to carry out "fair and reasonable processing". Inclusion of non-personal data in the Bill (under Section 91) has also been called "premature" in the submission as MEITY has constituted a committee of experts to come up with a "data governance framework" to focus on non-personal data. Without more provisions within this Bill and legislations in other fields, Section 91 "is unlikely to serve the stated objective of supporting public service functions". Check sweeping exemptions for government agencies Prevent information overload by employing employ judicial, executive and technological safeguards to prevent information overload. For instance, ORF cites research on US' National Security Agency's surveillance of phone metadata programme that reveals the programme's "little discernible impact on preventing terrorism" and "disproportionate" drain on the agency's…
