The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) is looking to begin industry consultations on amendments to India's Information Technology Act by end of April or early May, S. Gopalakrishnan, Additional Secretary at MEITY, said on a private video call hosted by the Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research (C-DEP), several participants on the call told MediaNama. Gopalakrishnan said that MEITY is open to both amending the IT Act and tweaking it, as well as looking at it "de novo". "De Novo" suggests that MEITY would be open to looking at the IT Act afresh — whether it should exist in its present form, or be broken into pieces, where each piece may focus on a different aspect such as cyber security, cyber crime, and enabling India's digital ecosystem, a participant on the call explained to us. The IT Act is India's primary law governing the Internet ecosystem, and amendments to it will have far reaching consequences for its governance. The call, to which Gopalakrishnan and Group Coordinator (Cyber Laws) Rakesh Maheshwari were invitees, largely had participation from industry representatives, and some from civil society. We had contacted Gopalakrishan for comments yesterday afternoon, as well as earlier today, and will update this if and when we hear from him. "The minister had mentioned that we will be amending the IT Act", Maheshwari told MediaNama, confirming his participation on the call. "We have, 4-5 days back, reached out to the concerned ministries and IT secretaries, to see as to what is…
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MEITY expects to begin industry consultation on amendments to India’s IT Act by end of April or early May
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