The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill is scheduled to have meetings on September 15 and 16 to discuss new suggestions for the bill made by newly-appointed committee chairperson PP Chaudhary. The Lok Sabha website listed two meetings, one on September 15, at 3 pm and another on the next day at 11 am. The agenda for both of the meetings read, “Comparison between The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 as introduced in the Parliament, as discussed in the Joint Committee and the suggestions for amendment by the Chairperson, Joint Committee.” This indicates that Chaudhary has made new recommendations to the bill, which was likely to be tabled in the Winter Session of Parliament. The Hindu reported that Chaudhary has made additional changes which include expanding the scope of Data Protection Authority to cover personal as well as non-personal data. It is important to note that in 2019 a committee was formed to formulate a non-personal data framework. Since the Puttaswamy judgement in 2017 by the Supreme Court of India, the government has been under an obligation to pass legislation to protect Indians’ personal data. Steps like a data protection regulator, localisation requirements for data, and other aspects of the bill have been closely watched by the private sector for years. Even as uncertainty looms over the current contours of the bill, data breaches continue to be regularly reported, with companies facing little to no consequences for such incidents. The Hindu report also said that 10 of the 30…
