The government will not share the public feedback it receives on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP), 2022 with the public, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a notice issued alongside the bill. However, the government is still 'deliberating' on this matter, a senior official at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology told Medianama. The Ministry has invited feedback from the public on the draft Bill. The submissions will not be disclosed and held in fiduciary capacity, to enable persons submitting feedback to provide the same freely. No public disclosure of the submissions will be made. – the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Why it matters: For one, privacy and data protection are matters of public interest, and not sharing public feedback with the public removes transparency in the law-making process. If the government withholds public feedback, one cannot identify if its taking people's (including stakeholders') suggestions into account or not. Additionally, it can also help identify which stakeholders are requesting what changes in the bill, like technology companies could argue for liberal data protection laws so that more data can be processed easily. For instance, if the government decides to relax data location norms in the final bill, looking at public feedback, one can figure out who wanted such norms to be relaxed and why. Similarly, if the government decides to introduce additional privacy safeguards, one can figure out who wanted them to be introduced and why. Background and concerns: The government released the…
