In this fast-paced digital age, where technology forms a part of our daily lives, the need to
relook at how personal data is protected in a constantly changing digital environment
has emerged as an imperative requirement. In the recent years, various leaks of data such as the
Facebook data leak case, Yahoo data leak case, JP Morgan data leak case have raised the
awareness of individuals and governments towards the changes required in current data
protection regimes for more effective protection of personal data. This has resulted in
various countries formulating new policies with respect to data protection, be it the
European Union with its much talked about European Union – General Data Protection
Regulation (EU-GDPR) effective from 25th May, 2018 or India setting up a committee under the
chairmanship of Justice B.N. Srikrishna for recommendations on protection of privacy (“Srikrishna
Committee”).
Although, India currently has data privacy regulations, which were introduced in 2011,
and which were promulgated as the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and
Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 (“Rules”) under the
Information Technology Act, 2000, certain short comings have become evident over the years,
including problems relating to implementation.
As a result of the above, the Srikrishna Committee was set up, which has now drafted and published
the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 (“Bill”) and a report called “A Free and Fair Digital
Economy Protection Privacy, Empowering Indians” which seeks to explain the basis on which the Bill
has been drafted. The Bill and report were made public on 27th July, 2018.
While the Srikrishna Committee was in the process of the final stages of drafting the
Bill and the report, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) published recommendations
on privacy, security and ownership of data in telecom sector on 16th July, 2018. This created a lot
of confusion amongst the public, since it was unclear whether the TRAI had the authority to draft
and publish these recommendations, especially in view of the work being done by the Srikrishna Committee.
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