Government Withdraws Personal Data Protection Bill, to Be Replaced With Comprehensive Framework, MoS IT Says

India’s information technology minister on Wednesday withdrew a data protection bill that has been under consideration for several years, a government official said, referring to legislation that has alarmed big tech companies. A notice calling for the withdrawal earlier said that reasons for the withdrawal had been circulated to parliament members, without elaborating.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced via Twitter that that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2021 from parliament.

“Today @GoI_MeitY withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill,2021 from Parliament. This will soon be replaced by a comprehensive framework of Global std laws including Digital Privacy laws for contemporary & future challenges [and] catalyse PM @narendramodi ji’s vision of #IndiaTechade,” the minister said.

“JCP report on Personal Data protection bill had identified many issues that were relevant but beyond the scope of a modern Digital Privacy law. Privacy is a fundamental right of Indian citizens & A Trillion dollar Digital Economy requires Global std Cyber laws,” he added.

The government first introduced the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 amid protests, as part of a move to empower the government to ask companies including Facebook, Google, and others for anonymised personal data and non-personal data.