Why government withdrew bill it brought to protect your data

Why did the government roll back its data protection bill? And how secure is your personal information right now?

Uber or Ola owns no vehicles, Facebook creates no content, Alibaba has no inventory, and Airbnb claims no real estate. But all these big companies have something in common: your data. So do multiple payment platforms, whether government-owned or otherwise.

The Internet boom -- India has nearly 450 million users -- has given birth to new markets that collect and process personal information, either directly or as a critical component of their business model.

While the importance of the digital economy cannot be overemphasised, the unregulated and arbitrary use of our personal data -- our phone numbers, e-mail addresses, location or other such details -- kills our privacy, which the Supreme Court in 2017 said was our fundamental right.

It is against this backdrop that the government started a process to enact a personal data protection law in 2017. Two years later, the government introduced a bill in Parliament. On Thursday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology withdrew the bill as a parliamentary panel suggested many changes.

Now, the government will work on a new bill and introduce it in Parliament. But what really prompted the rollback? Is it an admission that the original bill wasn’t properly designed to protect our data without too much government intrusion? If it was, how good would the new version be, even if half the suggestions are incorporated?

The answer might lie in how the bill came into being and the shrill debate that unfolded around it.

Also Read: | Joint committee report on Data Protection Bill tabled in both Houses