The Lok Sabha on7 th August passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 presented by Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology. The Bill lays out procedures on how corporations and the government itself can collect and use information and personal data of India’s citizens. It aims to protect the privacy of Indian citizens while proposing a penalty of up to Rs 250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect the digital data of individuals.
The bill will now move to the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling coalition is short of the majority mark. The opposition has raised several concerns over the legislation, such as public welfare and the protection of people’s personal data. They demanded that the bill be sent to a parliamentary panel for further deliberations.