Justice BN Srikrishna committee submits data protection report

A committee headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Justice BN Srikrishna submitted its report on "Data Protection Framework" to Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The Committee was constituted by the union government in July last year to deliberate on a data protection framework.

Prasad said that the report submitted by the Justice Srikrishna Committee will be a milestone in the larger narrative of digital development.

While addressing a press conference here, he said, "India proactively took a bold step on the issue of net neutrality and firmly upheld that right of internet access is not negotiable. Today's report of the Justice Srikrishna Committee will be a milestone in the larger narrative of digital development."

Prasad further said that India's data protection law should be a blend of security, safety, privacy and innovation and a model for the whole world.

"The Centre will take stakeholder comments along with taking cabinet approval before finalising the legislation. Being a very monumental law, the government will like to have the widest parliamentary consultation possible," he added.

On the other hand, Justice Srikrishna said that the interests of the citizens and the responsibilities of the state have to be protected, but not at the cost of trade and industry.

"We held meetings with stakeholders at major IT hubs of India. We also put out a white paper on the subject after looking at the laws world over and raising a number of issues. We discussed all these issues and prepared this report," he added.

Justice Srikrishna further said that the draft bill has been prepared through an open process where the members of the committee consulted all stakeholders.

He also highlighted the need for efforts to protect privacy as it is an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty, as data is not a matter of property, but a matter of trust.

"We leave our footprint everywhere, we leave our data everywhere. Somebody is making money out of it. So let's control it and make sure that the country is empowered and citizen is empowered. We have dealt with the issue of consent. We have gone into the extent to which the state can intrude into the privacy of citizens. We have also looked into concepts like the Right to Recall Data and Data Portability," he said.

Justice Srikrishna noted that a three-fold approach was taken with regards to the location where data should be stored.

"In this report, we have left it to the sectoral regulator to identify the critical data relating to their respective sectors," he added.