Does India's draft data bill meet expectations? Here are the pros and cons

While the draft bill lays the beginnings of a solid foundation, there are troubling landmines that must be defused and debated before it is sent to Parliament.

After nearly a month’s delay, the Justice Srikrishna committee on data protection submitted its report and a draft bill to the IT ministry on Friday.

The report is a sprawling, nearly 200-page document that highlights the committee’s thought process in drafting the data protection framework, the reasoning behind its decisions, the dilemmas that it struggled with and the academic and non-academic sources that it drew upon.

The draft bill – which lays down the rights of ‘data principals’ (Indian citizens), proposes the creation of a data authority to enforce the Act, and sets penalties for violations by ‘data fiduciaries’ (public