Forensic auditors in a fix over Data Protection Bill, seek exceptions

Fear that proposed provision will hamper investigation

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, has thrown up a fresh set of challenges for forensic auditors, who want the proposed law to carve out exceptions for their services, which entail accessing personal data such as bank details, emails, and medical insurance.
 
A forensic audit requires a deep inspection of the auditee company’s records by accessing its hard drives, laptops, and desktop computers. The data on the hard drive contains both official and personal information, which forensic auditors have to sift through to find what they are looking for.
 
The data protection Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha