Nasscom hails draft data protection bill for dropping contentious rules

Provisions on non-personal data, criminal penalties, hardware certification scheme, and statutory data residency requirements among those axed

Industry body Nasscom has welcomed the revised version of the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 for dropping the provisions on non-personal data, criminal penalties, the hardware certification scheme, and statutory data residency requirements.

Union Minister for Communications and Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, chaired a roundtable meeting last week with industry leaders and stakeholders from startups, and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022.

Nasscom, which was a part of the meeting, said the stakeholders appreciated the draft bill, which had been simplified by removing past proposals not related to personal