Protecting private data

Parliament must examine the Bill carefully

The Cabinet has cleared the Personal Data Protection Bill, which is due to be presented in Parliament in the current session. This is the first legislation that lays down concrete principles for protecting personal data. It is also the first codification of the fundamental right to privacy, affirmed by the Supreme Court in a 2017 judgment. It lays down the principles by which data would be judged “personal”, “sensitive’ and “critical”, and mandates processes by which such data may be obtained with consent, stored, and processed. However, the Bill is not a comprehensive privacy law because it leaves many grey