Governance & Risk Management , Privacy
Data Protection Bill: Key Concerns
SFLC's Sugathan on Lack of Power Granted to DPAOne of the many concerns with the draft data protection bill, which will be chaired in the parliament soon, is the lack of power granted to the data protection authority, says Prasanth Sugathan, legal director at Software Freedom Law Center, a non-profit organisation based in New Delhi that promotes innovation and open access to knowledge. (See: India's Data Protection Bill: An Analysis)
"One concern that we have with the bill is the amount of power that the central government has ... from the recruitment to the amount being spent ... and Section 98, which gives special provision which talks about how government can come out with various directions as far as DPA is concerned," says Sugathan in an interview with Information Security Media Group. "These are problematic."
Talking about transfer of personal data, one of the issues is the provision that states how data needs to be stored. "There is also problem with the way data needs to be transferred. The way the bill is drafted there can be issues when it becomes operational."
In this interview (see audio sign below image), Sugathan also discusses:
- How DPA must be handled in India;
- The problem with data localization;
- Other issues with the data protection bill.
Sugathan is a technology lawyer and the Legal Director at SFLC.in, a non-profit organisation based in New Delhi that promotes innovation and open access to knowledge and helps to defend rights of citizens in the digital space. His areas of practice include technology law, Intellectual property law, administrative law and constitutional law. He is an engineer turned lawyer and has worked closely with the Free Software community in India.