Digital India Act Targets Anonymised Data Tapped by Big Tech

The upcoming Digital India Act seeks to create a future-ready framework for the digital ecosystem of a country that’s home to the highest number of internet users outside of China. The Digital India Act is likely to be tabled in the budget session of parliament, says Union IT and Electronics Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The Minister said, the upcoming Digital India Act will target anonymised data tapped by Big Tech firms. Big Tech firms consume data with no oversight. The big tech firms should share this value created with the citizens as well as the state. Only Indian startups and researchers will have access to India Datasafe Program's data.

The Government is creating a future ready framework for the Prime Minister’s vision of “India Techade,’ The framework includes:

1. The Digital Personal Data protection Bill,2022

2. The Digital India Act

3. The National Data Governance Policy

The idea is to create a framework that is of a global standard for cyber law, competitive and modern. The act goes beyond the scope of the Data Protection Bill to address issues such as user harm, openness, ethics, competition etc.

The digital economy is worth trillions of dollars, where the big tech companies consume data with no oversight. The Union IT and Electronics Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, it is our responsibility and duty to put the brakes on access to data… and Big Tech should share this value created with the citizens as well as the state.

The minister further said, the scope of an independent data regulator, SEBI for India’s capital markets, will come under the Digital India Act - a successor to the Information Technology Act 2000. Going forward, the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, does entail creation of a Data Protection Board-an independent traffic cop of sorts penalises data misuse. It is open to scrutiny by the high courts of India.

While the Data Protection Bill seeks to put the brakes on misuse of personal data and ensure data rights of Indians, the Digital India Act will look at anonymised data tapped by Big Tech Companies, reveals the Minister.

Secondly, the most important is India’s data safe Programme, wherein there will be crores of datasets, it’ll safeguard the intellectual property created using data generated by Indians to be made in India. Only Indian startups and researchers will get access to this anonymised data.

In our country, language has been a barrier for inclusion into the internet. To bridge that, we have launched Bhasini, the Minister said. By 2023, we would have created apps for multilingual access to the internet. This would be the true inclusion.

Finally, the time has come for users to stake claim to their anonymised data- personal data that has been converted into non-personal data for commercial use by a platform.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA