Data Protection

Intrinsic to India’s long-drawn transition towards chartering a privacy-safe environment, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, tabled the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 (DPDPB 2023) during the monsoon session of the Parliament, on 3rd August 2023. It sets obligations for Data Fiduciaries and Significant Data Fiduciaries, provides safeguards for children’s data, vests rights in individuals, allows cross-border data transfers, outlines exemptions from the bill as well as provides contour of the Data Protection Board (DPB), financial penalties, and grievance management system etc.

This bill indicates an important step towards establishing privacy in India and enacting a data protection law. Towards that objective, through this paper, we have compared the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (DPDPB 2022) with the 2023 version and explained the differences and significant changes that have taken place. The sections of this paper are divided as per the chapters of the DPDPB 2023. Tabulation under every chapter provides (a) the synopsis, i.e., the premise of the clause within the respective section, (b) a mapping of the significant changes in sections within chapters, and (c) an explanation of the changes.

The study has been conducted in two volumes – the first volume focussed on Part II of the IT Rules, 2021 envisaging the regulation of intermediaries while this volume focuses on Part III of the IT Rules, 2021 and its impact on publishers of Online Curated Content. Based on the feedback received from the OCC platforms during the interviews, the scope of this report was extended to also gauge the critical concerns of the creative economy in the digital sector. A total of 103 stakeholders have been interviewed for this research, out of which 33 stakeholders have inputs specifically for this volume 2 focussing on OCC Publishers and the Creative Economy.