Government to Introduce Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill in Lok Sabha

The government of India is set to introduce the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) bill in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, as per official notification. The bill will be presented by the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw. The main objective of the DPDP bill is to regulate the processing of digital personal data while acknowledging the individuals’ right to protect their personal data and the lawful purposes for processing such data.

This bill marks the government’s second attempt at introducing a privacy bill, with the earlier version, named the Personal Data Protection bill, having been withdrawn in August of the previous year. The recent approval of the DPDP bill by the Union Cabinet has paved the way for voluntary data breach disclosures by companies and has also established an alternative dispute resolution mechanism.

Additionally, the bill permits data export by companies to any country except those explicitly named by New Delhi. After withdrawing the earlier version, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released an updated draft, which was then rechristened as the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) bill in November.