-The Indian Express Justice Srikrishna said that the guidelines cannot be considered as having sufficient legal backing to make the use of Aarogya Setu mandatory. Former Supreme Court Judge B N Srikrishna, who chaired the committee that came out with the first draft of the Personal Data Protection Bill, termed the government’s push mandating the use of Aarogya Setu app “utterly illegal”. “Under what law do you mandate it on anyone? So far...

  A recent report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) brings forth the dichotomy between digital divide and India’s transition towards a cashless economy. The rural-urban divide in access to computer and internet is quite stark, according to the report entitled 'Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, July 2017 to June 2018'.   The 75th round National Sample Survey (NSS) report on education finds that...

-The Hindu MPs raise questions on privacy, purpose and Srikrishna panel report The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill will throw open its doors for all stakeholders to express objections and point out loopholes in the proposed legislation, the panel decided at its first meeting held on Thursday. IT Secretary Anshu Prakash gave a presentation giving details of the bill. “Today was just a preliminary briefing, we didn’t go into the bill...

-The Hindu A culmination of flawed policy proposals, this piece of legislation will refine, store and trade personal information In the continuing social churn and widespread citizen protests, it would seem out of place to direct thought towards issues such as data protection. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha this month, is a revolutionary piece of legislation that promises to return power and control to...

-The Indian Express In another significant departure from the draft Bill, the Bill allows Personal Data to be stored and processed abroad, without requiring a mirror of the data in India. The Personal Data Protection Bill listed to be introduced in Lok Sabha on Wednesday has allowed transfer of certain types of Personal Data overseas, but has given broad powers to government agencies to collect personal and sensitive data of citizens. An earlier...