Ashok Kumar Gupta, chairman of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), has never minced words while talking about the giant technology companies, referring to them on multiple occasions as "centres for entrenched and unchecked dominance". The anti-trust regulator has, in fact, been cracking down on big technology companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and others, after they were hauled up by regulators and lawmakers in Europe and Australia. However, in several instances, existing regulations have prevented the CCI from going all out against these companies for anti-competitive activities.
After the first draft of the Bill was submitted under a committee chaired by Justice B N Srikrishna in 2018, there were objections raised by businesses, especially on the broad restrictions on cross-border data flow.
Representatives of Facebook India have been asked to appear on Friday before the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Meenakshi Lekhi, while Twitter officials are required to appear before the panel on October 28, as per the notice issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
The opposition will seek to target the government on the issue of farmers' plight as well as their demand for a legal backing for minimum support price.
The joint committee of Parliament examining the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 has adopted its report on the bill with several opposition MPs, including those from the Congress, Ttrinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal, submitting their dissent notes.
Led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the Opposition members in the Lok Sabha demanded sacking of Union minister Ajay Mishra from the government in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
The affidavit further said that the IT Rules impose a host of obligations on a company in relation to the security of the data collected by it in the course of its business.
Domino's India data that included sensitive customer information such as their names, phone numbers, and credit card details has allegedly been breached and put on sale on the dark web. According to tweets by Israel-based Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, Alon Gal, the data is worth 13 terabytes (TB). He tweeted on Sunday that the data includes as many as 180 million order details, including 1 million credit card details. The data, said Gal, was up for sale on the dark web. The threat actor, he said, was asking for $550,000 for the data.
Sections in the draft Personal Data Protection Bill are a blatant violation of the Right to Privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
The proposal -- aimed at tackling issues related to anonymity of users in the fast-growing social media space -- has been mooted for the first time as part of the amendments likely to be made to the existing IT intermediary rules, the source said. Social media companies with more than 50 lakh users in India will be categorised as significant social media intermediaries. These companies will also have to comply with stricter obligations, including traceability of users, under the revised rules, the source said.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
The proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, that are envisioned to protect consumer interests, may further compound the impact of multiplicity of regulations on the e-commerce sector, the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) had told the ministry of consumer affairs. IACC, the apex bilateral chamber for Indo-US business, had told the government that the proposed amendments would increase compliance liabilities that risk severely impairing the growth of the sector.
Nadella's visit comes at a time when the Indian government is taking a strong position on issues like data localisation and tightening the rules for e-commerce companies as well as social media platforms.
There is a perception getting built inside the government that big technology companies -- a common term used for firms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and the like - are becoming very powerful and present multiple threats to entire nations and their citizens today. The digital ecosystem is replete with CSAM (child sexual abuse material), fake news, drug trade, radicalisation, trolling among other social vices. Given the network effect that these platforms have, it is important to ensure that these platforms are not misused.
According to industry insiders, India has 400 million smartphones and is the world's fastest-growing app market. So the addition or deletion of apps impacts the global valuations of these platforms. "Based on calls given by various local organisations to delete Chinese Apps, there will be an impact," said Blaise Fernandes, director at foreign policy think tank Gateway House. "All of them eventually will go the IPO (initial public offering) route so there would be economic impact also."
'If Indians are to be truly protected, Parliament must review and address these dangerous provisions before they become law.'
However, the countries did not take up the issue of proposed withdrawal of export incentives by the US to Indian exporters under Generalized System of Preference.
The proposals are mostly based on a report submitted by Justice B N Srikrishna in July 2018. The draft Bill has since gone through at least two updates based on inputs received from industry, report Yuvraj Malik and Peerzada Abrar.
Users well-versed in privacy laws or those concerned with their data would be worried; it could well be that many of us have already accepted the end user agreement without ado, points out Ashish Narsale.
"Critical data which has to be resided in India is an important component that needs to be clarified, as this will be arguably uncovered on an ad hoc basis as we move forward."
The hack may have been done by a rogue Twitter employee, or it may have been a smart hack into the Twitter system, or a social hack where someone conned Twitter's employees into giving them access,' suspects Devangshu Datta.
Modi is seen as exceptional not only on account of his acts but also owing to his style. He appears to sacrifice his life for the people -- like a fakir, a figure he came to epitomize even more in 2020 by growing a long white beard. Charisma is above accountability, and Modi has grasped these dynamics.
'The idea is to have a separate and independent consultation on non-personal data, and decide the contours of how it should be regulated, whether as guidelines, rules, or a separate policy,' said a senior official at MeitY.
The advent of artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, and the increasing use of Internet of Things devices throw techno-legal challenges regarding privacy and security. Experts say, any expansion of power to the government to block web-services is detrimental to the interests of users, innovation, and India's larger technology ecosystem. The move to block the mobile apps is likely to have a lasting impact on the data security and privacy framework.
"In response to India's payments data circular, we've built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India," WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
The proposed law seeks bars on storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual. It, however, provides for exemptions for "reasonable purposes" such as "prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud, whistle-blowing, merger and acquisitions, network and information security, credit scoring, recovery of debt, processing of publicly available personal data and the operation of search engines".
The amendment says that UIDAI can now give directions as it may consider necessary to any entity in the Aadhaar ecosystem
The company has set an internal target of 6-18 months to set up the data centre. The plan is part of the $1 billion ByteDance has recently committed to the Indian market over the next three years.
The Bill says that the central government, in consultation with the Data Protection Authority, can direct any data fiduciary or data processor to provide non-personal data to enable better targeting of delivery of services. The government can also ask data processors to provide data for formulation of evidence-based policies for its own use.
Data localisation, an overarching theme across recent government policy proposals, has been a thorny issue with industry
'When users sign up for free apps and services, they are giving up data. They fail to realise the impact of their data in the public domain, which is something that corporations have been monetising on for some time now.'
Agriculture, social services, education, defence and so on will be brought into the digital fold and every gram panchayat will be connected to the internet.
Journalists will be exempted from seeking consent of individuals before collecting and reviewing their personal data to be used in news reports.
The report touches on variety of issues including consent, rights of children, data protection authority and right to recall data.
When it comes to embracing newer technology, youngsters are usually much faster than adults. It's this quick rate of adoption that also makes them susceptible to danger.
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