Digital personal data protection Act draft rules in advanced stage: Vaishnaw

The Rules of Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act is in an advanced stage, and industry consultation will take place at the earliest, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Railways, and Information & Broadcasting, told media on Saturday.

He also added that India is targeting to double the electronics production (including for exports) and will generate 50 lakh jobs.

The DPDP Act was notified in August last year but has not been operationalised yet since the rules are pending. The DPDP Act 2023, which came after six years of the Supreme Court declaring ‘Right to Privacy’ as a fundamental right, has provisions to curb the misuse of individuals’ data by online platforms.

The key piece of the legislation aims to protect the privacy of Indian citizens while proposing a penalty of up to ₹250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect the digital data of individuals.

“We had started the rules’ drafting work around December. DPDP rule drafting is in a advanced stage. We will start the industry consultation now and go as extensive as we can,” Vaishnaw told media here, adding that the progress of the rule drafting got a bit delayed because of the Lok Sabha elections.

Vaishnaw reiterated that the DPDP’s implementation process will be based on the ‘digital-by-design’ principle, paving the way for a new way of working, and the work on creating this ‘digital by design’ platform is also moving in parallel. Such a platform or portal will be created by the Minister of Electronics and IT’s (MeitY) in-house departments like the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Digital India Corporation (DIC).

He said that both the Telecom Act and the DPDP Act had entailed extensive consultation, and he added that the rules of DPDP too will not be a rushed affair and will involve “as consultative a process as it can be”.

On electronics manufacturing, Vaishnaw assured that regulatory work will see “good continuity” and that the agenda on the digital regulatory framework remains “intact.” The timelines for the semiconductor plants of Micron and Tata Group too are on track.

India’s electronics production is currently pegged at roughly $125-130 billion, with employment numbers at 20–25 lakh. “I can see that in this term, we should be easily doubling it to about 50 lakh in terms of employment number and $200–300 billion in total production. In fact, I think we should be taking a more aggressive target, which I think we should do once we talk to the industry,” Vaishnaw added.