The Justice B N Srikrishna Committee has come out with its much-awaited report on data protection law and a draft bill. Activists are not happy with the report as they feel it shies away from addressing certain concerns. BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy is one MP who was closely following the debates and discussions on data privacy. He believes the report is more a let’s regulate-"data is the new oil” bill. He spoke to Shemin Joy of DH on the "A Free and Fair Digital Economy: Protecting Privacy, Empowering Indians" report and the draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018.



The Justice B N Srikrishna Committee has come up with a report and a draft bill on data protection. What is your sense of committee report and bill?

We have waited nearly a year for this expert committee report to come. It was set up right during the Supreme Court case where the Government was arguing that privacy was not a fundamental right and another matter where it was being questioned why there was no strong legal regime to regulate how private companies like WhatsApp, Facebook are treating our citizen’s data.

The expert committee report provides only a very basic, weak structure. It focuses too much on allowing companies and government departments to use our data, rather than protecting the rights of individual Indian citizens. It is less a privacy protection bill, or more a let’s regulate-“data is the new oil” bill.

The expert committee recognised that current government surveillance may be unconstitutional and excess ive, especially after the Supreme Court’s right to privacy judgement nearly a year ago. But they stop short there and have made no actual surveillance reform recommendations either as specific outputs in their report or in their draft data protection bill.

I think the draft data protection bill is only a start - and a slightly disappointing one at that. We will have to do much to improve and fix it.

No actual surveillance reform recommendations either as specific outputs in their report or in their draft data protection bill



Do you see the possibility of the government bringing the bill to Parliament in the Winter Session?

There is limited time for the government to bring this bill. They ideally should have completed their expert committee process earlier and held a public consultation on the draft bill.

The minister should immediately seek open public inputs, and not just from their chosen experts and the industry, in addition to feedback from the states, and present this to Parliament right at the start of the next session.

The government could also seek better consensus and support by openly discussing this Bill and their approach to privacy before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Information and Technology. That committee started hearings on the issue of citizen privacy and data security back in April right after Cambridge Analytica but has so far only heard from bureaucrats in the Ministries of Home Affairs and Information and Technology – no voices of citizens or public interest groups.

It is crucial that this bill is studied effectively, improved and amended, and passed only as a strong comprehensive law but must definitely be passed before the general elections. In this era of Cambridge Analytica and election interference, the safety of our citizen’s data and protecting their privacy is a fundamental duty on all in government and elected positions.



The report/bill does not squarely address government surveillance. Rather, it does away with the inconvenient question by simply suggesting that the government bring in a separate law. Is that a fair assessment? How likely is it that the government will bring a separate law to tame intelligence agencies?

The expert committee report admitted that the current legal regime and government processes for surveillance are not strong enough when it comes to protecting privacy, which our Supreme Court confirmed and strengthened as a fundamental right nearly a year ago. But despite saying this and tossing around a few ideas in a chapter, they have done nothing. No specific recommendations on what amendments or further legal reforms should be made on existing Indian law regarding spying on citizen communications, tapping their phones and devices. No amendments or other measures included in their draft citizen data protection bill. Not a single clear recommendation or instruction to government despite nearly a year of work by this committee and so many specific suggestions to them.

Parliamentarians have previously tried on their own initiative to bring more oversight, controls on our intelligence agencies. There was a private members bill, and even repeated statements and appeals for reform by our previous vice president.

The expert committee’s bill should have made a start, by updating all of our existing laws on phone tapping and communications surveillance. Even the Privacy Bill that was started by the UPA across 2011-14 and taken forward to the NDA government in 2015 has sought to include surveillance law reform in their ambit. So rather than just being a missed opportunity, this is actually a step back. We are now the only major democracy in the world where phone tapping and surveillance is only controlled by police officials and bureaucrats, with no judicial or other independent overview and no regular, institutionalised oversight by Parliament.