Economic Survey 2023: 'Techno-smart regulations' must for widening digital space

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India needs "techno-smart regulations" as its digital space widens to bring in newer services, the Economic Survey 2023, which was tabled in Parliament on January 31, said.

The suggestion comes ahead of the upcoming overhaul to India's Information Technology Act 2000.

"As our digital space widens to bring in newer services, the need for appropriate regulations also becomes paramount. Therefore, techno-smart regulations are the future for digital societies," the survey, which provides an official, detailed overview of the state of the economy, said.

The Digital India Bill will be a long-awaited amendment to the IT Act 2000. Recently, minister of state in IT ministry Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the bill would address the imbalance between content creation and its monetisation by advertisement technology companies, among other issues.

With the help of the Digital India Bill and other legislations and policies such as the Digital Data Protection Bill, National Data Governance Framework Policy (NDGFP), and India Telecommunications Bill 2022, the government expects to address issues in the digital sector.

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"The governments worldwide have adopted or are introducing legislation to provide a foundation for robust data governance," the survey.

"Their policy goals can be complemented and advanced with the help of standard, open, and interoperable protocols that increase the choice

of digital services available to a user and enhance user privacy, such as the Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture."

Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture or DEPA is a draft framework released by the government’s think-tank Niti Aayog in 2021 for promoting greater user control in data sharing.

In another section of the Economic Survey, the government admits to facing “new regulatory challenges” because of new technologies. "The government is committed to keeping pace with the digital landscape developments including those related to legislations and frameworks," the survey added.