Personal Data Protection bill will further strengthen privacy: Union IT Minister

Dissenting panelists raised concerns over Section 35 and Section 12. While the former allows the Central government to exempt any government agency from complying with the PDP bill, the latter allows the government to process data without consent. (Representative Image)

The Personal Data Protection bill, which will be tabled in Parliament in the coming session, along with Aadhaar Act, and the Supreme Court judgment will further strengthen privacy, said Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Vaishnaw was speaking at Aadhaar 2.0 workshop held in New Delhi on November 23. The objective of the session was to discuss how new age technologies such as AI and IoT can be used to expand use of Aadhaar across the industries such as health and agriculture, and also the role it can play in social inclusion, privacy and security.

“Privacy as a construct of the society that puts individuals at the forefront versus society that puts family as the basic unit got debated for some time. Finally I am glad that this has been addressed. This will be further strengthened by the Data Privacy bill that has been finalized by Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and (will be) tabled in the coming session of parliament. Together with the Aadhaar Act, Supreme Court judgment and PDP bill fundamentals of privacy protection in today’s society would be considered,” he said.

While the draft report was finalised and adopted by the Parliamentary panel on November 22, seven ministers including Jairam Ramesh, Manish Tewari, Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra submitted notes of dissent over the provisions.

The key concern was over Section 35 and Section 12. While the former allows the Central government to exempt any government agency from complying with the PDP bill, the latter allows the government to process data without consent. The ministers stated that the government can only do so with Parliamentary sanction, and without it, the law is prone to misuse.

Talking about expanding the use of Aadhaar, he asked about having international standards for Aadhaar identification at the time of digitalisation, and making services more accessible by building technologies and hardware systems around it as the work.

Nandan Nilekani, co-founder, Infosys, who spoke at the event virtually, said there are three ways Aadhaar can be used that could make it critical to India’s progress and development.

First one is the transformation of electrical transmission networks, as India aims to achieve net zero by 2070. This would need grid transformation to take intermittent energy from solar or wind and deal with millions of energy producers.

If the government is looking to subsidise electricity, Aadhaar could play a role here to create sustainable and renewable energy in the country. “Just like how LPG subsidy was transferred to bank accounts, electricity subsidy could also go directly into bank accounts of farmers and others sections who the power can be given at reduced price,” he said.

This would also help distribution companies operate to create sustainable and renewable energy in the country.

The second use case for Aadhaar expansion is giving direct benefit transfer to forest residents such as tribal and others, who help in ensuring biodiversity. The third is the portable social security system for gig workers. Using Aadhaar, these workers should be able to access social security details such as medical and motor insurance.