Govt, industry have started work on implementation of data protection law: Ashwini Vaishnaw

DPDD bill is tighter than Europe's GDPR law, Vaishnaw said (File image)

After the Rajya Sabha passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill on August 9, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that both government and industry have already begun work on implementing the provisions of the legislation and hence its rollout can be expected very soon.

"We have already started work on its implementation framework. Rollout can be expected very soon... It's a very big change in the digital economy," he said.

"Most industry people are prepared for it. Some are saying they are ready," he added.

The DPDP Bill has now been passed in both the houses of the Parliament, six years after the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy was a fundamental right, and it fell upon the government to make a legislation to protect the online data of citizens.

There have been multiple versions of the bill in the intervening period which underwent a long set of deliberations between the government, industry and civil society.

"The bill provides a robust framework to protect the data of 1.4 billion citizens of the country. Its implementation will be completely digital which means not only a person in Delhi will have access to the protections given by it, but also people in far-flung areas of the country," said Vaishnaw.

The minister also argued that with just a handful of exemptions given in the bill to the government for exceptional circumstances like national security matters and health emergencies, it is much tighter than than Europe's GDPR law that grants 16 exemptions.

One concern of industry has been whether different sectoral laws will be in conflict with the data protection law. Vaishnaw cleared the air on this issue, saying that sectoral regulation will supersede the data protection law whenever any differences arise.