{"id":199559,"date":"2022-08-10T18:15:57","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=199559"},"modified":"2022-08-10T18:15:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:45:57","slug":"a-good-privacy-law-could-fend-off-chinese-style-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-good-privacy-law-could-fend-off-chinese-style-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"A good privacy law could fend off Chinese-style surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cA good privacy law could fend off Chinese-Style surveillance<\/strong>\u201d published in the Live Mint<\/strong> on 9th<\/sup> August 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 2 Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.<\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>Data Protection Law in India<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: Recently, the government has withdrawn the personal data protection bill and has announced to replace it with, a comprehensive legal framework.<\/p>\n

Background of data protection law and privacy law in India<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In 2017, the Central government set up a panel under retired Justice B.N. Srikrishna to frame data protection norms.<\/p>\n

Later in 2017, the SC held that the right to privacy i<\/strong>s a part of the constitutional right to life and liberty. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thereafter, the Central government introduced the data protection bill in Parliament in 2019.<\/p>\n

Why does India need a robust data protection framework?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

(1) At present, due to the absence of a robust data protection framework<\/strong>, there is a potential risk of the development of a mix of the surveillance state<\/strong> as well as surveillance capitalism <\/strong>in India.<\/strong> For example<\/strong>, The Police compelled Razorpay<\/strong>, a payment gateway, to supply data on donors to fact-checker AltNews.<\/strong> Although the records were obtained legally, there was no safeguard against their misuse because of the absence of data protection law in India.<\/p>\n

(2) Rapid digitization without a strong data protection framework<\/strong> may leave the public vulnerable to exploitation. For example, the Government of India manages the world\u2019s largest repository of biometric data<\/strong>. By 2026, India will have 1 billion smartphone<\/strong> users. Further, the consumer digital economy is poised for a 10-fold surge<\/strong> this decade to $800 billion.<\/p>\n

(3) Other Countries; <\/strong>Europe\u2019s general data protection law holds natural persons to be the owners of their personal data like names, email addresses, location, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, etc.<\/p>\n

What were the issues in the Data Protection Bill 2019?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The bill gave the government unfettered access to personal data<\/strong> in the name of sovereignty and public order.<\/p>\n

Srikrishna cautioned that the provisions in the bill could \u201cturn India into an Orwellian State<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

The Central government sought to give the state an upper hand against both individuals and private-sector data collectors in the withdrawn data protection bill 2019.<\/p>\n

Large global tech firms were concerned about the provisions of the withdrawn bill that insisted on storing \u201ccritical<\/strong>” personal data only in India for national security reasons. Localization gets in the way of efficient cross-border data storage and processing.<\/p>\n

The bill also wanted to allow the platforms to do voluntary verification<\/strong> of social-media users, ostensibly to check fake news. However, the Internet Freedom Foundation<\/strong> pointed out that if social media platforms collect identity documents, it would leave users vulnerable to more sophisticated surveillance and commercial exploitation. Further, the platforms may start denying some services<\/strong> without identity checks. This may deprive the right to anonymity<\/strong> of whistle-blowers and political dissidents.<\/p>\n

According to the government, a joint parliamentary panel that scrutinized the bill sought the 81 amendments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article \u201cA good privacy law could fend off Chinese-Style surveillance\u201d published in the Live Mint on 9th August 2022. Syllabus: GS 2 Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation. Relevance: Data Protection Law in India News: Recently,… Continue reading A good privacy law could fend off Chinese-style surveillance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10343,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10501],"class_list":["post-199559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704710711},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}