Justice Srikrishna Committee Lists 7 Critical Commandments for Data Protection Law in India

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Justice Srikrishna Committee Lists 7 Critical Commandments for Data Protection Law in India
Justice Srikrishna Committee Lists 7 Critical Commandments for Data Protection Law in India

An expert committee led by Justice B N Srikrishna submitted earlier this week a concept paper covering its recommendations for drafting a new data protection law.

In its white paper, the committee appointed by Supreme Court has highlighted seven areas that are required to be included within the law and has suggested plausible areas that India needs to focus on as it seeks to strengthen its online security framework.

The report highlighted that the “law must be technology agnostic”,  and added that it needs to be flexible enough to consider changes in technology and compliance laws, noting that these aspects were the first priority.

Data security came into focus after several hundreds of State Bank of India ATMs  were compromised in 2016 along with several debit and credits cards getting blocked.

Informed Consent Critical For Data Protection

A key recommendation of the panel was the concept of “informed consent”. The report noted that “consent is an expression of human autonomy” but for consent to be genuine it needs to be “informed and meaningful”.

The panel was formed under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and comprises 10 member experts. It has been meeting regularly since August last year, when it was set up after the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court  highlighted the pending framework in its landmark verdict related to Right to Privacy.

Srikrishna had commented earlier that India was urgently in need of a dedicated law on data protection law as the current legislation wasn’t sufficient.

Comprehensive Recommendations

Other recommendations contained in the report included elements like “holistic application, data minimization, controller accountability, structured enforcement and deterrent penalties.”

The panel’s report also included international best practices from countries like United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and Canada that could be incorporated into Indian law

The panel members included experts such as Rama Vedashree, CEO, Data Security Council of India, Rajat Moona, director, IIT, Raipur, Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, MeitY, Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM, Indore.

The chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, also recently provided a guideline document regarding data privacy to the committee.

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