Data Protection Bill can have adverse impact: Editors Guild of India

The Editors Guild of India (EGI) and DIGIPUB expressed a series of concerns they have over the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, saying it carries various provisions that can have an adverse impact on press freedom.

In a statement published on August 6, the EGI said the Bill could be used to widen the government’s existing powers of censorship because Clause 37(1)(b) will allow the Union government to “censor content on vague and unspecified grounds ‘in the interest of the general public’”.

“We are deeply concerned about the lack of exemptions for journalists from certain obligations of the law, where the reporting on certain entities in public interest may conflict with their right to personal data protection. The Justice Srikrishna Committee report had noted that ‘If journalists were made to adhere to the grounds of processing personal data, it would be extremely onerous for them to access information’, and that ‘mandating grounds of processing like consent would mean that accounts that are unfavourable to the data principal would simply not get published’,” the statement says.

The EGI also raised concerns that the Bull could “unreasonably widen the scope of exemptions” available to public information officers of government ministries and departments to reject RTI applications on the simple basis that the information sought ‘relates to personal information’.

“While exemptions provided to the government and its instrumentalities are near-absolute, the Data Protection Board [DPB] to be constituted thereunder has not been provided sufficient independence and rulemaking powers,” the statement adds, noting that because that all members of the DPB will be appointed by the Union government, its “independence remains in doubt”.

DIGIPUB, a foundation formed by digital-only news organisations, echoed similar concerns, adding that the proposed requirement for children to have parental consent for access to online news publications, especially for children from the ages 13 to 17. DIGIPUB said that this will “greatly restrict their access to legitimate news sources”.

“Additionally, the requirement preventing Data Fiduciaries from processing the data of children will mean that merely in order to access news, they will have to register/login. The approach towards protection of Children online needs to be reconsidered, in order to not hamper their access to knowledge,” the statement said. The Wire