Big Tech's going to love India's new personal data protection bill

India's long awaited digital Personal Data Protection Bill was tabled in parliament on Thursday, complete with stiff penalties for data breaches and enough exemptions that digital rights orgs have rated it a "win-win" for Big Tech and government. India has spent the past six years trying to put together some form of data …

[Pascal Monett]

"where its passage is likely"

I see. The bill allegedly favors goverment and private industry use, so it will pass.

Sounds like India really is growing up. Now they're giving titles to laws to do the reverse of what the title suggests.

So India is following in the USA's footsteps. A sure mark of success, then ?

[Plest]

ALL citizens?

I seem to recall seeing videos of some politicians in India saying that "ALL" in Indian politics and law simply means those from certain castes, it's not literally all people, just those the wealthy and powerful deem worthy of the blessing to be included.

[Mike 137]

The real purpose

"Rather than protecting Indians' privacy, the bill prioritizes facilitating the processing of their personal data by private & state actors"

Exactly what the proposed UK Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill is intended to achieve. Protecting peoples' privacy is so disruptive of commercial gain, which is why 'compliance' with the GDPR has been for the most part a mere paper exercise.

The GDPR hasn't failed -- it's just never been tried yet, and now everyone is bent on dismantling it.

[Tron]

Big Brother has gone digital.

India is the next China. If Indians don't want their government to have unrestricted powers, they should be more careful who they vote for.

In fairness to nationalists, populists and dictators, every other regime operates under the same 'control freak' mandate of universal surveillance when in power, just with a bit more window-dressing to cover it up - safeguarding, protecting the children, privacy, regulation, preventing hate crime and fake news etc.

We have all arrived at Orwell's 1984, just a bit later than the Chinese.

[simonb_london]

Re: Big Brother has gone digital.

In India, there is a way around any law. More draconian laws are just an expression of frustration that this is the case.

[Doctor Syntax]

"the most damaging one yet in terms of the unrestricted powers it grants to the government"

HMG's hubris won't let them resist a challenge like that.