The deadline for public feedback on the digital personal data protection bill, 2022 (DPDP) has been pushed to January 2, 2023, from December 17, 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a notification on its website on Saturday.
“In response to the requests received from several stakeholders, the Ministry has decided to extend the last data for receipt of comments till 2nd January 2023,” the notification read.
Deliberations around personal digital data protection started in 2017 when Justice BN Srikrishna set up the Srikrishna Committee to recommend a data protection framework.
The earlier versions of the PDP Bill, and the one released in 2019, had to be scrapped as they were perceived to not support the current digital times and many stakeholders said they would negatively impact the startup ecosystem.
“The purpose of the draft bill is to provide for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognises both the right of individuals to protect their personal data and the need to process personal data for lawful purposes,” the Ministry website says.
The bill mandates companies or individuals collecting data to provide people with a notice in plain language describing the personal data they seek, and the purpose of processing such information. Companies also need to appoint a data protection officer or authorise a person to listen to users’ queries regarding consent towards sharing their information.
The Ministry is likely to place the draft in front of the parliament during the Budget sessions in 2023.
