Amazon may face 'coercive action' as it refuses to appear before Parliament panel on data protection

Panel chief Meenakshi Lekhi said Amazon's refusal to appear before the Parliament committee amounts to a breach of privilege

Citing Covid-19, Amazon has refused to appear before the Joint Committee of Parliament on Data Protection Bill next week prompting the panel head Meenakshi Lekhi on Friday warn of stringent action against the e-commerce giant for breach of privilege.

However, Facebook India's representative Ankhi Das appeared before the panel on Friday during which MPs in the 30-member multi-party panel questioned her for around two hours on various aspects of data protection.

The Joint Committee, which is looking into the contentious Bill, was unanimous in its opinion that "coercive action" can be suggested to the government against Amazon in case its officials do not appear before it on October 28.

Lekhi, a senior BJP MP, said the e-commerce giant has refused to appear before the panel and it amounted to breach of privilege. Amazon has told the committee that its subject-experts are overseas and travel risk due to Covid-19 are preventing them from travelling to India.

The panel has also summoned officials of Twitter on October 28 and Google and Paytm on October 29, sources said.

Sources said Facebook's Das, who was the centre of a controversy recently following a media report that the social networking site looked the other way on hate speeches by BJP leaders, faced some tough questions from the MPs.

During the meeting, sources said one of the MPs suggested that Facebook or other social media sites should not use personal data to draw inferences to benefit from advertisements. It should also not be used to benefit businesses or parties in elections.

The Facebook official was also asked about the money spent by the social media giant on data protection. One of the MPs asked Facebook how much revenue it generates and how much tax it pays.

The Personal Data Protection Bill seeks to provide for protection of personal data of individuals, create a framework for processing such personal data, and establish a Data Protection Authority for the purpose.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said the Bill empowers the government to ask companies like Facebook, Google and others for anonymous personal and non-personal data.

However, the Bill was referred to a joint committee following concerns raised by Opposition parties. Civil society groups opposed the Bill claiming that it provides open-ended exceptions to the government allowing for surveillance.