Data Protection Bill: Panel suggests greater accountability for social media, inclusion of personal and non-personal data

The panel recommended that all social media platforms, which do not act as intermediaries, be treated as 'publishers'

A parliamentary committee on Thursday recommended setting up a statutory media regulatory authority for the regulation of the contents on social media platforms irrespective of the platform where their content is published, whether online or print.

The Joint Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, headed by BJP MP PP Chaudhary, tabled its report in both the Houses on Thursday said that the authority can be on the lines of the Press Council of India. The panel said, at present, there is no single unified agency that regulates the various forms of media, specifically news media, in the country.

The existing media regulators such as the Press Council of India are not appropriately equipped to regulate the journalism sector that seeks to use modern methods of communication such as social media platforms or the internet at large. Following this, there is a need for the establishment of a statutory body for media regulation, the panel said in its report.

The Joint Committee of Parliament, had, last month, adopted the report. The proposed legislation seeks to provide the government with powers to give exemptions to its probe agencies from the provisions of the Act, a move that has been strongly opposed by the opposition MPs who filed their dissent notes. However, the suggestions made by the panel are not binding.

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The Committee also recommended that no social media platform should be allowed to operate in India unless the parent company handling the technology sets up an office in India.

All social media platforms should be treated as publishers and be held accountable for the content they host, the panel said. It also recommended replacing ‘social media platform’ with ‘social media intermediary.’

A mechanism should be devised where social media platforms, which do not act as intermediaries, will be held responsible for the content from unverified accounts on their platforms.

"Once application for verification is submitted with necessary documents, the social media intermediaries must mandatorily verify the account," said the report.

The panel has also favoured a framework to regulate hardware manufacturers, who also collect data along with the software.

The panel also sought to widen the sphere of data protection legislation by including personal and non-personal data, saying defining or restricting the new legislation only to personal data protection or to name it as Personal Data Protection Bill is "detrimental to privacy".

"The committee, therefore, recommends that since the DPA (Data Protection Authority) will handle both personal and non-personal data," it said.

As soon as the provisions to regulate non-personal data are finalised, there may be a separate regulation on non-personal data in the Data Protection Act to be regulated by the Data Protection Authority, it mooted.