Data Bill: Is it meant to protect our data or hide government’s secrets?

With over 760 million active internet users, India is, apparently, the “largest connected democracy”

Last week I learnt that our government has been staking a new claim about India’s greatness on the world stage. With over 760 million active internet users, we are, apparently, the “largest connected democracy”. These numbers are more than double the US’ figures, though more than 91 per cent of its population actively uses the internet. We might breach the 60 per cent mark by 2023.

Last December, China’s tallest leader published a paper explaining how ‘true democracy’ exists only under the ruling Communist Party. The Chinese claim was in response to the first-ever Summit for Democracy convened by the US, to which China was not invited. According to 2021 figures, 75 per cent of their 1.41 billion people are active internet users, served in their own languages.

Read | Glaring gaps, missing pieces in draft data protection bill

Recently, an international watchdog lamented in its 2022 Global State of Democracy Report: “Half of the democratic governments around the world are in decline while authoritarian regimes are deepening their repression”. The US was called out for worrisome trends of political polarisation, institutional dysfunction and threats to civil liberties. ‘Regional giant’ India is also portrayed as backsliding because “it has become common for elected leaders to use their power to weaken democratic institutions from inside the system, (which) indicates the fragility of democracy…”

Even as we await the government’s public rejection of these findings, we must ponder over what it actually means to be the ‘largest’ or ‘democratic’ when our netās walk out of political parties with the mysterious élan of a chicken crossing the road, or ‘connected’ in a society rapidly polarising around divisive identity markers like caste, class, religion and language.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wants us to tell them what we think about their latest Bill drafted to protect our personal data from misuse and abuse by those who collect, process and store it. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, its explanatory notes and the public notice inviting suggestions are all available in “plain and simple language so that even a person with basic understanding of the law” is able to comprehend. The only bummer is, you have to be a digital nāgarik who can read and respond in English, by registering on Mygov.in, despite Google’s survey finding that 90 per cent of India’s internet users prefer to consume content in their local language.

Data privacy experts are worried. Despite its novel effort at simplicity, the government’s real intentions behind the Bill’s clauses are not discernible even after multiple readings. Enormous rule-making powers will be vested with it to flesh out details of how digital personal data will be collected, used, protected, erased and even transferred across borders. These powers will not be shared with state governments despite all talk about cooperative federalism.

True to the spirit of tyāga -- one of the hallmarks of our hoary cultural traditions -- the draft Bill seeks to ‘sacrifice’ people’s right to information at the altar of the right to personal data privacy. The well-established constitutional principle that one fundamental right must not be diminished under the guise of protecting another stands ignored. By amending the RTI Act, all government-held information about persons will become sarkari secrets -- completely insulated from public scrutiny. Another amendment proposes to eliminate the parity between MPs and MLAs and the people who elect them vis-à-vis their ability to demand transparency and accountability of State institutions.

I have not even scratched the tip of the iceberg to show all that this draft Bill proposes to do or avoid doing. We have two weeks to make our views known. Whether the government deepens democracy or empowers itself more through this Bill remains to be seen.