Episode 109 - India and Digital Data Protection

A Third Way Emerges - Light Touch India -soon to be the world’s most populous country, a fast growing economy with a highly sophisticated tech sector. It’s a country with a digital rupee in circulation and digital identity cards. Since independent India has forged an independent path between “east and west.” About a year ago, the Modi Government withdrew a bill based on Europe’s comprehensive privacy-centric approach to personal data privacy, GDPR. In November 2022, a very different bill was proposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology – the Digital Data Protection Act. What caused the change and where is India headed? In Episode 109, Stephen Mathias of the premier Indian law firm Kochhar & Co explains the new approach. Expected to be adopted by mid-2023 in a final form, it is very different from either the GDPR strict and privacy-centric approach or the U.S. model of sectoral and partial rules without an overarching federal code. India’s will use a “light touch” approach. It will leave many details open to evolving technology and future administrative rule-setting. Explore this very different model for national regulation of data privacy and security.