Artha Global’s submission to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for the public consultation on Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022. We welcome the Ministry’s attempt to create a comprehensive digital personal data protection framework for India as well as the opportunity to participate in the public consultation process. We also appreciate the need to strike an appropriate balance between protecting individuals’ fundamental right to privacy – particularly in light of the rapid datafication of all aspects of personal, societal and economic life – and enabling digital personal data’s enormous potential for transformational governance, innovation and economic growth.

Keeping this in mind, we have organised our inputs under themes that address major components of this legislation. Each theme has detailed comments for relevant clauses, covering the departure from the rights based approach, excessive exemptions, weakened protections and the effectiveness of the proposed Data Protection Board.