Data Protection Bill: US flags storage, cross-border circulate at ICT group meet

A authorities delegation of the United States — led by Matt Murray, Senior Bureau Official within the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs of the Department of State — has raised issues on sure points on cross-border circulate of information within the Data Protection Bill proposed by India, sources in know of the matter mentioned.
At the annual assembly of the India-US working group on info and communication expertise (ICT), the US delegation highlighted that the proposed Bill had some limiting elements when it got here to cross-border circulate of private and non-personal knowledge in addition to storage of information positioned in servers exterior Indian borders, the sources mentioned.
The working group additionally mentioned points of standardisation of 5G expertise, an business official who attended the assembly mentioned. The Indian authorities delegation was led by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary Ajay Sawhney.

The working group on ICT, which was began in 2005 after a summit between former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former US President George Bush, meets on an annual foundation in India or the US to debate numerous points of co-operation within the area of data and communication.
This is the second time the US delegation has raised this challenge. At the working group’s final assembly, held in October 2020, a senior delegate from the US authorities had instructed that the 2 nations ought to focus on crucial points corresponding to how an organization might safely transfer private in addition to non-personal knowledge throughout borders with out it being compromised in any method.
“This year some of the delegates from India suggested establishment of a bilateral platform in which industry voices can also participate so that the mechanism is updated regularly,” a supply mentioned. Industry officers from the US too raised the problem and requested the Indian authorities to carry wider consultations earlier than the Data Protection Bill is launched in Parliament.
“Building on this dialogue, we ask the government to hold a wider stakeholder consultation before the revised Data Protection Bill is introduced in parliament. There are several novel proposals which have been suggested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee which require further deliberation and input from impacted stakeholders,” mentioned Kumar Deep, India nation supervisor for Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council.

Last December, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill tabled its closing report in Parliament. The Bill, which now consists of non-personal knowledge in its ambit, will merely be often known as Data Protection Bill.
It was first launched by former Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on December 11, 2019, in Lok Sabha and instantly referred to the standing committee on December 16 the identical yr. The committee’s report was offered within the Lok Sabha by its chairperson PP Chaudhary and laid within the Rajya Sabha by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh.