The Ministry of Electronics and IT has completed the drafting process for the rules of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), 2023. However, the rules will be open for consultation only after the Lok Sabha Elections. A source told businessline that most of the drafting process for these rules was done earlier this year. “The only reason to hold back releasing the specific rules for consultation is the general elections,” the source added. 

Several industry executives lobbying with MeitY also confirmed with businessline that the drafting process is complete and the rules are expected to be out posted in July. 

The DPDP Act 2023 was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 7, 2023. Putting data protection and privacy legislation in place in India after several years of drafting and consultation. However, the law is not in actual implementation since the MeitY has to set up specific guidelines for the industry or the data fiduciaries to follow to implement this data protection and data privacy law. The industry hopes that the guidelines and rules formulated by the MeitY will go into exact details on how the bill is supposed to be followed. 

Major concern

“The industry should not expect much deviation from the Act when the guidelines come out. There have been no amendments made to the Act in while drafting the rules,” the source further added. 

One of the major concerns that the industry had with the bill was the control of the Central government in appointing members of the data protection board — an adjudicatory body that will deal with privacy-related grievances and disputes between two parties. In this regard, the experts that businessline spoke with added that there is a need for internal rules for the data protection board itself as a guideline to resolve privacy-related disputes and grievances. The executives further added that the rules must also provide industry-specific guidelines that differ for data fiduciaries belonging to different industry verticals.

Several firms, including several FMCG firms and law firms that businessline spoke with added further that they have started readying infrastructure to implement rules and guidelines for the DPDP Act once they arrive. 

Related Topics