The Indian Government is preparing to table the first draft of Personal Data Protection Bill by December this year. The bill is being drafted by Justice BN Srikrishna committee and will be tabled in Parliament after discussing with different ministries, Govt. authorities, industry representatives <g data-gr-id="23">and</g> the public. A public consultation over the bill is likely to <g data-gr-id="22">be happened</g> from Government side as disclosed by sources. <o:p></o:p>

The committee preparing the first draft of this Personal Data Protection Bill is being led by retired Supreme Court Judge BN Srikrishna. The committee has submitted a report and a draft bill on last week which states the importance of individual data privacy. The bill asserts that a layered consent architecture for personal data processing should build up so that companies only <g data-gr-id="27">uses</g> specific data for explicitly and store it until required. As per sources, in the draft bill, the citizens have given the rights to decide if their data should be shared and for what purposes they can be used. They have even given the rights to withdraw consent for sharing personal data at any time along with 'right to be forgotten' option on certain conditions. However, the bill has already raised concern among companies and many authorities regarding using personal data & criminal prosecution. <o:p></o:p>

However, two significant members of the committee, Rama Vedashree, CEO of Data Security Council of India, and Rishikesha Krishnan, director at IIM Indore has expressed concern on data localization, and <g data-gr-id="18">categorisation</g> of financial data as personal data as drafted in the bill. They also recommended <g data-gr-id="17">inclusion</g> of "criminal <g data-gr-id="19">offences</g>" category in the bill. It is said that this bill may override provisions of 50 existing laws, particularly the Aadhaar, right to information and information technology rules.<o:p></o:p>