The new data protection Bill being framed by the Centre will have heavy penalties for personal data breach. A penalty of up to Rs 250 crore can be imposed if the 'data processor' or 'data fiduciary' fails to take reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breach, government sources said.
The Centre is working on a new draft of the proposed Digital Data Protection Bill after withdrawing the earlier Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 during the monsoon session of parliament this year. The 2019 draft bill had proposed a penalty of Rs 15 crore or four per cent of the global turnover of an entity.
According to sources, the government has mulled over incorporating strict penalties in the proposed new draft Bill to regulate social media.
For failure to comply with other provisions of law, a penalty ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 200 crore can be imposed depending on the nature of non-compliance with provisions of the law.
The new draft Bill has proposed setting up a Data Protection Board of India to administer and enforce the provisions of the proposed new Act.
"If the Board determines at the conclusion of an inquiry that noncompliance by a person is significant, it may, after giving the person a reasonable opportunity of being heard, impose such a financial penalty as specified in Schedule 1, not exceeding rupees five hundred crore in each instance," the draft said.
The draft has proposed a graded penalty system for data fiduciary that will process the personal data of data owners only in accordance with the provisions of the Act.
The same set of penalties will be applicable to the data processor -- which will be an entity that will process data on behalf of the data fiduciary.
The draft has been published and will be open for public comments till December 17.
The proposed data protection bill will put an end to misuse of customer data, and violators will face punitive action under the rule, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (IT) Rajeev Chandrasekhar had recently said.
The minister siad this in reaction to Google's settlement of an investigation in the US which found that the internet giant misled users and continued tracking their location even after they opted out of the location tracking system.
The government in August withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill from Lok Sabha and said it will come out with a "fresh legislation" that will fit into the comprehensive legal framework.
Government sources have indicated that the fresh data protection bill will be tabled in the winter session of parliament.
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