PANEL DISCUSSION ON DATA PROTECTION BILL

A Panel Discussion was held on Wednesday, 25th February 2022, on Data Protection Bill, organised
by Centre for Legislative Studies & Research (CLSR) at School of Law, Manav Rachna University.
The distinguished panelists were Mr. Amit Kumar Dubey, Author and National Security Expert in the
field of Cyber Security, Ms. Rashmi Arora AVP- Litigation, SBI Card & Payment Services Ltd., Mr.
PK Malhotra, Former Law Secretary & Executive Chairperson, CLSR, and Ms. Sunanda Tewari,
Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Trade and Investment Law. The discussion was moderated by
Dr SK Bose, Director CLSR.
Approximately 75 participants registered and attended the webinar. The list of attendees includes law
teachers, law students, PhD Scholars, lawyers and other professionals from various institutions.
Dr SK Bose gave the introductory address and then Mr PK Malhotra started the discussion by making
the audience aware of the topic and why data protection is important.
Mr Amit Kumar Dubey said that awareness is very important in the field of data protection, and it is
the government’s responsibility to spread awareness about it as much as possible, because unless and
until the end user knows and understands how his data could be used, the whole exercise to protect
data could prove futile. He said that personal data should be retained only for the purpose for which it
was collected, and the challenge is to reduce its misuse, as use of data is inescapable.
Ms. Rashmi Arora explained the difference between data sharing and essential data sharing. That for
getting a taxi it is important to share your location, and anything beyond location is unnecessary. She
also said that taking consent is very important, and it is also the user’s responsibility to be aware as to
what he is consenting for, everybody needs to be vigilant enough. Ms. Arora was also of the view that
the major challenge is technology, and government institution will take a lot of time to put technology
in place.
Mr. Malhotra was of the same view that law is not able to keep pace with the swiftly developing
technology, not only in our country but in other countries as well. He also said that it should not take
too long to make a law, and once it is made; there is always scope for making amendments.
He then introduced Ms. Sunanda Tewari to the discussion, who apprised us of the concept of Data
localisation and the conflict of interest with trade agreements. She informed that these days almost all
the new agreements specifically ask for data protection and data privacy laws. It is an imperative need
in India so that we have better trade opportunities with other countries. But on the other hand,
protection of data and keeping it within India is also important and that’s why Joint Parliamentary
Committee has made stringent data localisation laws, and our country is trying to find a middle
ground.
The Panel Discussion ended with the vote of thanks and was coordinated by Swapnil Garg, Research
Fellow, CLSR, and was conducted on Zoom platform.
Report by: Swapnil Garg, Research Fellow, CLSR, School of Law, MRU