Recently, India, which has 1.3 billion inhabitants, withdrew its data protection bill, representing yet another setback in efforts made worldwide to safeguard people's personal data.The second most populous nation in the world is once again starting from scratch when it comes to comprehensive privacy legislation after at least five years of privacy discussions, intensive Silicon Valley lobbying, and internal squabbling within the Indian governmental apparatus. The bill's rejection results in a mixed result for everyone—Indian citizens, for instance, won't have the protections against corporate surveillance in the bill, but they also avoid the carveouts for state surveillance—and only heralds future uncertainty in the country's privacy tech policy. Additionally, extra confusion is caused globally since India, a major player in the internet industry, is attempting to establish itself as the leader of a "fourth method" of data governance.For a number of reasons, the Personal Data Protection Bill of India was proposed into parliament in 2019. In 2018, India's constitution declared privacy to be a fundamental right, and many officials wished to see a significant privacy law for the country's billion-plus citizens. Because Indian requests to the U.S. were so backlogged, many Indian law enforcement agencies saw local data storage requirements as a way to ensure they could get information on crimes. Indian law enforcement had long taken issue with the mechanism for getting crime-related information from U.S. tech companies. In some locations, the Modi government cynically viewed the privacy bill as a tool to apply pressure to foreign tech companies who disobeyed official dictates. Others, meanwhile, intended to fight back against what is known as "digital colonialism," in which Silicon Valley and other Western tech companies enter India, spy on the populace, and take the information they collect as well as the majority (or nearly all) of the economic value back home. A desire to specifically rein in businesses like Facebook and Google is evident from the legislation's designation of a category for "social media intermediaries"—a aim shared by many governments worldwide, albeit in various ways.
The privacy bill was also a way for New Delhi to stake its claim on data protection given India's unique position on the geopolitical stage as the second most populous nation on the planet, the location of a burgeoning, multi-hundred billion dollar tech sector, and a country commemorating 75 years of independence from British rule. In contrast to approaches taken in the United States (where corporate surveillance is rampant), the European Union (which has a relatively broad data privacy regime), and China, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology described this type of move as a "fourth way" of data governance for Global South countries in a 2018 report (with some corporate data controls but widespread state surveillance). However, it is unclear exactly what this "fourth way" entails or how India intends to differentiate its strategy.
Now, the Modi government has completely torn up the measure and vowed to develop a new piece of legislation, alleging the idea had grown too complicated. Indian citizens suffer, at least temporarily, from a law that prioritizes privacy protection. Even if Indian officials intend to introduce a new draft in a few months, the revision process could take longer. However, it's also possible that the new regulations will be more stringent; after all, requiring businesses to wait until individuals click "accept" on a protracted, tedious terms-of-service form before collecting and using their information—then referring to this action as "consent" and pretending no harm can or will follow—is hardly the best way to safeguard people and their information by default. Stronger privacy protections are still a possibility for Indian citizens, even if they are unlikely.
Even the biggest democracy in the world, which is currently governed by an ethnonationalist dictatorship, lacks robust data privacy laws. While several nations in the Global South have passed privacy laws, such as Brazil's General Personal Data Protection Law in 2020, the Indian government has not yet taken any official steps toward realizing its vision of a "fourth way" of data governance. In some ways, this gives influence to nations with distinct data protection visions; governments in Beijing and Japan, regulators in Brussels, and others are implementing new regulations and may have greater perceived leadership if nations believe the Indian parliament is a long way from passing a data bill. But whatever happens next must be closely watched by any organization or government that wants to work with India on data problems. India's impending election to the G20 leadership, which will run from December 2022 to November 2023, serves to reinforce this fact.
With the aim of enhancing its control and surveillance of the online environment, the Modi government has been enforcing regulations against social media companies, online news services, and other businesses. These regulations include new legislation requiring VPNs to store user data and IP addresses for five years. It now states that it intends to introduce the so-called Digital India Act sometime this fall, focusing on everything from digital crime to content transmitted via over-the-top media platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix, as well as children's and women's safety. India has had more internet outages than any other nation on earth, including a protracted outage that coincided with other violations of human rights in Kashmir. However, under the current administration, India's credibility on digital democratic control is limited. When working on the next version of a privacy measure, policymakers in the US and others shouldn't keep brushing these issues under the rug. A privacy bill encompassing all actors will become increasingly crucial as Indian officials attempt to improve the nation's digital infrastructure and offer residents state-run platforms in everything from e-payments to health care.
The privacy question is not something that the United States is simply observing. The data localization provisions of the Indian bill were vigorously resisted by American businesses, particularly those like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Donald Trump himself stated at the 2019 G20 conference in Osaka that "the United States opposes data localization and regulations, which have been utilized to impede digital commerce flows and breach privacy and intellectual property laws." Other Trump White House officials also joined the debate. Silicon Valley businesses will surely work to mitigate the negative effects of the new rule on their bottom lines in the future. But whatever India decides to do will also have an impact on the global privacy landscape
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