The Centre is in the process of drafting a legislation that will guarantee protection to individuals against breach of their privacy through unlawful means, minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh informed Rajya Sabha.
The draft bill is believed to have been further refined in 2014, seeking to extend right to privacy to not only citizens of India but all its residents.
The ministry of personnel has been working on a right to privacy law for some years now, with the first draft released in 2011.
What does the law seek?
- The law seeks to protect individuals against misuse of their personal data by government as well as private agencies, including unauthorized sharing of an individual’s Aadhaar data by any government authority.
- This would cover snooping on individuals through unlawful and unauthorized interception.
- The bill proposes a maximum penalty of Rs 2 crore against a person or agency involved in illegal interception of communication
- However, the bill seeks to exempt intelligence and law enforcement agencies from its purview.
- Also, it seeks to impose Rs 50 lakh penalty on a government official or employee of a telecom service provider found guilty of disclosing prohibited personal data.
- A penalty of Rs 50 lakh is also to be imposed in case data is obtained on false pretext.
- The proposed penalty for stealing personal data is Rs 10 lakh for the first attempt and Rs 20 lakh in case of a repeat offence.