Ease of doing business for MSMEs: Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Sunday urged the government to introduce and pass the Digital Data Protection Bill in the upcoming Budget session of the Parliament. CAIT General Secretary Praveen Khandelwal in a statement said that the bill along with e-commerce policy and rules is necessary to ensure India’s retail trade is not negatively impacted by the data collection and processing activities of big technology companies. “It is an admitted fact that global companies are violating the basic fundamentals of trade and misuse the personal and other data of Indian consumers to gain a competitive edge over local traders and retailers,” he said.
In November 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had released the latest iteration of the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 and sought public feedback. According to the ministry, the bill envisages setting up a Data Protection Board of India to determine non-compliance with the provisions of the draft Bill, impose penalties for such non-compliance, and perform such other functions as the central government may assign to it under the provisions of the draft bill or any law.
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Importantly, according to an ANI report last month, the bill is likely to be introduced in the budget session.
In terms of the e-commerce policy, a draft of which was placed in the public domain in February 2019 for public consultations and suggestions from various stakeholders, is yet to be notified and implemented. On the other hand, the e-commerce rules, which specify the duties and liabilities of sellers on e-commerce marketplaces and inventory-based e-commerce entities including consumer grievance redressals, were notified in July 2020 and later amended in May 2021 but aren’t notified yet.
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Khandelwal said that in the absence of any specific Data Protection Act, the global players including e-commerce companies are using data accrued by them in their own way. “It is most necessary that restrictions are on cross border data flow to ensure that user data is not misused, especially from the endless and unchecked processing of personal data by technology owners.”