The Government had constituted a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice B.N. Srikrishna, former Judge, Supreme Court of India to deliberate on data protection framework for India. The Committee has submitted its Report and a draft Personal Data Protection Bill in July, 2018.
- The Committee had examined a wide gamut of issues in relation to the protection of personal data which found reflection in the draft Personal Data Protection Bill. The Committee also took cognizance of community data as relating to a group dimension of privacy and an extension of data protection framework. Such data that has been sourced from multiple individuals is akin to a common natural resource where ownership is difficult to ascertain due to its diffused nature across several individual entities. The Committee also felt that all such community data is relevant for understanding public behaviour, preferences and making decisions for the benefit of the community.
- The critical difference between community data and other large scale data collection lies in the degree of involvement of the larger community in building the body of data. It challenges the notion of individual control over personal data as individuals may not be aware of what their data can disclose when aggregated with billions of other data points. The Committee strongly recommended that the Government should consider a suitable law that would facilitate collective protection of privacy by including a principled basis for according protection to an identifiable community that has contributed to community data.
- In addition to the above nature of community data, there is also a need to recognize the economic dimension of data and suitable taxonomy of data. This could include aggregated data, derived data, anonymous data, e-commerce data, AI training data etc. Access to and control over various kinds of data is critical for economic advantage. It is also seen that privately collected digital data could be a necessary requirement for policy making, governance and public service delivery in many areas. There is a growing trend towards platformisation of the digital economy and in such a platform economy data could play a critical role as a community or public resource.
- In view of the above, it has been decided to constitute a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder Infosys, to deliberate on a Data Governance Framework and recommend measures relating thereto. The constitution of the Group and Terms of Reference are as follows:
Group
- Shri Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder Infosys Chairman
- Additional Secretary /Joint Secretary, DPIIT Member
- Ms. Debjani Ghosh, President NASSCOM Member
- Dr. Neeta Verma, DG, National Informatics Centre Member
- Shri Lalitesh Katragadda, CTO, Avanti Finance Member
- Dr. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, IIIT Hyderabad Member
- Shri Parminder Jeet Singh, IT for Change Member
- Shri Gopalakrishnan S., Joint Secretary, MeitY Member Convenor
Terms of Reference
(i) To study various issues relating to Non-Personal Data.
(ii) To make specific suggestions for consideration of the Central Government on regulation of Non-Personal Data.
7. The Committee may co-opt other members for their specific inputs.
8. The Committee shall endeavour to submit its report as expeditiously as possible.
9. The expenditure towards TA/DA in connection with the meetings of the group in respect of the official members will be borne by their respective Ministries /Departments. Domestic travel in respect of non-official members would be permitted by Air India and the expenditure would be met by MeitY.
Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology
[Office Memorandum dt. 13-09-2019]