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How safe is your personal data. There have been reports of data thefts from several sites. Is your data being stored in India or abroad and who all have access to it. Todeal with all these questions, the government is going to introduce draft Digital India Bill next month. So, what should you know?

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is set to launch the first draft of the Digital India Bill this June. This highly-anticipated legislation will replace India’s current IT Act, 2022. Here’s a breakdown of the same:

Why is it needed?

Currently, India is poorly equipped to deal with cybercrimes and other offences that develop with the rapid evolution of the internet. Other than that, there are no provisions for grievance redressals, user rights and other emerging areas. As per a 2022 NordVPN report, data of Indian users is the most commonly available dataset in cybercrime markets.

Another report revealed that over the last six months, India witnessed over 1,700 cyber attacks every week, which is twice the global average. Infact, between January-March 2023, India witnessed over 500 million cyberattacks. India has the second-largest internet user base in the world, with more than 50% of its population active on the web.

More so, FB, Twitter and others have expanded far beyond their mandate of simply being social media platforms. They’ve become monopolies or duopolies, exerting unfair influence on global businesses. As such, it becomes extremely important to have a framework that safeguards people around protecting individuals and their interests on the internet.

What will the bill cover?
The bill plans to address the following:

Instead of intervening directly between intermediary platforms (FB, Twitter, Instagram) and the user, the government is considering creating a parallel adjudication system, so that user grievances can be resolved at a faster pace.

No immunity
As per Section 79 of the IT Act, platforms like FB, Twitter cannot be held liable or prosecuted for any content that is posted by a third party on their platform. This immunity is subject to carrying out diligence and removal of said content. This protection might not be a part of the new rules.

AI  interference
Recently, an AI-generated picture of a blast at the Pentagon, US propelled the global stock market southwards. The bill will analyse the potential harms AI can cause to users and formulate guidelines accordingly.