Data protection or information suppression? RTI activists slam controversial Bill

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: Right To Information (RTI) activists have demanded withdrawal of the Data Protection Bill, which was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

They said that someone would approach the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the Bill, pointing out there were many online petitions against the draft. Dubbed the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2023, it seeks to limit the information state institutions are expected to reveal through RTIs.

It also seeks to open private institutions like NGOs up to scrutiny under certain circumstances. A version of the same Bill had been tabled in the Lower House in 2022 and then withdrawn.

The Bill states it would defend the right to privacy of a person defined as an “individual, a Hindu undivided family, a company, a firm, an association of persons or a body of individuals, the State and every artificial juristic person” as long as there is no “public activity or interest” involved.

If passed, the Act would enable Public Information Officers (PIOs) to deny RTI applicants information such as beneficiaries under the food security law, defaulters of loans from publically-owned banks, names of contractors of projects and details disclosed by candidates in election affidavits.

Act already diluted: Lawyer

RTI activist and lawyer Ashok Halagali told News Trail that the Centre and bureaucrats were averse to transparency and the extra work that went into answering applications and had resorted to pushing the DPDP to dodge responsibility.

“The RTI Act is already diluted through Section 8 and High Courts and Supreme Court have upheld it repeatedly. We are not in favour of the data protection Bill either,” he said, adding that if passed, the Act would be “99.9 per cent” gone.

He added that the “Bill should have never been introduced since it wasn’t necessary” and that the erstwhile Manmohan Singh administration was more forthcoming.

Section 8 has to do with clauses about the sovereignty of the State and its institutions. RTI activist Ashok Kumar said that the Bill ought to be withdrawn, adding that there was no room for correction since its provisions were fundamentally unsound.

“There is nothing to correct. It is correct already. Something like 90 per cent of the wrongdoings is coming to light right now. No matter how much you tried to hide, their frauds are coming out in one way or another. Why stop that? There is no necessity,” he said

‘Shah did an about-turn’

Kumar claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had gone back on his word on data transparency since he first assumed his Cabinet role.

“When he first became a minister, on the second day, Amit Shah called a meeting of Chief Secretaries of all states. In it, he said ‘the RTI has become a headache to all of you’. He told them ‘if you put the necessary data on government websites, then it’ll reduce half the burden on us,’” he said.