New Delhi, Dec 16 (Agency) With joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 recommending for parent company of social media platforms to set up offices and outposts in India to comply with the privacy law, cyber law experts see massive white collar jobs being created in the country. “We are at the cusp of big data economy. And if this data bill is effectively implemented it will give major boost to data economy. A lot of new jobs could be created. A lot of compliance requirement will be done which will create further work for professionals, lawyers and chartered accountants,” said Pavan Duggal, senior advocate and cyber law expert. The JPC reviewing the data protection bill has recommended that no social media platform should be allowed to operate in India unless the parent company handling the technology sets up an office in India.
Underlining that national security is of paramount importance and India can’t compromise it on the ground of promotion of businesses, the Committee in its much-awaited report said that concrete steps must be taken by the central government to ensure that a mirror copy of the sensitive and critical personal data in possession of the foreign entities be mandatorily brought to India in a time bound manner. “There will be creation of a lot of white collar jobs because there will be many compliances that would have to be done by any data entity. In India almost a majority of legal entities are dealing with electronic data and the moment JPC’s recommendations are accepted by the government then clearly a lot of legal entities are going to come under this ambit.
Nine out of 10 companies in India would qualify to be covered under data protection law,” Duggal said. The Joint Committee’s report on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was tabled in both the Houses of the Parliament on Thursday. Among its various recommendations the panel has said that the proposed data privacy law should cover both personal as well as non-personal data. In all, the Committee has given nearly 100 recommendations making modifications and more than 150 Drafting corrections and improvements in various Clauses of the Bill. It has asked the government to follow a timeline for phased implementation of Data Protection Act.