Union government-run think tank NITI Aayog had objected to the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act that propose an amendment to the Right to Information Act, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.

Citing the response received under a Right to Information query, the newspaper reported that NITI Aayog had written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on January 16, 2023, urging it to not pass the law in its current form as it could weaken the Right to Information Act.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 was passed by the Parliament in August 2023. In the same month, President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday gave her assent to it. Rules under the Act are yet to be notified.

After the Act was passed, activists and experts told Scroll that they fear the law undermines the Right to Information Act. This was because the Digital Personal Data Protection Act amends Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act.

Presently, Section 8(1)(j) prevents a public authority from sharing anyone’s personal information if the disclosure of this information has no bearing on any public activity or interest, or the disclosure of the information would cause an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of an individual, unless such disclosure is justified in larger public interest.

However, Clause 44(3) of the Data Protection Act amends Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act to put in place a blanket exemption on a public authority divulging any personal information, thus doing away with the public activity/public interest exceptions in the provision.

NITI Aayog had raised objections to Clause 44(3), stating that the amendment will take away the power of the Public Information Officers “to examine the condition”, which will ultimately “weaken the RTI Act”, reported The Indian Express.

The newspaper quoted an unidentified senior official as saying that the recommendations were not accepted because the Department of Personnel and Training, which is the implementation agency of the Right to Information Act, did not express concerns regarding the amendment to the Act.

Apart from the amendment to the Right to Information Act, the Data Protection Act lays down obligations on private and government entities around the collection and processing of citizens’ data.

It also requires data fiduciaries to obtain consent for processing a citizen’s personal data as a matter of routine and grants the individual the right to access, correct, erase, port, and restrict their data. It proposes a penalty of up to Rs 250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect the digital data of individuals.

Several data privacy activists have objected to the Act, stating that data fiduciaries under the law do not have to inform users about the third parties with whom their data will be shared, the duration for which their data will be stored and if their data will be transferred to other countries.

In July last year, several Opposition MPs walked out of a Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting to protest against a move to adopt a report in support of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill. They had claimed that the report was adopted by the panel without proper scrutiny of the bill.

Also read: How Modi government is using data privacy as an excuse to cripple the Right to Information