 law, which allows people to access data from the government. Since it was passed in 2005 - after years of campaigning - millions of Indians have used the RTI law to ask questions and demand information from government departments and officials. But the new legislation changes a provision of the RTI law to exempt "personal information" from being disclosed - this will affect a majority of the information currently sought under it. "Everything that people have been using the RTI law for - to hold governments accountable, to fight corruption [etc.] - has somewhere an element of personal information," says Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, which was critical in getting the RTI law passed in 2005. Madan Lokur, a former Supreme Court judge, says that the amendment "will emasculate the RTI to a large extent". While the application of the RTI law was never perfect - information was often denied on flimsy grounds and there have been several attempts by successive governments to dilute it - activists fear the latest change will make answers almost impossible to access. The RTI law c){kind=link}
A crucial new law that aims to protect the personal data of Indians will dilute another landmark legislation that brought much-needed transparency into government functioning, experts say.
Until last week, India did not have a law to regulate how the personal information of individuals is collected, stored and processed. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, which was passed in parliament, fulfils that long-standing demand.
But privacy experts have raised serious concerns, pointing out that the law does not protect citizens from surveillance and that it gives excessive power to the federal government in terms of application.
One major criticism is the change the legislation makes to the landmark right to information (RTI) law, which allows people to access data from the government. Since it was passed in 2005 – after years of campaigning – millions of Indians have used the RTI law to ask questions and demand information from government departments and officials.
But the new legislation changes a provision of the RTI law to exempt “personal information” from being disclosed – this will affect a majority of the information currently sought under it.