The Indian government’s aspiring dream of Digital India and its ambitions of ‘Catalysing New India’s Techade’ are well known. Among the several processes proposed to make these ambitions actuality is the proposal of modern digital law. Around the same time that the notion of a fresh digital law was floated, the government communicated its eyesight of a ‘comprehensive legal framework’ for the digital ecosystem. This framework was to embrace a ‘new telecom law, information technology law, and user privacy law.’
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has for some time now revealed its intention to sketch a new law that is truthfully contemplative of the advancements in India’s digital technology ecology. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the union minister for State for Electronics and Information Technology, unwrapped and gave a general glimpse of the suggested elementary configuration or outline and a general roadmap of the Digital India Act 2023 (DIA) in the second week of March 2023. The DIA will be a four-branched law, out of which a draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was made public by the government in 2022. The remaining branches are the DIA rules, the National Data Governance Policy, and modifications to the Indian Penal Code.
The proposed Act will substitute the Information Technology Act (IT Act) of 2000, which is the present legislation that controls e-commerce and transactions in India. The IT Act 2000 is India’s foundational legislation that is pursued to control the internet. However, it was devised for the Web 1.0 era, which comprised confined communication with society at large, nominal community involvement, and no contribution to economic amenities such as banking, finance, education, etc. The internet back then was thinly used for one-on-one communication via email facilities that were quite simple.
Things have transformed radically in the preceding 20 years though. The internet now shelters almost every feature of our personal and professional lives. The fundamental ideologies of the IT Act 2000 were conscripted before the arrival of e-commerce and social media platforms. While these facilities have given the power to people to access facilities like healthcare, education, and entertainment by using digital platforms, they have also produced challenges in the shape of cybersecurity, data privacy, hate speech, fake news, and anti-competitive practices by big tech companies.
The latest presentation by the MeitY on the suggested Digital India Act, 2023, discloses an all-inclusive tactic to law and rule-making that will empower more novelty while at the same time safeguarding citizens in terms of security, faith, and accountability. Although constantly citing these philosophies over the previous year, communication on the timeline of the Bill has been erratic. It was planned to be released before May 2022. However, the date for the issue of the draft for public discussion stayed uncertain. Then, after months of postponement and many updates on the unclear last date, the Ministry revealed that the Bill would be issued in December 2022. Even then, the public discussion did not happen in the subsequent few months. Now, after a prolonged delay, a public discussion was initiated. But, neither a draft form of the Bill nor a White Paper on the Ministry’s preliminary views has been released. Thus, the DIA, still a work in progress, apparently since the previous year, has harvested a lot of attention and interest, much of it nourished by the exposure of the unofficial statements made by Ministry officials.
Digital order (SUBHEAD)
Without suitable and satisfactory guardrails in place, the government’s dream of a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030 could get disrupted. From this perspective, the proposed Act will wrap up probable abuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI), deep fakes, cybercrime, and competition concerns among internet platforms. It also recommends a new adjudicative system for criminal and civil offenses committed online, in addition to redefining ‘safe harbour’ guidelines that permit social media platforms to elude responsibility for posts made by users. It is now established beyond disbelief that large internet organizations such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google exercise an enormous effect on the social, economic, and political consequences of a nation. In India, social media is mainly unregulated. While this aids the uncontrolled movement of information and freedom of speech, it has also resulted in an increase in online hate-mongering, rude language, and pestering. One of the welcome underlines of the new legislation will be the deterrence of concentration of market power, and gate-keeping by big tech players to support non-discriminatory access to digital services.
Even though the whole purpose behind the new law is praiseworthy, there are a few zones of apprehension that the policymakers should take into consideration. First, the digital divide between urban and rural regions is broadening because of the absence of collective access to quality internet and low levels of digital literacy or mastery. If India wishes to accomplish the full capacity of digitisation then emphasis must be on reinforcing the digital substructure in the remotest parts of the nation. Secondly, cybercrimes reported by Indian users are the maximum among G20 countries. This raises user trust issues which could diminish India’s otherwise amazing digital transformation.
While the framework of the new Digital India Act is remarkable, it must be enacted into the statute books fast along with a robust data protection law. In an extremely digitized environment where individuals, machines, financial organizations, businesses, and government agencies are being linked on a solitary network, the significance of laws regulating digital applications, and those that safeguard personal data can never be overemphasized. To conclude, the proposed law to substitute the outdated IT Act that regulates internet use must hit the sweet spot, with just the right amount of regulation. It has a difficult job of guaranteeing free speech, digital innovation, law and order, and intermediary regulation.
