Jio Officials To Appear Before Panel Inspecting Data Protection Bill Tomorrow

New Delhi:

Officials from Jio Platforms Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm will appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill tomorrow. The agenda for Wednesday shows that representatives of Jio Platforms Limited will give oral evidence on the 2019 Data Protection Bill at 11 am. The representatives of Reliance Jio Infocomm will appear before the committee headed by the BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi at 3 pm.

Representatives of Ola and Uber have been called to appear before the panel on November 5. Representatives of Airtel and Truecaller are scheduled to depose before the panel separately on November 6.

The proposed law seeks bar on storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual. Following Congress concerns over the 2019 bill, the committee is looking into the matter and involving all stakeholders for an overview.

Representatives of social media giants Facebook and Twitter and e-commerce major Amazon have already deposed before the panel. Officials of Google and PayTm also gave their views last week.  

The panel had questioned “neutrality” of Google when it is engaged in both advertising and content, and asked was it not violating fundamental rights of users by “controlling” their choices, reported news agency Press Trust of India.

“They themselves are the platforms, sellers and news agencies. And Google itself has the control button to which information will come first, which will come later or which news will flash and which will be suppressed. So how it can be a neutral platform?” Ms Lekhi was quoted as saying after the meeting by PTI.

While introducing the draft bill in parliament last year, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said  it empowers the government to ask firms like Facebook, Google and others for anonymous personal and non-personal data.    

But there were concerns about the government accessing personal data of users. The opposition Congress had concerns regarding the use of such data in some cases, especially where national security is involved.