The government will eliminate the data localization requirement proposed in the earlier draft of the data protection Bill and instead propose to permit data transfer and storage in “trusted geographies.” Periodically, the government will specify which regions are “trusted.”
The new draft, which is most likely to be made available for public comment this week, will also do away with the criminal penalties that were previously proposed for employees of companies that committed data breaches. An official stated that instead, monetary penalties of up to Rs 200 crore, multiplied by the quantity of users affected, will be imposed for each breach. According to this official, a data protection board will be established to “judge the consequences of any data breaches” and determine the punishmt