The government will soon introduce the Digital India Act, which will establish a new policy for the country’s digital ecosystem and cyberspace, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology.
While speaking at the inauguration of Bennett University’s Center for Law and Computing Technology, he stated that cyberspace is currently governed by the IT Act, a 22-year-old piece of legislation and that a more modern Act was required.
According to the minister, in the domain of the internet, 22 years equates to nearly four or five centuries, therefore he said, there was a need for a new contemporaneous law that is global in scope and consistent with India’s ambition to be the world’s preeminent nation in the coming decades, in all domains – technology and all facets of the innovation and technology ecosystem.
He also said that the government is concentrating its efforts on developing enabling frameworks and policies through a public consultation process.
He said that the government has recently unveiled a national framework and policy for data governance, which is currently undergoing public consultation. “We are in the process of rolling out cybersecurity policies and guidelines, and very soon, we will begin work on a new Digital India Act, which will serve as a refreshed policy for India’s digital ecosystem and cyberspace,” he said.
Additionally, he stated that Big Tech platforms, as well as all platforms that provide products and services online, must be accountable to users.
According to the minister, the challenges going forward in jurisprudence (and) on the regulation of cyberspace are considerable. “They range from informational protection and privacy on one end to the ethical use of technologies like AI on the other end of the spectrum, then you have challenges of openness and competition, vis a vis the big tech platforms, especially in the context of monopolies and duopolies are in-app stores and search engines,” he said.
