Journalist bodies submit 35 FAQs to MeitY on DPDP Act

JOurnalist associations feature submitted a go down of 35 questions to the ministry of electronics and info technology (MeitY), seeking limpidity on how the Digital Personal information Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, will affect media work in India.The move on Saturday follows a joint memorandum signed by 22 press bodies and more than 1,000 journalists from across the country. In response, IT secretary S Krishnan met representatives of the Press Club of India (PCI), Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC), Editors Guild of India, and Digipub on July 28 to discuss the concerns raised.At the meeting, the secretary suggested that the organisations prepare a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to highlight the contentious provisions of the Act, which they have now submitted to MeitY. The questions were compiled after consultations with journalists and stakeholders at a public meeting on August 8.The central demand is clarity on why the explicit exemption for journalism, which was included in earlier drafts of the bill and recommended by expert committees, was dropped in the final version of the Act. They also flagged the impact of the Act on the Right to Information (RTI) framework, pointing out that the amendment to Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act could make it harder for journalists to access corruption-related records and other personal-data-linked disclosures that were earlier available in the public interest.Speaking to HT earlier, MeitY secretary told HT that the removal of a proviso from section 8(1)(j), which said that the public information officers could in certain circumstances share this information in public interest, amended through Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act, 2023, was actually redundant. The secretary said there is already a provision in Section 8(2) of the RTI Act which says that the public authority, regardless of any of the exceptions contained in Section 8(1), can share the information if it is in public interest. “So there is no dilution, and in fact there is a strengthening,” said the secretary.Other FAQs focused on practical reporting challenges, whether reporters will need to obtain consent of a data principal before interviews, how spontaneous street reporting or coverage of riots and disasters would comply with the consent-and-notice requirements, and if storing or sharing documents provided by whistleblowers, sometimes on servers outside India, would now be restricted under cross-border data transfer rules.Concerns were also raised about editorial independence and source protection, with questions on whether the Data Protection Board’s powers to demand documents could force journalists to reveal whistleblowers, or if newsroom archives could be subject to deletion requirements. Worries about high compliance costs of encryption and logging requirements were also raised via FAQs.Finally, the groups questioned the parallel blocking powers introduced under the Act, noting that the IT Act already allows the government to block content. “Given that the Central Government has been empowered to block information/content under Section 69A of the IT Act, what is the purpose behind including Section 37(1)(b) that creates another parallel blocking regime that further empowers the Central Government to issue blocking directions under the DPDPA framework?”The journalist bodies observed that while government FAQs may serve as policy guidance, they do not carry legal weight and cannot change how courts interpret the Act. They reiterated their demand that the Act be amended to clearly state that “journalistic work will be exempted,” a line that was present in an earlier draft.The letter emphasised that journalistic activity is protected under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to practise any profession. Without explicit legal safeguards, they warned, the Act could be used in ways that restrict press freedom.HT has learnt that the next step of action will be MeitY answering the FAQs raised, which they have promised to the journalist bodies that they will do, but there is no particular time frame for this.MeitY has also sought the Attorney General’s confirmation on whether the data privacy Act dilutes the RTI Act, although the government is not expecting any further amendments. Once cleared, the Act will be cleared for enforcement.The final rules that will operationalise the Act will be issued after inter-ministerial inputs are received.