RTI vs DPDP: Activists battle Centre’s data law

With the Centre likely to finalise rules for operationalising the controversial Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act next month, RTI activists have intensified efforts to build pressure on the Centre to revisit, if not repeal, provisions of the law that they claim would sound the death knell for the Right to Information Act.

Earlier this week, prominent RTI activists Nikhil Dey, Anjali Bhardwaj, and Amrita Johri, Internet Freedom Foundation founder Apar Gupta, noted economist Jayati Ghosh, former Central Information Commissioner MM Ansari and Editors Guild of India chief Anant Nath met Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi to discuss how the Centre plans to emasculate the RTI Act, a flagship legislation from the Congress-led UPA era, using the DPDP Act.

'Undermining transparency'

Subsequently, in a post of X, Rahul said that the DPDP Act “under the pretext of safeguarding privacy, curtails access to public information, which is essential for citizens and journalists to hold the government accountable.” Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was “attempting to shield itself from scrutiny, undermining transparency and weakening democratic oversight”, the Lok Sabha’s LoP said his party would, “in the interest of accountability and good governance”, discuss with its partners in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc the adverse impact the DPDP Act would have on the citizens’ right to information.

Also Read: WhatsApp, Google Maps helped uncover ₹200 crore in black money: FM

On Friday (March 28), speaking during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra said Section 44 (3) of the DPDP Act “overrides completely the Section 8 (1)(j) of the RTI Act” to enable the government to “deny all personal data blanketly (sic) to anyone asking for data seeking accountability as a result of which you will not be able to get data on willful loan defaulters or anything that the government doesn’t want you to get”. Asserting that provisions of high penalties, up to Rs 500 crore, proposed in the DPDP Act would have a “chilling effect” on anyone seeking data, Moitra demanded that the Centre must “repeal Section 44 (3) of the DPDP Act”.

Rule-making delays

Piloted by the Centre’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the DPDP Act was passed by Parliament in August 2023. However, wide-spread criticism of its provisions, particularly Section 44 (3), has, so far, stalled the government’s bid to finalise rules for the DPDP Act’s implementation. In January this year, the MeitY finally released the DPDP draft rules and invited suggestions from the public till February 8; the deadline later being extended till March 5.

MeitY officials have since indicated that they were reviewing the feedback received during the two months of public consultations on the draft rules and that the rules would likely be finalised in April. Sources in the MeitY, however, say that dilution of the DPDP Act to address concerns raised by transparency advocates is “highly unlikely”.

Also Read: US student visa rejection rate zooms to 10-year high, Indians to be hit: Report

The outrage among RTI activists is palpable. They are convinced that the Centre’s legislative subterfuge of further amending Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act through Section 44 (3) of the DPDP Act to create exempt categories for which information can be denied by the authority concerned would effectively dismantle the entire transparency apparatus.

Transparency at risk

Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), told The Federal, “The DPDP Act strikes a dual blow—it slashes people’s capacity to expose corruption and hold the government accountable by altering the RTI Act, while consolidating power in a government-controlled Data Protection Board that can impose fines of up to Rs 500 crore. This could become a tool to silence journalists, activists, and media who dare to challenge authority—all now classified as data fiduciaries under this law.”

Bhardwaj’s NCPRI colleague, Nikhil Dey, who was closely involved with the drafting of the RTI Act two decades ago, paints an even more disturbing picture. “The essence of public audits and citizen oversight of government programs hinges on accessing granular, personal data to root out corruption and misuse of power. These amendments (to the RTI Act) could doom collective monitoring and social audits by concealing critical details like who received benefits under a scheme or who approved a contract. Journalists relying on RTI to unearth stories will find themselves handcuffed as each request for specifics will hit a ‘personal data’ barricade, and as data fiduciaries, they’ll face crippling fines if they publish without consent from the very individuals they’re investigating,” Dey explains.

Also Read: Indian techie detained in Qatar over allegations of data theft

Lack of autonomy

The NCPRI, in its feedback for the DPDP Rules consultation process has also decried the lack of autonomy granted to the Data Protection Board under the DPDP Act. “A selection committee dominated by government appointees overseeing a Board with Rs 500 crore fining authority risks becoming an instrument of Executive overreach, particularly when the State wields vast data troves and can exempt itself or private entities from scrutiny,” says the transparency watchdog in its feedback.

Govt’s defence vs. critics’ concerns

The Centre, predictably, has dismissed all such concerns, arguing instead that the DPDP framework embeds protections, such as mandating data fiduciaries to disclose collection purposes and offer consent withdrawal.

Like Bhardwaj, Dey and scores of other transparency advocates, Venkatesh Nayak, Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), isn’t convinced about the Centre’s assurance. “Data from the Central Information Commission’s annual reports reveals Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act has long been a frequent pretext for rejecting RTI applications. With these amendments (which allow omnibus refusal of information), refusal rates are poised to surge exponentially.”

Also Read: Will PM Modi Ban Elon Musk's Grok? | Discussion

Strong criticism of the DPDP Act has come in from sections of the media too. Pragya Singh, an independent journalist and member of the managing committee of the Press Club of India, believes that once the DPDP Act comes into effect, “journalists will struggle to leverage RTI for vital stories and grapple with stringent rules as data fiduciaries as without an independent regulator, the Executive could wield this selectively against us.”

'Blanket ban'

For most, it is the “blanket ban” on revealing any kind of “personal data or information”, which the DPDP Act enables by amending Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, that is most problematic. “The original Section 8(1) (j) offered a balanced test for withholding personal information. This blanket ban through the DPDP Act defies the fundamental right to information, consistently upheld by the Supreme Court. It’s crafted to shield the government and its allies—think loan defaulters or electoral bond purchasers,” advocate Prashant Bhushan told The Federal.