Draft of Digital Personal Data Protection Bill out: ‘He’ ‘him’ is now ‘she’ ‘her’

New Delhi, Nov 18: The Union Government has released the draft of the much awaited Digital Personal Data Protection Bill. Minister of Information and Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw shared the draft on Twitter and sought views of the citizens.

The bill requires entities processing the personal data of users to give an itemised notice in simple and plain language to all users about the types of personal data collected. It also makes it mandatory that the users should have the right to withdraw consent for data usage from the processing entity such as social media platforms from using their personal data. The Bill does not seek to regulate non-personal data and the Union Government would present the same in Parliament in the next session.

The Bill also prohibits behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising to children. Data fiduciaries (digital platform, social media, processing entities) have to first obtain parental consent before using the children's data.

Another important point the bill makes is that instead of he and him the pronouns she and her have been introduced. The Bill says, 'the pronouns 'her' and 'she' have been used for an individual irrespective of gender.

Minister Vaishnaw said that in the philosophy of women empowerment that the PM Modi government believes in and works on we have attempted to use the words 'she' and 'her; instead of 'he' and 'him' in the entire Bill.