MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar to hold a Digital India Dialogues’ session tomorrow in Mumbai on principles of Digital India Act

Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Electronics and Information Technology Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be holding a Digital India Dialogues’ session tomorrow in Mumbai on the Digital India Act.

Those attending the session will include stakeholders of the tech ecosystem – industry professionals/ associations, Startups, legal minds, etc. A similar programme was held in Bengaluru in March this year.

These consultations are in line with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s initiative of developing a consultative approach to law and policy making. This is the first time the consultations are taking place at the pre-draft stage of the Bill.

The Digital India Act, 2023 is a future ready legislation that aims to replace the existing IT Act & provide a strong legal framework to support our India’s Techade goals. It constitutes a significant part of the Global Standard Cyber laws being formulated by the Narendra Modi Government for catalyding India’s digital economy.

Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, National Data Governance Framework policy, the recent amendments to the IT Rules, CERT-In guidelines form the important element of this legal framework.

India today has 830 million internet users, and is the world’s largest “digitally connected democracy”. The internet is largely governed by the 23-year-old IT Act, which is lacking in provisions on user rights, and trust and safety, among other challenges and is not well-equipped to deal with evolving, sophisticated forms of cybercrimes like doxxing, cyber stalking, and online trolling, etc.

The DIA will seek to ensure that the Internet in India is open, free from user harm and criminality and that there is an institutional Mechanism of accountability.