The proposed Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, which was unveiled on Friday, is the first to use the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to all people instead of ‘he,’ ‘him,’ and ‘his.’

Conforming with the “philosophy of women’s empowerment that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government works, [we have attempted] to use the words she and her in the entire Bill, instead of he, him and his. So this is an innovative thing which has been attempted in the Bill,” according to Ashiwini Vaishnaw, minister of electronics and information technology.

The government on Friday made the updated draft of the personal data protection Bill available for stakeholder feedback, more than three months after it was withdrawn from the House of Representatives.

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which aims to empower girls and urge families to educate and nurture them well, is in line with this programme.

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According to the explanatory note included with the draft bill, ‘her’ and ‘she’ have been used to refer to individuals irrespective of gender for the first time in India’s legislative history. This is consistent with the government’s view of women’s empowerment.

The administration added that the Bill had been written in clear and straightforward language so that all individuals could grasp its provisions.

“As directed by the Prime Minister, we have drafted the Bill in a language which is very straightforward, simple to understand, easy to understand…,” Vaishnaw said.

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This is the government’s second attempt to create a Bill in a way that “any citizen is able to understand its provisions,” following the publishing of the draft Indian Telecommunication Act 2022 in September of this year.

It is stated in the explanatory note that “Comprehensibility of law for citizens is a desirable goal” in the draft version.

“The provisions have been concisely and clearly drafted and no provisos have been used. Illustrations and contextual definitions, where necessary, have been incorporated to further clarify the meaning and intent of provisions,” the note said.

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The bill

After receiving 81 amendments recommendations from a joint parliamentary committee, the Personal Data Protection Bill was dropped in August.

Following objections from the opposition Congress and the Trinamool Congress, among others, who said the proposed law infringed individuals’ fundamental rights, the measure was forwarded to a parliamentary committee in 2019.

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The opposition parties had claimed that the proposed bill provided the government broad authority to access peoples’ personal data under dubious circumstances, citing national security and other reasons. They claimed that by passing this law, it would be simpler for the government to snoop on its citizenry.

The administration had contended that the sanctions indicated for unlawful data usage were sufficient to deter such behaviour.

The opposition to the proposed data protection bill would probably continue to be strong given the claims that the government spied on its detractors using Israel’s Pegasus malware.