The Digital Personal Data Protection Act’s limitless punitive powers

Kamesh Shekar

2 reads

Kamesh Shekar

2 reads

Some interpretations of the recently passed Digital Data Protection Act 2023 indicate that its financial penalty limits have been slashed in half—from Rs 500 crore to Rs 250 crore. In truth, however, the act hasn’t lost its teeth but gained fangs instead.

August 23, 2023

5 MINS READ

Key Takeaways

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 passed earlier this month has notable differences from the draft bills that preceded it
Notably, there has been discussion about how monetary penalties under the new act have been halved from Rs 500 crore to Rs 250 crore
This, however, is far from the case. It is true that the breach of individual provisions of the bill carries a maximum penalty of Rs 250 crore
However, there is no longer an upper limit in terms of imposing a fine at each instance, meaning total penalties could far exceed the Rs 500 crore mark

Intrinsic to India’s long-drawn transition towards chartering a privacy-safe environment, the Indian Parliament recently passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA 2023). The act, which aims to walk the fine line between protecting personal data while also ensuring that data can be collected and processed for lawful purposes, has various new provisions and differences as compared to the draft DPDP bills that came before it.