The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India ('MeitY') published the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 ('the Draft Bill') on 18 November 2022 for public consultation, which was open until 2 January 2023. Aaron Kamath and Varsha Rajesh, from Nishith Desai Associates, discuss the content of the draft Bill and its potential impact on businesses.  

The proliferation of digital lending platforms led the Reserve Bank of India ('RBI'), India's banking regulator, to appoint a Working Group on Digital Lending ('the Working Group') to make recommendations for its regulation, especially from the perspective of ensuring data security, privacy, confidentiality, and consumer protection¹. Pursuant to the submission of the report by the Working Group on 18 November 2021², the RBI announced, in a press release dated 10 August 2022³,  its acceptance of, and intention to implement, certain recommendations made by the Working Group, and consequently released the Guidelines on Digital Lending on 2 September 2022⁴ ('the Guidelines'). Arun Prabhu, Partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, provides an introduction to the Guidelines, including their scope, applicability, and storage obligations.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team ('CERT-In'), the Government nodal agency that deals with cybersecurity threats in India, issued a direction relating to 'Information security practices, procedures, prevention, response, and reporting of cyber incidents for safe & trusted internet'¹ ('the Direction') to impose stringent requirements for cybersecurity reporting and introduce broader compliance requirements. Subsequently, CERT-In released frequently asked questions² ('the FAQs') to clarify certain aspects of the Direction. The Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology ('MeitY') has since held a meeting on 10 June 2022 with stakeholders to provide informal clarifications on certain aspects of the Direction and the FAQs. Aaron Kamath, Varsha Rajesh, and Aniruddha Majumdar, from Nishith Desai Associates, discuss the contents of the Direction, as well as its impact on the industry.