'Digital India Act's draft bill to be released in June': MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The draft bill for the long-awaited Digital India Act (DIA) will be released in June and consultations on it are expected in June's first week, Minister of State for Electronics and Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Tuesday at the pre-draft consultation conference.

The event was attended by legal experts, think tanks and major corporations, including big tech firms like Meta.

Digital Nagriks

While interacting with the stakeholders at the ‘Digital India Dialogue’, Chandrasekhar described the proposed DIA as a future-ready legislation that aims to replace the existing Information Technology Act and provide a strong legal framework for protecting the rights of the ‘digital nagriks’.

No Innovation Ban

This was the second such consultation. The first such event was organised in Bengaluru in March and another consultation is expected very soon in Delhi. The DIA will be an enabler for startups/innovations. “We will not ban anything in the innovation space,” the minister said, adding that the government wants to lead the charge in web 3.0 and in artificial intelligence, with guardrails defined.

New Legislation

When asked whether the proposal to introduce KYC for social media accounts is being considered, the minister said, “The government believes that anonymity is the right of a user and our only contention is that they should be traceable in cases of breach of any other rules or legislation.”

The minister repeatedly said that the focus of the new legislation is to lay down principles and not to preach anything.