6 months ago
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News media associations expressed concerns that the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules (DPDP), 2025 did not code their concerns that the main instrumentality — the DPDP Act, 2023, which has been partially notified — could wounded journalistic newsgathering. The Editors Guild of India (EGI) noted “with interest the caller notification of the DPDP, 2025, nether the DPDP Act, 2023,” the assemblage said successful a statement.
The DPDP Rules were notified past week, and they kicked disconnected an 18 period compliance period, and instantly enforced an amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005, which would let authorities organisations immoderate and each “personal information,” going beyond the earlier mentation of an exemption that allowed disclosures of idiosyncratic accusation if determination was an overriding nationalist involvement successful disclosing this information.
Editorial | Too little, overmuch later: connected the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025
“While the Guild has earlier highlighted the Act’s shortcomings, which included the dilution of the Right to Information authorities and the lack of immoderate explicit journalistic exception, the recently issued Rules proceed to permission captious questions unresolved for journalists and media organisations.”
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)’s Secretary, S. Krishnan, had met with representatives of the EGI and Digipub, the second representing pureplay integer outlets, and assured them that a elaborate “FAQ” papers would beryllium issued by the Ministry addressing property outlets’ concerns. The property bodies “had urged the MeitY to contented a legally tenable clarification oregon amendatory proviso to explicitly safeguard journalistic activities,” the EGI connection said.
Mr. Krishnan and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said astatine a property league connected Monday (November 17) that this FAQ papers was “ready,” and that it would beryllium issued shortly.
In a abstracted statement, Digipub expressed “deep concern” implicit the Rules and the Act, saying that they “collectively cripple the Right to Information Act which is 1 of the astir important legislations for antiauthoritarian accountability but besides make a regulatory model that endangers journalism.”
Digipub urged the authorities to footwear disconnected “a betterment process for the DPDPA, 2023 and DPDPR, 2025 to reconstruct a wide statutory exemption for journalistic and public-interest processing.”
