Eying better future digital adaptability across sectors, the Union government plans grant an early stage exemption for early stage startups ecosystem. According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sources, the Centre is likely to exempt new age start-ups from complying with norms under proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill.

This proposed exemption will however, be for a limited period to assist startups in developing their business models and to ensure that innovation is not stifled due to compliance burden.

As per the draft bill, DPDP has proposed exemption only for government notified data fiduciaries and data processing entities when it comes to data collection, data sharing, giving information around data processing etc.

Last week, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government will not be able to violate the privacy of citizens under the proposed law as it will get access to personal data only in exceptional circumstances like national security, pandemic and natural disasters. The minister said the bill does not exempt government or related entities in case of data breach. The government has issued a draft DPDP bill which proposes a penalty of up to Rs 500 crore for violation of DPDP rules.

The bill also proposes to remove a section from the IT Act which provides an option of compensation to individuals impacted by data breach. The bill is open for public comments till December 17 and the government is likely to place the draft before Parliament in Budget Session.