How India’s New Data Protection Law Works at the Workplace

Agriculture in India has positioned itself as a core industry, serving as a primary source of income for over 70% of rural households to facilitate the continuing growth of the industry, the development of resilient plant varieties and superior quality of seeds is critical. Recognising this, nations across the globe have embraced protection for plant varieties to foster innovation. 

Within India's dynamic financial landscape, the rise of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) has been transformative, catering to diverse financial needs. Yet, within this thriving sector, asset-light companies encounter a maze of regulatory hurdles that may impede their growth and operational agility.

In June 2023, the Centre established an expert committee with the mandate to assess the functioning and effectiveness of Indian Arbitration Act and propose reforms to enhance India’s arbitration ecosystem. The report from this panel, led by former law secretary T K Vishwanathan, was released in February 2024, and is now under review by the Ministry of Law and Justice. 

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has recently introduced a significant change impacting investors in the form of a capital gains tax on the transfer of 'foreign assets' – the Foreign Disposal Tax or FDT. Effective from 1 January 2024, the amendment aims to tax the disposal of foreign assets by entities resident in Singapore under certain circumstances. 

For global investors looking to participate in the attractive India growth story, navigating the complex terrain of tax regulations can be challenging. In this regard, international tax treaties offer global investors much needed certainty with respect to the cross-border tax implications for their global income. Historically, India-Mauritius and India-Singapore tax treaties have offered benefits to investors from these countries in the form of capital gains tax exemptions. While such benefits have been phased out since 2017, eligibility for benefits under these treaties remains a contested issue before Indian courts. Revenue authorities have often challenged the eligibility of entities from Mauritius and Singapore for treaty benefits. Recent developments in the Supreme Court indicate that investors may have to remain extra cautious while claiming such tax treaty benefits.

Reconciling workplace security and safety, with employee privacy, dignity, and autonomy is a balancing act. Globally, power asymmetry in employment renders ‘consent’ unfavorable. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ‘legitimate interests’ as a ground to process employee data has been criticised for being overly flexible.

The intersection of competition law and data privacy aligns closely with user protection and empowerment. While the Competition Act, 2002 is designed to preserve market competitiveness, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), empowers individuals by ensuring lawful collection and processing of their personal data.

With the enactment of the DPDP Act, it is timely to discuss how the two laws coalesce and complement one another rather than conflict with each other.

With the implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (Act) all set, India’s buzzing ed-tech space is predicted to undergo a reshaping of its contours and business models.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (Act) places the primary obligation on ‘data fiduciaries’ to protect digital personal data of individuals and implement consent artifacts, including for any outsourcing arrangements for processing. Entities who merely process such data at the behest of another entity, called ‘data processors’ have been excluded from the statutory compliance obligations under the Act. The Act defines ‘data fiduciary’ as any entity determining the means and purpose of processing personal data. Entities handling data are required to undertake this classification exercise as the first step, i.e., whether they are merely data processors or can be classified as data fiduciaries. 

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) dominated the global conversation in 2023. Most organisations are optimistic and brainstorming ways to integrate AI into their businesses. Let us begin 2024 by reflecting on gaps in diversity so that we can understand and finetune design. How inclusive is the data that AI is using from the internet to train itself? How diverse are the teams working on the technology and onboarding these solutions into our businesses? If you are leading digital transformation in your organisation, you will be considering these questions.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) recently released the much-anticipated regulatory framework allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India. This framework permits foreign universities listed in the top-500 global rankings, or subject-wise rankings, or possessing outstanding expertise to set up campuses in India upon obtaining UGC approval.

With the intent to grant greater control over personal data and maintain a balance between the protection of privacy and data-driven innovations, India enacted the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDPA) in August 2023. The government is also likely to notify rules prescribing specific compliances under the DPDPA over the next few months. With this background, here are five key steps that over the top (OTT) and content streaming platforms should proactively consider to ensure compliance with the DPDPA. 

Since the beginning of 2023, the global financial system has been facing significant challenges with respect to high interest rates and inflation. Recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank and Signature Bank in the U.S. and loss of market confidence in Credit Suisse are some examples which show that the world is still adjusting to a tighter monetary policy.

The conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried by a New York jury earlier this month cannot be seen in isolation. WeWork, another fast-growing company with an innovative business model and backed by leading investors, is heading for bankruptcy. 

For founders of companies, raising capital from investors is a significant step in the entrepreneurial journey and may often prove to be challenging.

At the crucial stage of raising venture capital, here are the key aspects to focus on:  

Policy, Mission and Tweaking Laws to Provide Momentum to GH2 Projects.

“If you start me up, I’ll never stop” Croon the Rolling Stones in their hit song “Start Me Up”, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for the band’s 1981 multi-platinum album “Tattoo You” sums up the blazing growth story of the Indian start-up ecosystem. Although there have been a fair share of challenges along the way, the growth journey has been remarkable. 

Diversity and inclusion initiatives at the workplace have become essential for employers across the world. While most of the developed nations have comprehensive codified laws to prevent workplace discrimination across sectors, India has a few anti-discrimination laws that prohibit and prevent discrimination of employees in the private sector. 

The issue of deepfakes took centre stage in the Indian media recently, when a deepfake video of a celebrity went viral on social media. The video was created without the consent of the celebrity whose face was morphed replacing the person who originally featured in it. The deepfake video met with outrage on the internet and resulted in an advisory from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to social media platforms, on 7 November, requiring them to take decisive actions on such incidents. 

In this article, we talk about what one needs to know about deepfakes and the regulatory landscape around it.

The legal profession, like most other advisory spheres, has significantly transformed thanks to rapid globalisation and digitalisation. This evolution continues to be ubiquitous and disruptive all the same, and increasingly pushes lawyers to realign and recalibrate the virtues of client servicing. As in most parts of the world, India’s legal industry has moved away from being pre-dominantly a “demand-pull” one, to one being overly driven by “supply-push” compulsions.