Six reasons why the coming Data Protection Bill is a train wreck

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Editor's note: “Let’s not kid ourselves, we all know it’s going to happen,” a big tech executive had told us just a week ago.  At the centre of the discussion was the long-pending Personal Data Protection Bill, and rumours had been floating around that it had bloated into something far more wide-reaching than the initial premise. Most stakeholders we spoke with had feared the worst. The joint parliamentary committee that has been working on revising the 2019 bill for two years, with multiple extensions to the deadline, has finally submitted its report and an updated draft. It will likely be up for discussion in the winter session of Parliament that commences on Monday. And it seems like the bill is a jumble of everything everyone dreaded.  While the text of the new 2021 draft is not yet publicly available, we were able to speak to people who have seen it and piece together the key parts that will have everyone from industry giants to privacy advocates upset. The early idea of introducing such a bill was to create a framework for regulating …