India to ease data storage rules in relief for Google, Facebook

Bloomberg

India plans to allow transfer and storing personal data in some countries overseas, in a reprieve for global companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook.
The government will “notify such countries or territories outside India to which a data fiduciary may transfer personal data,” according to the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill unveiled on Friday for public feedback. The long-delayed bill needs the approval of parliament before becoming law. An earlier version of the bill had sought to severely restrict transfer, processing and storage of data overseas.
The key piece of proposed legislation comes as digitization thrives in the country of 1.4 billion where usage of smartphones and apps is skyrocketing. Nations around the world are bringing in laws to allow users to control what personal data to share with whom, for what and how long.
The data protection bill has been long in the making after global companies such as Meta and Alphabet as well as local startups said complying with data localization norms specified in an earlier version of the draft would be onerous.
“Companies like Amazon and Facebook can breathe easy now,” said Rahul Matthan, a partner at law firm Trilegal, adding that the latest draft was “nice and simple.”
“It’s data protection on training wheels and India can bring in the changes bit by bit.”
The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill of 2022 requires consent before collecting personal data, and proposes stiff penalties of as much as 5 billion rupees ($61.2 million) on persons and companies that fail to prevent data breaches.