Top Amazon officials appear before Parliamentary panel on data protection

Top officials of e-commerce giant Amazon appeared on Wednesday before the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) looking into the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019. 

Earlier, experts at the Jeff Bezos-led firm had expressed their inability to appear before the JPC, citing travel restrictions due to Covid-19.

The JPC saw this as “breach of privilege of Parliament” and planned to take “coercive” action against the e-commerce behemoth. 

It was then decided that a team of Amazon experts based in India would appear before the committee and make a presentation, said sources.

A team of experts at Amazon Web Services and Amazon India, including Rakesh Bakshi, head-legal vice-president and associate general counsel, and Chetan Krishnaswamy, vice-president public policy, made a detailed presentation before the JPC on the PDP Bill, informed sources. 

People in the know said the discussions centred around improving the framework of PDP and building India as a data centre hub in Asia. 

This meant creating a framework to attract other countries to store their data in India. This would help in creating more jobs and supporting start-ups in the country. 

The JPC also asked Amazon officials questions on “cross-border data flow” and “cross-border trade” between countries and the security mechanism. “It was a very amicable and peaceful conversation,” said an industry source. 

The source added, “The discussion was about how PDP works and how data localisation can be made robust.” 

Since India has the technical wherewithal, the aim is to have infrastructure conducive to creating data centres which are secure and get other countries to store data here. Ireland being a case in point. It is known as the destination of choice for big tech companies building European data centres. Microblogging firm Twitter also made a presentation before the JPC. 

The other companies expected to appear before the JPC this week include Google and digital payments firm Paytm.  

Last week, officials at social media giant Facebook deposed before the JPC on PDP. Experts said the Parliament committee wanted to examine all stakeholders, including Amazon, Facebook, and Google, to get their perspective on personal data protection issues. These big service providers are data intermediaries handling and processing massive amounts of data. The PDP Bill, 2019, was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December last year. The Bill seeks to provide protection of personal data of individuals and establish a Data Protection Authority (DPA).

Kazim Rizvi, founder of The Dialogue, a tech policy think tank, said the independence and capacity of the Indian DPA will play a huge role in placing India on the global data map. “The capacity and independence of the DPA is likely to have a direct impact on cross-border trade, facilitated through free flow of data,” said Rizvi. 

He said global privacy regimes take into account the capability and independence of a DPA while looking at adequacy decisions or entering into trade agreements to facilitate cross-border flow of data. 

He said with India is moving towards enabling a privacy regime, the Indian DPA is expected to not merely discharge investigatory and enforcement powers, but also take on the onus of specifying principles and obligations under the law. “Thus, to truly discharge such functions, it is essential that the authority is independent and well-qualified,” said Rizvi, adding, “It must function as an independent regulator and discharge its duties as a ‘neutral arbitrator’.” He said the government must strive to ensure the independence of the authority to allay concerns regarding the presence of bias in its appointment and functioning.