In a statement, Amazon clarified that it will continue to interact with the panel, which is reviewing the data protection bill. Stating that its data protection subject matter experts are based abroad and cannot travel in the current situation, the company said there has been a misunderstanding about their position and will work to clarify the same.
“The inability of our experts to travel from abroad due to travel restrictions and depose before the JPC (joint parliamentary commission) during the ongoing pandemic may have been misinterpreted and led to misunderstanding,” the company said.
Opposing Amazon’s statement, a panel member said that it is strange that the company, with a customer base of several million rupees and India as one of the largest markets, does not have data security officials in the country. .
Amazon, which declined to appear before Parliament’s Joint Committee on the Data Protection Bill, was convened by the panel along with Twitter on October 28. Meanwhile, Google and Paytm have been summoned on October 29.
Meanwhile, Facebook’s chief of policy, Ankhi Das, appeared before the panel on the issue of data security earlier in the day.
Meenakshi Lekhi, chair of the panel conducting the review, said the panel could file a privilege violation motion against the company if a representative of the e-commerce giant does not appear before it.
“Amazon is doing big business in India … If you don’t appear before the committee, enforcement action can be taken against you,” Lekhi said, without explaining what the action might be.
“The panel is unanimous in their opinion that additional enforcement action against the e-commerce company can be suggested to the government,” he added.
The 2019 Personal Data Protection Bill was presented at the Lok Sabha by the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on December 11, 2019. The bill seeks to provide protection of personal data of individuals and establishes a Data Protection Authority for it.
Subsequently, the bill was referred to a joint select committee of both Houses of Parliament. The proposed law seeks to prohibit the storage and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual.
(With contributions from the agency)
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