India has done thoughtful work on revising draft Data Protection Bill: Meta’s global affairs president

“Of course it’s not written to please West Coast American platforms and it shouldn’t be. It’s there to serve the people of India. But in broad terms, it seems to me that the Indian government has done some really thoughtful work in terms of this revised draft. This is a clear, cogent piece of draft legislation,” said Clegg.

“It can be sometimes quite difficult for governments to accept that they need to revise and rethink,” he added.

Clegg also said if the three great techno democracies – India, the US and the European Union – could broadly align on the principles that they think should underpin the governance of the internet, it would be ‘transformative.’
“People often talk about the global internet. The global internet doesn’t exist. It’s fiction. We have a Chinese style internet, which is very successful from their point of view but it’s based on a wholly different cultural, ethical and social paradigm than what we are used to in India and many other parts of the world,” said Clegg.

“India, the European Union and the US are not identical by any stretch of the imagination. They all have their own different specificities, and cultures and differences. But, they are all based on a belief in entrepreneurialism, individual sovereignty, liberty, ingenuity and a belief in the dynamism of the market. If they could align on some of the big principles it would act as a great locomotive to ensure that the closed paradigm of the internet doesn’t become a growing and encroaching reality for many billions of people in the future, which would be a great shame,” he added.

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He also said there was previously a sense that GDPR (EU’s General Data Protection Regulation) was one of the first pieces of legislation that many other jurisdictions were emulating, but he doesn’t see it getting carried forward in the same way.

“I don’t think that’s going to carry on in the same way. I think for instance, in India, Indian policymakers are saying, in my view, entirely rightly, that India is India. India is not the European Union. We have our own needs. We have our own specificities. We are going to craft legislation as a sovereign nation for ourselves. But, I hope in my current position on behalf of a global platform, that there is some consistency across different jurisdictions. Because if it’s too erratic, it becomes incredibly difficult to put it in practice,” he added.

Klegg said he is ‘hugely’ impressed and encouraged to see that India has spoken in favour of open data flows ahead of the G20 presidency.

“This does not mean unconditional data flows. The European Union and the US are still in the middle of protracted negotiations about what the legal underpinning is of transatlantic data flows. There should be reciprocal expectations and rights and obligations if data is going to flow between one jurisdiction and another and I think India is entirely entitled to expect the same sort of principle of reciprocity around the world. But doing so in a way which, nonetheless, retains that openness of data flows. If we can get that balance right, we are inching towards a more subtle, nuanced and mature debate,” he added.