New Delhi: The Congress Party of India has found huge loopholes in the proposed DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2018 by the government and accused the Modi-led government at the center of trying to make another “mala fide” attempt to spy ordinary people’s lives by introducing the bill in Lok Sabha.

The proposed DNA Bill was introduced by the government in the Lok Sabha on August 9 just a day earlier before the end of the monsoon session of parliament. The bill also says that national and regional DNA databanks to store the details will also be set up to maintain a national database for the special purposes like, identification of victims, suspects, accused, under-trials, unidentified human remains, and missing persons. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi utterly disagree with the draft legislation and said that the party was “against DNA profiling” and also said that the bill was ill-conceived and brazenly violates the very principles of data protection and right to privacy.

“The magnitude of desperation of the Modi government is so huge that they did not even wait for the ministry of electronics and IT to present its Data Protection Bill as the DNA Bill violates the principles of Srikrishna Committee Report on Data Protection in India and the Personal Data Protection Bill submitted by the committee,” Singhvi said.

While referring to the Modi government a completely conformist type of government and called the DNA Bill introduction as an attempt to strengthen this conformity, Congress party also sought for the withdrawal of the DNA Technology Bill from Lok Sabha by the government and put an end to any kind of surveillance on the privacy of its citizens. the government needs to come up with a comprehensive data protection law before going for such a bill and should also address related issues to all the sectors and ministries of the government. Apart from that, there should also be an opportunity for public consultation on the proposed Data Protection Bill and let the public know about it, the Congress party said.

“Existing provisions of the DNA Bill do not match up with data protection language. There is also no clarity on whether Indian citizens will have true data protection rights regarding their DNA”, Singhvi said.

The Congress spokesperson also asserted that if the Srikrishna Committee report was to be enacted, it would certainly go against the DNA Bill.

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