New Bangladesh data protection bill threatens people’s right to privacy: Amnesty

Bangladesh government’s proposed Data Protection Act framework threatens people’s right to privacy, Amnesty International has said, calling it a “dangerous bill”.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 27 April 2022, 03:36 PM
Updated : 27 April 2022, 03:36 PM

“The bill uses vague and overbroad provisions to enable and legitimise intrusive actions by authorities such as granting access to encrypted communication on personal devices physically or remotely,” said Saad Hammadi, Amnesty International’s South Asia Campaigner.

It “violates an individual’s rights solely on the basis of pre-empting a law-and-order deterioration without adequate justification,” Saad added in a statement on Wednesday.

According to him, the bill exempts authorities from civil, criminal and any other legal proceedings for harms caused to people in the course of its actions.

“Keeping in mind how existing laws like the Digital Security Act have led to gross human rights violations in the past, the proposed bill is the newest addition to an insidious pattern in which the government wants to control the digital lives of people.”

The proposed law states that it will have precedence over all existing laws thereby having an overriding effect on Bangladesh’s Right to Information Act, 2009, which is a key instrument that protects people’s right to information in the present time, Amnesty said.

In the backdrop of vague and overbroad terminologies such as the protection of ‘spirit of liberation war’, ‘sovereignty of state’, ‘friendly relations with foreign states’, the government has reserved the right within the bill to issue any direction as it sees fit.

The draft of the proposed Data Protection Act has recently opened for public feedback.