In a significant milestone, the Government has published the much-awaited Personal Data Protection Bill in the Government Gazette last weekend.
The Proposed Act aims to facilitate the growth and innovation in the digital economy of the country whilst protecting personal data rights.
The Bill is drafted to provide a legal framework to set up mechanisms to protect personal data ensuring consumer trust and safeguarding privacy
in the line with domestic laws and applicable international legal instruments.
The Proposed Act will enable the establishment of the ‘ Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka’ to regulate the processing of personal data with wide powers.
“It’s a significant milestone where Sri Lanka’s own Personal Data Protection Act was formally gazetted yesterday as a bill subsequent to the cabinet approval to proceed. The next step would be the submission for parliamentary approval and believe the data protection environment created through the act would be a pivotal step in establishing privacy and control of data for the public on a scenario of more more public data being collected and utilised by both public and private entities in provisioning services,” ICTA, Chairman and Director General at Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Director-General, Oshada Senanayake said.
He underscored that all entities would have to adapt to a “Privacy by Design” approach in realigning not only work processes but also ensuring an organization-wide culture change of prioritizing data privacy of their consumers.