India House approves privacy bill in boon for Google, Meta

The bill requires companies to get consent before collecting personal data and prevents them from using it for any purposes other than those mentioned in the contract between the parties. — Reuters

India’s lower house of parliament Monday (Aug 7) approved a bill that seeks to ease data storage, processing and transfer norms for BigTech companies as well as local firms seeking growth abroad.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 that has been years in the making allows companies to export data to any country except those specified by New Delhi. The move is a boon for global enterprises such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Meta Platforms Inc as it eases data flows and reduces their compliance burdens.