FACTBOX-Why has Modi’s privacy law alarmed India’s news publishers?

Top news publishers in India, including outlets of billionaires Mukesh Ambani ​and Gautam Adani, have challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's privacy law in court, ​arguing it would trample investigative work and let government ‌identify ​journalists' sources.

Media companies received assurances in an August meeting with the government that the law would protect press freedom, but not having a written carve-out for journalists like in the European Union, Singapore and Britain was alarming, they say. The ‌government says it respects press freedom.

Here are key provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act which come in force next year, along with the news groups' arguments about how it puts their work at risk: CONSENT FROM NEWS INVESTIGATION SUBJECTS

Anyone using a person’s digital personal data must notify them and get their consent. This ‌applies to companies like Meta and Google, which often obtain such permissions when a user signs up. While the law exempts research, archiving and work ‌for statistical purposes, journalism is not exempted. The news publishers group, Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), says that requiring a journalist to notify the subject of an investigation "would allow that subject to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, or otherwise frustrate the story before publication."

ERASING PUBLISHED STORIES People have the right to withdraw their consent at any time, the law says. If they do, those holding the data must, within a reasonable ⁠time, stop ​processing that person’s personal data and erase it, ⁠unless another law requires it to be kept.

Given news reporting is not exempted, the publishers say people who are the subjects of investigative stories could use this “not to protect any legitimate ⁠privacy interest, but to burden or deter publishers.” They also fear it would mean “unpublishing or heavily redacting a factual, public-interest-oriented news report, thereby altering the historical public record.”

DEMANDS FOR INFORMATION, WORRIES ABOUT ​SOURCES The government can order any organisation handling personal data “to furnish such information as it may call for." Publishers say without an exemption for them ⁠this clause applies to newsrooms.

Where the government believes disclosing the request could harm national security, the organisation can be barred from telling the person whose data is being shared. The publishers in their court filing ⁠say ​these provisions are a “nakedly unguided” power, which requires no court approval, and is “capable of being turned to the identification and targeting of journalistic sources.”

They add that it “can extend to privileged communications in possession of a reporter or the informant.” FINES AND BLOCKING OF CONTENT

A federal Data Protection Board, appointed by the government, can fine ⁠organisations up to 2.5 billion Indian rupees ($26.26 million) for not complying with the law. "For most media houses, particularly regional, independent and digital-first outlets operating on thin ⁠margins, a fine of this magnitude is not ⁠a deterrent calibrated to the offence but an existential threat," the DNPA said.

If the board has fined an organisation at least twice and recommends blocking, the government can order its content blocked "in the interests of the general public". The publishers ‌call it “an even more ‌dangerous power,” saying in their filing that free speech “cannot be restricted ‘in the interests of ​the general public’."