The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has appointed an expert group headed by former Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna to draft a data protection law, Livemint has reported.

This comes in the backdrop of the apex court hearing arguments in a batch of cases which will determine whether there is a fundamental right to privacy. The decision to constitute the group was communicated by the UIDAI to the Supreme Court as part of its arguments on Tuesday.

Data protection is one of the facets of the right to privacy as a data protection law will protect your personal information, which is collected, processed and stored by "automated" means or intended to be part of a filing system. This becomes extremely relevant in the current Indian context as the Aadhaar debate is centred around the collection of citizens' personal information. A data protection law will thus necessarily regulate the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) which is responsible for maintaining Aadhaar data.

The memo, which communicated the constitution of the committee, said that it will study various issues relating to data protection in India and make specific suggestions for the Central government to consider. It will also formulate principles to be considered for data protection in India and suggest a draft Data Protection Bill.