Law Minister Anisul Huq reiterated on Thursday that data protection law will be enacted to protect data, not to control it.
He was talking to reporters after the Deputy Commissioners’ Conference 2023 at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka.
"We will place the draft of the Data Protection Act in parliament. That does not mean that suggestions from the stakeholders will not be heard,” he said.
This act is for protecting data and will be enacted as per this policy, he added.
Regarding the Digital Security Act (DSA), he said, "We have taken measures to ensure that cases are registered after proper verification and avoid immediate arrest.”
The law minister said they have also formed a committee after consulting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for best practices in this regard. “If necessary, we can certainly amend the Digital Security Act.”
He also said the government has taken an initiative to raise the salary of government law officers (PPs and GPs) by dividing the districts into three categories — large, medium and small.
Highlighting the reasons for raising the salary of GPs and PPs, the minister said, “We have planned to launch the Independent Prosecution Service. However, the entire PP Service will not be an Independent Prosecution Service.”
In the session with the DCs, Anisul highlighted the government's initiatives to ease the long-running backlog of cases. “I have talked about alternative dispute resolution and legal aid services.”
