A. TECHNOLOGY
1. EU, India launch Trade and Technology Council
The President of European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and Indian Premier Narendra Modi jointly announced the creation of the EU-India Trade and Technology Council. The council represents a "strategic coordination mechanism" that will allow for "the political steer and the necessary structure" to address emerging issues in the areas of trade and technology. The preceding partnerships have included dialogue on data flows and artificial intelligence.
2. MEPs finalized draft artificial intelligence proposal
In April 2021, the European Commission revealed its proposal to regulate artificial intelligence. This month, the European Parliament finalized the Artificial Intelligence draft report. The lawmakers agreed on certain points, including broad definitions for AI and governance. The definition was kept largely unchanged, but the specification that AI must pursue humanly defined objectives was removed. Issues that still need to be resolved and not included in the draft report are biometric recognition technologies and regulatory sandboxes among other topics. The draft is slated for parliamentary discussion in May with the final voting to take place in November
3. European Parliament and Council sign the Digital Services Act
The European Parliament and Council reached a provisional political agreement on the Digital Services Act, which aims to protect the fundamental rights of the users, while also protecting the digital space against spreading of illegal content. The text will need to be finalized at technical level and verified by lawyer-linguists, before both Parliament and Council give their formal approval. Once this process is completed, it will come into force 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal and the rules will start to apply 15 months later.
4. European Parliament approves Data Governance Act
European Parliament announced its vote to approve the proposed Data Governance Act. The legislation aims to give companies and startups better access to more data for the purpose of developing new products and services. The proposal needs final approval from the Council of the European Union before becoming law.
5. Connecticut Senate passes comprehensive privacy bill
The Connecticut Senate voted 35-0 to advance Senate Bill 6, an act concerning personal data privacy and online monitoring, to the House. The bill features provisions for "dark patterns," recognition of global opt-out mechanisms, explicit children's privacy measures, a right to cure in the form of a sunset provision, and has prescribed July 1, 2023, as effective date.
6. Central African Republic adopts bitcoin as an official currency
The Central African Republic has adopted bitcoin as their official currency, becoming th second country in the world to do so. The bill governing the use of cryptocurrency was adopted unanimously by parliament. As one of the nations using a regional currency, the Central African CFA Franc, there is a slight disconcert amongst former premiers with regards to the reaction of the Bank of Central African States.
7. RCS-UDAN-Small Aircraft Sub-Scheme ("SAS")
MoCA has introduced a special sub-scheme for operationalizing regional routes with a focus on small aircraft operations, the Small Aircraft Sub-Scheme ("SAS") under the aegis of the National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016. The primary objective of SAS is to facilitate / stimulate regional air connectivity through creating a growth-oriented framework with a specific focus on operations through small aircraft (including seaplanes). Under SAS, the airfare for a one-hour journey by a 'fixed wing aircraft' or half an hour's journey by a helicopter for about 500 km, has been fixed at Rs.2500/-.
8. Bill to regulate online gaming introduced in the Lok Sabha
The Online Gaming (Regulation) Bill, 2022 (Bill) was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Member of Parliament, Adv. Dean Kuriakose as a Private Member's Bill. The Bill intends "to establish an effective regime to regulate online gaming industry to prevent fraud and misuse and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto." The Bill proposes the establishment of a licensing regime for online gaming service providers who offer Online Gaming. Online Gaming has been broadly defined within the Bill, seemingly with the intent to scope in real money games and casual games being offered/ played for free online.
9. National Health Authority releases revised draft of Heath Data Management (HDM) policy
The National Health Authority (NHA) has published the Health Data Management (HDM) Policy with few revisions, based on feedback received from various stakeholders and learnings from the pilot and national rollout of the Ayushman Digital Bharat Mission (ABDM). The HDM Policy intends to facilitate digitization of the entire healthcare ecosystem of India by enabling creation of digital health records, maintenance of registries for healthcare professionals and health facilities furthering interoperability within the ecosystem.
10. Delhi High Court grants interim relief to EXCHANGE22 in dispute with MYFAB11:
The Hon'ble Delhi High Court granted an ex parte ad-interim injunction in favor of sports fantasy platform Exchange22 in a copyright battle with another gaming app, MyFab11. MYFAB11 was thus restrained from making available for download or in any manner using without authorization, the copyrighted works of EXCHANGE 22 through its app or any other similar app. The suit was brought upon the launch of an identical game by MyFab11, which cloned the gaming interface, front-end analytics gaming data, including player prices, etc from Exchange22.
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