Data Protection Act is unconstitutional; it is full of ambiguous, lot of loopholes and other short comings in the law. This Data Protection Act was passed by both the House of Parliament but then also it was not passed accordance with the majority to amend the constitutional rights as this Act was without the public consult or without the discussion of stakeholders before it was debated. Since this act was passed four months ago still the pollution is not informed about its rights or affected organization about their obligations.

A seminar was held by the Law Association on Saturday at Trinidad and Tobago, and the speakers present at the seminar argued that the Data Protection Act required a special majority, because although it may infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights, it was passed with a simple majority.

This Data Protection Act was passed in the Lower House on 11 February and in the Upper House on 24 May. It was passed on June 22 but four months later also it is still to be proclaimed by the President George Maxwell Richards.

In this Act many other jurisdictions have been careful to provide exemptions for journalism, literature and art, or on public interest grounds. These exemptions were omitted from the Trinidad and Tobago legislation; however in the result if any attempt were made to enforce the law, the media would instantly be almost completely silenced and they will never allow saying anything about it in public. The freedom of the press is firmly established so that it would be difficult to change it and it will be against the constitutional rights of press also.

But if we will consider the current act overall so it is unworkable, unenforceable and unconstitutional, and must be amended before it can even be proclaimed.

Data Protection Act in trouble

Report by Dushyant Tiwari