The Normative Power of the GDPR: A Case Study of Data Protection Laws of South Asian Countries

The increased dependency on technology brings national security to the forefront of concerns of the 21st century. It creates many challenges to developing and developed nations in their effort to counter cyber threats and adds to the inherent risk factors associated with technology. The failure to securely protect data would potentially give rise to far-reaching catastrophic consequences. Therefore, it is crucially important to have national, regional, and global data protection policies and regulations to penalise those engaged in unethical use of technology and abuse the system vulnerabilities of technology. This research paper aims to analyse GDPR inspired Bills in the South Asian Region and to identify their appropriateness for developing a global level data protection mechanism, given that Asian nations are far more diverse than those of the European nations. Against that background, the objectives of this paper are to identify GDPR inspired Bills in the South Asian Region, identify the similarities and disparities, and the barriers to developing a regional level data protection mechanism, thereby fulfilling the need for developing a global level mechanism. This research is qualitative in nature, and with that in mind, the researcher conducted an extensive literature survey of previous research papers, journal articles, previous survey reports and government publications on the above content. Taking account of the findings of the survey, the researcher critically analysed the important parameters identified in the literature review. The key findings of this research indicate that many countries in the South Asian region are in the process of reviewing their current data protection mechanisms, in line with GDPR. In concluding, the researcher emphasised the need to develop adequate data protection mechanisms and believed that going forward it would be the appropriate and practical way to develop a consensus-based regional mechanism that would ultimately enable to develop a lasting global level data protection mechanism.