 bill  no 114 of  2018 the representation of the people (amendment) bill, 2018 by dr boora narsaiah goud, mp a billfurther to amend the representation of the people act, 1951be it enacted by parliament in the sixty-ninth year of the republic of india as follows :—short title and commencement43 of 19512  after section 29a of the representation of the people act, 1951, the following section shall be inserted, namely:—insertion of new section 29aa5de-registration of political party by the election commission"29aa notwithstanding anything contained in this act or any other law, bye-law, rule or order for the time being in force, if a political party violates the model code of conduct by broadcasting conspiracy theories, fake news, sponsored disinformation campaigns, illegal psychographics or micro-targeting by big data, data theft, data mining or analytics on social media platforms with an intent to influence the elections, the election commission shall de-register or withdraw recognition of such political party:10provided that prior to de-registration or withdrawal of recognition, the political party concerned shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard" statement of objects and reasonsthere are increasing concerns that social media is undermining democracy by broadcasting conspiracy theories, fake news and sponsored disinformation campaigns in a data-intensive society, winning an election might have less to do, with a candidate, political party or platform and more to do with buying and selling voters' data to hack democracy internet companies increasingly using data techniques to build detailed psychological profiles about voters that can be leveraged to deliver political advertisements and propagandapolitical parties are hiring private firms to map voter constituencies, tailor political messaging and shape electoral outcomes through data-driven profiling firms such as cambridge analytica have already worked with politicians in countries such as the united kingdom, the united states of america and kenya to monitor, suppress and even deliver outright lies to voters the strategic combination of big data analytics with computational propaganda and disinformation can distort political processes, spread skepticism and distrust, and interfere with a citizen's ability to make sound political decisions but powerful political parties are increasingly leveraging big data to manufacture consensus, manipulate public opinion and subvert democratic processeswe are dangerously unprepared to confront challenges at the intersection of individual privacy, social-media transparency and data-driven campaigning currently, no legislation covers the activity of political parties with respect to voter data the election commission (ec) has not take up this issue of data protection for regulatory scrutiny the ec has in the past issued guidelines to protect election integrity and restrained exit polls and also required candidates to disclose social media handles however, much more needs to be donethe bill, therefore, seeks to amend the representation of the people act, 1951 with a view to empower the election commission to deregister a political party found violating the model code of conduct by broadcasting conspiracy theories, fake news, sponsored disinformation campaigns, illegal psychographics and micro-targeting by big data, data theft, mining or analytics on social media platforms with an intent to influence the electionshence this billnew delhi;boora narsaiah goudmarch 28, 2018 lok  sabha———— a billfurther to amend the representation of the people act, 1951————(dr boora narsaiah goud, mp)mgipmrnd—259ls(s3)—10-07-2018