The Application of Digital Data protection in Indian Online Dispute Resolution

The Indian Judiciary has suffered from the delay and pendency problems for several decades. In order to resolve the theses issues, the Indian Judiciary adopted the Alternative Dispute Resolution. In these programs, there are still some procedural issues, such as confidentiality. In addition, during the Pandemic period, the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has been naturally adopted without a strong resistance because the court could neither open their courtroom, nor allow the parties to attend in face-to-face method. For applying online platform, the Indian Judiciary and Legislative are currently preparing several related acts. However, these acts only adopted and contained online methods. But, these did not clearly provide detailed process for applying online platform. Therefore, this paper approaches two different perspectives, such as service provider and online user. Mediators have a duty of confidentiality as a principle of mediation. Especially, this is the most important issue for facilitating the parties' communication to reach the amicable agreement by themselves based on self-determination. In addition, there is important issue to protect the personal data as a premise to adopt a virtual hearing as ODR programs. This paper reviews online platform service provider's roles and regulations for digital sandbox in order to stimulate ODR programs.