The Monsoon Session of the Indian Parliament is likely to discuss a bill drafted in response to the Supreme Court’s 24 August 2017 judgement, which held that privacy is a fundamental right. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, a draft of which was published last year to replace a cumbersome older proposal, got cabinet approval this week as part of the Centre’s effort to update Indian laws for the digital age. . A shield for our personal data was desperately needed; Think of the online heists perpetrated by data hoarders before the EU and others tightened regulations. If New Delhi enacts its proposed law, digital players will have to obtain our point-by-point consent for data, explain its storage and/or use, clean up our files, disclose data leaks And act responsibly in other ways – or risk heavy fines. In the approved version, the ‘presumed consent’ feature may have been revised and respite offered to global operators on data held overseas, but the rest is slated to be released for public comment largely in 2022. hopefully. If so, the private sector that would be regulated by it has reason to worry about the autonomy of the proposed data board for dispute resolution; A statutory body separate from the existing government would have indicated neutrality. Still, a reset of the platform-user equation under regulatory oversight isn’t the be-all and end-all, even if that’s where the law is heading.
About six years ago, India’s top court held privacy to be a fundamental right, in line with Article 21 of the Constitution on ‘protection of life and personal liberty’, which cannot be deprived of it except by process of law . Fundamental rights have significance only when they are upheld against all forces including the state. To reduce the denial of life and personal liberty, justice demands that only fair judicial rigor can waive those rights, case-by-case. As a key aspect of liberty, privacy should be viewed in the same light. No one should be locked up and no one should be subjected to unjustified surveillance. The potential disgrace of the two was recently amped up in Netflix’s web series Scoop, which is about a jailed journalist in a brick-and-mortar setting. Given the reach of the web, dignity in the digital realm needs to be protected with no less urgency. To protect online privacy, we should ‘own’ our personal files as the default position of the law, segregating the data we want, with a concrete list of carve-outs for information as required by the state than we must have for this to work. With the alleged use of spyware such as Pegasus being forgotten as a scandal that was not satisfactorily resolved, clear limits on intrusion by state agencies are necessary. Properly issued e-search permit can be clicked.
However, the 2022 draft bill gives such broad leeway to the government and its arms to act on top of the proposed rules for private players that its efficacy as a universal data shield – as an assurer of digital privacy – has been called into doubt Went. Even the concept of ‘presumed consent’, required for emergency access to data (such as in a hospital), looks somewhat susceptible to abuse by authorities for the sake of comfort. Suspicion of a disregard for privacy, as seen in the Centre’s attempt to break chat encryption (for “public safety”), has become part of the discussion around the legislation. To meet its core it is important to correct its flaws as underlined by the judiciary. If it is too easy for government officials to snoop into our online lives, privacy as a fundamental right will be undermined at the outset of legislative life. This would be a disappointment.
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and Breaking News Update on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.
Updated: 06 July 2023, 10:55 PM IST