As India awaits the judgment of a nine-member Bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar on whether privacy is a fundamental right, the moment is ideal for the country to redefine and reconstruct some of the elementary definitions and laws associated with ‘privacy’.
Here, it is important to look at the issue from both privacy as well as a national security perspectives. The present time period is said to be the ‘age of data’ with private companies — ranging from social media platforms to e-mail services and messaging applications — storing humongous volumes of information, a lot of it outside India’s borders. Both Facebook and WhatsApp have more than 200 million active users in India, with India recently surpassing the United States in terms of the number of Facebook users.
Data-colonising companies like these use the collected information in myriad ways. Individuals have limited control over how data collected from them are used; in many cases, they do not even have undisputed ownership of their own personal information. Further, the companies’ databases are also under constant risk of cyberattacks. The likelihood of such scenarios has prompted technology evangelists like Nandan Nilekani to press for an immediate creation of stringent data protection laws.
EU regulation
To protect the privacy of its individual users, the European Union is to implement the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. Aimed at harmonising data privacy laws across Europe, it will impose stiff penalty of up to 4% of the company’s worldwide turnover in the event of a breach. Many companies will also have to ensure that even their vendors are fully compliant with the GDPR as a condition for running their businesses. Recognition of privacy as an individual right in India, without similar enforceable regulations, will be akin to raking water up a hill.
Coming to collection of data by governments and agencies, we need to keep in mind that the Internet and the more virulent Darknet are being increasingly used these days by criminals and antisocial elements for illegal trade, trafficking and money laundering apart from recruitment to various terror outfits like the Islamic State (IS).
Regulations that impinge on the effectiveness of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies as they battle these challenges would significantly compromise our social harmony and national security.
Hence, what India needs more is effective data protection laws, along with strong independent watchdog institutions to ensure that the organisations handling our data do not go astray.
Anil K. Antony is the executive director of Cyber India, a think tank in cybersecurity and surveillance technologies and vice president of Navoothan Foundation; tweets@anilkantony
