What is the issue?
- A draft law titled the ‘‘The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018’’ was recently produced by Justice B.N. Srikrishna committee. Click here to know more
- The report seems to be misinterpreting the Supreme Court’s right to privacy judgment.
What was the court’s order?
- The Supreme Court earlier unanimously affirmed on the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
- The court imposed upon the government a clear obligation.
- It was to make a law safeguarding a person’s informational privacy, commonly referred to as data protection.
- So clearly the Committee was formed within the ambit of, and even bound by, the Right to Privacy judgment.
What are the concerns?
- Judgement - The recent recommendations undermine the legal principles within the Right to Privacy judgement.
- The judgement expressly stated the primacy of the individual as the beneficiary of fundamental rights.
- It also rejected the argument that right to privacy could be dissolved for the cause of economic development.
- Priorities – The priorities of the Srikrishna committee deviate from the basic points of the judgement.
- The report is titled “A Free and Fair Digital Economy: Protecting Privacy, Empowering Indians”.
- It brings together the expansion of the digital economy and state control with the principles of the right to privacy judgment.
- Clearly, it suggests the common good and the economy as the first priority and individuals, the second.
- Constitutional law – The report clearly suggests that the State is a facilitator of human progress.
- Notably, it says the State is guided in this process by Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), rather than fundamental rights (FR).
- It thus ignores the very structure of the Constitution which keeps the FR enforceable and DPSP unenforceable.
- The report leaves open to government’s convenience, the realisation of its regulatory agenda.
- But the judgement tasks the government to measure and justify its actions at every point it intrudes into privacy.
- Language - The report’s approach to rights gets to be a concern for the health of the democracy.
- It states that rights are not “deontological categories”, meaning that their realisation is subjected to other factors.
- Such complicated wording and highly debatable content makes the report alien to the common citizens.
What is the way forward?
- In all, the report seems to be making a compromise on the individual right for the ‘‘collective good’’.
- But this stands in stark contrast to the right to privacy judgment.
- Preserving the true spirit of the judgement is essential for realising the values of freedom, autonomy and dignity.
Source: The Hindu
