Privacy and Data Protection in India

2020

Statement of the APRCEM S&T Constituency on COVID-19.

The world is presently facing a global health pandemic as many countries battle the widespread transmission of COVID-19 that has already cost the lives of almost 42,000 and afflicted nearly 858,000 people. The healthcare community across nations is engaged in desperate attempts to…

2020

Anonymisation of data is neither a corollary of privacy protection nor is it an oxymoron to the idea of privacy. Instead, it is more likely a gateway to a possible privacy breach which has not been addressed in the government’s Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 .

The Bill which is heralded as a much-needed safeguard to rein in the…

2020

The Srikrishna Committee report on data protection (2018) is based on the fundamental belief that a legal framework for the protection of personal data is imperative for empowerment, progress and innovation in the 21st century.

In the words of Justice Chandrachud in Justice KS Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union of India (2017), the “(f)…

2017

In our response to the timely consultation paper by TRAI on  Privacy, Security and Ownership of the Data in the Telecom Sector we advocate for a broad spectrum of safeguarded data including 'collective/social data' in light of its commercial value. The paper recognizes that consent based ownership frameworks are inadequate for various reasons…

2017

In the light of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) releasing recommendations on Net Neutrality, this article by Anita Gurumuthy discusses the significance of TRAI recommendations.  TRAI’ s stand presents a contrast to US government’s decision to roll back net neutrality. When Internet access is already not equal, revoking net…

2017

The nine-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court has just ruled that “privacy is intrinsic to freedom of life and personal liberty” guaranteed in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and qualifies as “a primal natural right”. In this article, Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami reflect on how this judgement is only a beginning. The de facto…

2017

We have been actively engaging with the debate on privacy and data protection in India, that has gained traction in the context of the unique citizen ID/ Aadhaar project of the government. Through our media articles, we have emphasised the public value of privacy, bringing in an agency perspective to the debate. We have also foregrounded the…

2017

As the Supreme Court finds itself in the midst of a heated debate on privacy, Parminder Jeet Singh muses on the implications for a citizen oriented right to privacy in the digital age in The Hindu.