Privacy law has been in the news for quite some time. Every person has their secrets, plans, ideas, etc. which they may not want to disclose or discuss with others. Every citizen in India has the right to privacy though there is no dedicated article in the Indian Constitution. The Supreme Court in 2017 upheld that the right to privacy is a fundamental right flowing from the right to life and personal liberty as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. The right to privacy is the right to keep our personal information private. Though the right to privacy includes both physical privacy and privacy relating to communication, it's more to do with an individual's data privacy in this era of digital communication. Going by this, an individual's personal data should only be collected and used with the permission of that individual. In August 2022, India withdrew a data protection and privacy bill which was first proposed in 2019, saying it was working on a new comprehensive law. The 2019 bill had proposed strict regulations on cross-border data flows which had caused concern among tech giants such as Meta and Google. Experts feel that as the bill proposed giving government departments powers to seek user data from companies, it would lead to misuse of personal data. So at present, India lacks a strong privacy law.
Picture Credit : Google