Dr. Shivli Shrivastava

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Law

Kalinga University, Raipur

C.G.

 

Abstract :-

We are living in digital era today. Internet has connected the whole world as it is the time of gadgets, online shopping, digital payments, etc. This has resulted in sharing of various personal data of an individual at online platform unintentionally. This unintentional sharing of data may cause interference into private lives of people and many times it may result in various cyber frauds and also becomes an easy way of doing financial loss to people. Many times the various platforms of digital marketing use such data in promoting their products by using the search history of consumers, using such data they are able to find out one’s address, name, phone numbers, bank details, aadhar card numbers, credit and debit card numbers, etc. Data protection is highly required today so that intruding into private life of an individual can be controlled.

 

Keywords :- Data protection, privacy, cyber security, cyber law, etc.

 

Introduction :-

Data protection means protecting data of people by framing of laws, regulations and rules so that cyber crimes can be controlled and privacy of people can be protected. Under such laws, use of any kind of digital content including photos of public is protected. As it should be the right of every person that what and with whom he/she want to share the information. Right to privacy is human right and has been declared as fundamental right under Art. 21 of the Indian Constitution. As it has been recognized in various cases such as in the landmark case of R.Rajagopal vs. State of Tamil Nadu the court held that even if a person’s name has been used without taking his permission and his name has been used for the purpose of advertisement it is a intrusion into privacy. It has been further stated that if a person’s life story has been shared by any other person without his or her permission it is again violation of privacy of the person. 

Regarding Cyber Crimes laws have been framed in India however their effectiveness is not as much as expected. There is Information Technology Act, 2000 is there which talks about cyber security. As it is the time of digitalization so use of technology has made daily lives of people very easy and fast but it has bring a very big risk related to privacy of every individual. In this research we will study about the laws and their efficacy in the field of cyber law and privacy.    

 

Right to Privacy and Law on Data Protection in India:-  

  Right to privacy is a very personal right and the laws of data protection are necessary to protect it. As privacy includes not only information related to name, address, etc. of an individual but information of a person regarding his sexual orientation, reproduction, family also. Thus its protection is necessary. 

Supreme Court has widened the scope of right to privacy in India through various judgments. In Mr.’X’ vs. Hospital ‘Z’ it has been held that privacy can arise out of contractual relationship as well as a relationship between two persons. However, it has also been stated that such right is nor absolute when the relation is of spouse. This shows that privacy can also be in a relationship between two persons. 

 Similarly, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, which is the most important case related to right to privacy, 9 Judges Bench of Supreme Court held that right to privacy is a part of Art. 21 of the Constitution of India. It was stated that the aspect of privacy involves:-

family 

marriage

choice 

procreation 

sexual orientation of any person.

It has been also stated that even if a person is at a public place his privacy is continuously running along with him. 

In this way right to privacy is a right under the basic and supreme law of India. So for there is Information Technology Act, 2000 which state some important provisions under which invasion in privacy of a person has been made a punishable offence. Under these provisions wrongful use of information of a person for criminal and fraudulent purposes has been made punishable. The Act specifies for punishment, if anyone discloses or uses personal information of another person without consent. It provides for imprisonment of upto 2 years or fine upto 1 lakh Rupees. 

The Amendment in 2008, has extended the scope of the IT Act to E-contracts also. These steps have been taken to prevent misuse of personal data of citizens of India by through various social media platforms and otherwise invaders of personal data.

However after the above protection, Sec. 69 permits the government to invade privacy of an individual when it is required to be done for public order, national interest and diplomatic relations.

Personal Data Protection Bill (PDP) :-

The Central Government is working to frame a law which may provide a complete set of rules and regulations so that privacy of citizens can be ensured against any kind of wrong interference with privacy of an individual and misuse of personal data. The key features of the bill are as follows:-

The bill includes within its ambit all data i.e. personal, non-personal and private data.

Manufactures of hardware are also within its ambit as personal data is also taken by them while making personalized products.

Social media platforms have also been included within its ambit. 

It applies on processing of personal data within India and outside India.

The bill also provides for deletion of data by the data fiduciaries. 

It also provide for constitution of Data Protection Board for adjudication of disputes relating to invasion of data. 

Conclusion:- 

This is a new step towards data protection but still this law suffers from many drawbacks as it doesn’t provide about secrecy of data after it is taken by government agency when their purpose gets fulfilled. This law also doesn’t say anything about right against data portability which is very important in the field of trade and business. Another essential point is missing in the bill is right to protection against theft of digital data. This right provides liberty and privilege to digital users that what data they want to share in the online mediums. Thus it is important to maintain privacy issues. Thus the current law i.e. IT Act is not sufficient to maintain privacy of citizens as it only specify about punishments for violation of privacy and the bill provides the provisions to control violation of these rights. But this new proposed bill is not a complete law in itself. So still a deep research is needed to ensure privacy protection of citizens.           

  

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