Importance Of Privacy And Privacy

Privacy, Surveillance and Constitutionalism in India

This era has been termed as the digital age, where technology flourishes and new innovations come to light every day. This rapid expansion has blurred the lines between the private and public sphere, where issues of a personal nature become public with institutions trying to glean private information and utilize it to their ends. Now that the government’s scope of control over its citizens has increased with greater surveillance and tapping of communications through the CMS, NETRA and NATGRID, there is a necessity to see whether the state’s actions are legitimate within the ambit of the Constitution. The government in the past has infringed in the private sphere in matters other than surveillance, such as marriage, child rearing, etc, however,

The Human Rights Watch also advocates for greater transparency and specificity in authorizing surveillance, such as the nature of the data to be collected, the institution authorized to collect it and how the right to privacy will be protected and narrowly tailored. It asserts that tight international laws and protocol should follow bulk surveillance; otherwise the CMS, NETRA and NATGRID can be misused. These systems are also prone to cyber hacking and terrorism. There is a possibility that cyber terrorists could target India’s patchy cyber infrastructure that may be ill-equipped to handle complex surveillance networks. The Centre for Internet and Society has propounded certain measures for improvement such as better encryption of internet traffic, enhanced software and advanced firewalls to impede cyber-attacks. However, terrorists usually develop cyber attacking mechanisms congruently to the defenses in place, that is a huge threat and concern as surveillance technology would then be readily available to terrorists with a mere