Protecting privacy

Data must be treated as personal property of an individual

Justice BN Srikrishna made a telling point recently at a symposium marking the second anniversary of the Puttaswamy judgment which affirmed that privacy was a fundamental right. He said given the parliamentary majority the ruling party enjoys, it should have been possible to pass the data privacy legislation that a committee headed by him drafted, “with the same ease that cash is withdrawn from an ATM”. But it has been two years since the Supreme Court recommended specific legislation to protect privacy, and over a year since the Srikrishna Committee submitted its recommendations, and draft legislation, and there has been