Right to Privacy : War Isn't Won yet

The 9 Judge bench of Indian Supreme Court gave a landmark verdict on 24th August 2017 that the right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights granted under the Indian Constitution. But don’t rejoice yet, as the Government might have other workarounds.

Think of it in this way that Freedom is also a fundamental right, but the Government can take it away temporarily, just based on suspicion.

This just means that the Government will have to have a burden of proof before this right is taken away. Countries like the USA have had privacy laws since ages, and the companies there have found innovative ways around it. Recently Facebook lost a case in the USA supreme court over Bulk Search Warrants. We have seen how Donald trump came to become the president using Cambridge Analytica, without invading anyones privacy, but using information on everyone in the same way.

Indian Government has been collecting biometric data on its citizens under the Aadhar scheme and attaching more and more of its schemes and processes to it. It claims that the Aadhar initiative brings transparency to the system and allows it to check benefits fraud.

The Government has been headstrong when it comes to this information, and I doubt that this judgement will be able to stop it from collecting or using personal data to achieve its means.

Here are the workarounds that government can bring in and you should be aware of,

1. Taking User permission: There are two pieces in the privacy equation, the person protecting it and the person invading it. No one can do anything if the person protecting it signs it away. Everyone company from Google to Facebook to Apple uses this route to know you better and then sell that information (anonymized of-course) for ad targeting. You virtually sign away your privacy under a contract. If the government creates an OPT IN scheme, where you sign away your privacy by choice, no one is to blame. One of the most powerful lines pointing this out is from Messaging App Telegram in its FAQ on Internet privacy. (Image inset)
2. Anonymizing data: If the government removes the personally identifiable information from all the data being collected, it can keep on collecting as much data as it wants, without infringing privacy. This means that the sum total of data shouldn’t be able to point out a single individual. Cambridge Analytica took the facebook profile of every single US citizen and then anonymized it.
3. Converting Individuals to groups: Cambridge Analytica then went ahead and grouped the data based on street address. So if the data said that 90% of the people on a particular street would vote Democrat, then it was as good as saying each individual would vote Democrat. So suppose big data analysis from the Government shows that segment of its citizens who have gone to Nepal, withdrawn money from an ATM in Jammu and are unmarried with income less than 2 lakh a year needs investigating, it can invade privacy on a smaller scale based on this proof as a justifiable cause to protect security.
4. Bringing in a law similar to Patriot Act: Government can very easily bring in a law like The Patriot Act and make a special class of people privy to all user data. India has the most bomb blasts in the world in 2016, so bringing in such a law might not be as difficult. Supreme Court can interpret laws from a constitutional viewpoint, not change them. If the Government wants, then the Government can.
5. Constitutional Amendment: Supreme Court has just interpreted the Indian Constitution, not passed a law. The Constitution can be amended to clear up the confusion so that the interpretation doesn’t hold valid. The earliest it can happen though is 2020, as the ruling party cannot get enough seats in Rajya Sabha by the virtue that the seats don’t come up for re-election at once and the Government has to consistently win multiple rounds of election to accrue these wins.
6. Tie ups with other countries: 22 Crore Indians went abroad last year. Many of them over the years have been to the USA and other countries where BioMetric information is anyways captured as a pre-requisite to entry. Nothing is stopping the government from asking data on its own citizens. Remember that Swiss banks were privacy havens once as well.

Please share your thoughts in comments below. The issue is of umpteen importance to all of us, and every perspective helps us learn more.

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Views expressed here are my own and in no way should be construed as views of any of my employers, past or present.