Privacy is an area that has been ignored by India for decades. We have no dedicated data protection laws in India. Further data security laws in India are missing and so are privacy laws in India. In short, there is nothing that can safeguard the sensitive information and data of corporate houses or individuals.Recently the Supreme Court of India said that with the technological advancement, privacy is virtually disappearing. This has shown the growing concerns and requirements for urgent formulation of privacy laws in India. The truth is that India urgently needs privacy laws. This is so because data protection, privacy rights and civil liberties are interrelated.
Now the government of India has proposed establishment of data protection authority of India. This is another instance when Indian government has declared to do something like this. In the past as well on many occasions Indian government “declared” that privacy and data protection bills have been formulated. But till now we do not have data security, data protection and privacy laws in India.
There is no sign of the proposed draft right to privacy bill 2011 of India whose praises have already been found in abundance in Indian media. Further, the nomenclature itself is misleading. The proposed bill, if any, is a bill on data protection and not privacy protection. Data protection is just a single aspect of privacy protection. It means we may have to wait for another decade or more for a dedicate privacy law of India.
We are waiting for a copy of the proposed data protection bill and would come up with our analysis the moment it is available for public inputs.
