Privacy faces challenges from hackers, pvt firms, govt: SC judge

BQ:

The challenges to privacy are presented by three key actors—(i) hackers; (ii) private companies; and (iii) the government. This presents a range of concerns: First, there is a possibility of serious data breach and the misuse of personal information. —Justice DY Chandrachud

New Delhi, February 23

Privacy in the digital age faces challenges from hackers, private companies and government, and the judiciary has to deal with balancing the right to privacy with other rights and supplement existing legislative frameworks, Supreme Court Judge DY Chandrachud said today.

During a panel discussion on the “Role of Judiciary in Protecting Privacy of Citizens in the Internet Age”, Justice Chandrachud said, “The challenges to privacy are presented by three key actors—(i) hackers; (ii) private companies; and (iii) the government. This presents a range of concerns: First, there is a possibility of serious data breach and the misuse of personal information.”

“Second, vast silos of data may be used to profile people and to discriminate against vulnerable groups. Third, there is a chilling effect on free speech and disclosure of information,” the SC judge said.

He said the issue was about how “we as judges can preserve autonomy and informational self-determination of individuals in an age where technology governs every aspect of our lives. Or is privacy an illusion?”

He said when a person searches for a book or a destination on the Internet, the screen is instantly flooded with appealing pop-up advertisements.

“If you search for an idea, a multitude of ideas confront you on the screen. The digital world has been ushered in at a pace which the incremental change of judicial decisions can scarcely match. Our Constitution protects the right to personal freedom, human dignity and liberty,” he said.

In today’s world, every individual identity is viewed in terabytes of information and every individual is viewed as a collection of data represented by activities on the Internet like shopping preferences, social media patterns, geographic location and personal biometric information, he said.

“This defines two new horizons: The first is data aggregation, which, like ‘death by a thousand cuts’, is the collection of unconnected data to map the identity of the individual.

“This has the potential to seriously threaten the rights of individuals to keep their personal and sensitive information private and to control how their information is used,” he said.

The second horizon is of artificial intelligence, which comprehends machine learning analysis of political beliefs, religious affiliation, race, ethnicity, health status, gender and sexual orientation, said Justice Chandrachud.

“Our individual data is aggregated and disaggregated to sort, score, classify, evaluate and rank people. How comfortable are we with artificial intelligence telling us whether an offender who seeks bail is likely to be a repeat offender?” he said.

Justice Chandrachud, who is in line to become the Chief Justice of India in 2022, said globally good governance was witnessing an increasing reliance on digital technology to aid in the delivery of welfare services with the active support of the citizenry.

Judges need to see how to apply the standard of proportionality which was formulated in a pre-digital age amid the complexities of a digital age, he said. — PTI