Journalism should be kept out of right to privacy purview: Report

Indian Express: New Delhi: Monday, October 22, 2012.

Invasion of privacy of an individual during the exercise of journalistic profession can be kept out of the purview of a proposed Right to Privacy legislation, the expert group meant to draw the broad contours of a privacy law has suggested, while even acknowledging the legitimacy of ‘sting’ operations.

The expert group headed by Justice (retd) A P Shah has recommended that ‘journalistic purposes’ can be considered on a par with other exceptions like national security, public order, criminal offences, and historical or scientific research. Shah’s group had submitted its report to Minister of State for Planning Ashwini Kumar, and that would now be used as an input for a protection of privacy law that the government is planning to enact.

“The Privacy Act should clarify that publication of personal data for artistic and journalistic purposes in public interest, use of personal information for household purposes, and disclosure of information as required by RTI should not constitute an infringement of privacy,” the report has said.

But the report has not gone into what constitutes journalism in public interest. “That is for organisations like the Press Council or the broadcasters associations to decide,” Shah said.

“Under what circumstances and to what type of data would coverage by a journalist amount to an invasion of privacy of the individual, and when should the privacy right of the ordinary citizen, particularly children, women, minorities, disabled etc be protected against the public’s right to be informed needs to be debated and evolved,” Shah told The Indian Express.

On the issue of sting operations carried out by journalists, Shah’s group has noted the “lack of established procedure over the use of audio and video recording devices” which has created the “potential for violation of privacy”.

“During a sting operation or act of whistle blowing information about public figures... ordinary persons may also enter the public domain. Therefore, a public interest test is necessary to determine whether personal information should have been disclosed along with all the other material gathered during the sting operation or whistle blowing,” the report has said.

It clearly said that “in the context of recording devices being built into widely available technologies”, it would “not be possible for users to turn these features off”.