Hindu
Business Line: New Delhi: Friday, October 19, 2012.
The Justice A.
P. Shah panel has recommended an over-arching law to protect privacy and
personal data in the private and public spheres.
The report
also suggested setting up privacy commissioners, both at the Central and State
levels.
It has spelt
out nine national privacy principles that could be followed while framing the
law.
The report
comes at a time when there is growing concern over unique identity numbers, DNA
profiling, brain-mapping, etc, most of which will be implemented on the ICT
platform.
The report
has listed certain exceptions in the right to privacy such as national
security, public order, disclosure in public interest, prevention, detection,
investigation and prosecution of criminal offences and protection of the
individual or of the rights of freedom of others.
In certain
cases, historical or scientific research and journalistic purposes can also be
considered as exceptions, says the report.
Networking
sites
Referring to
social networking sites and search engines, which have their own privacy code,
Justice Shah said these will either have to follow the model provided in the
proposed Act or have a self-regulatory mechanism approved by the privacy
commissioner.
The report
suggests harmonising the proposed privacy Act with the RTI Act. Responding to
privacy infringement concerns, as aired by the Prime Minister recently, Justice
Shah said RTI was the only law that gave statutory protection to privacy, which
could be over-ridden only in certain cases for individuals, not companies.
Minister of
State for Planning Ashwani Kumar said a privacy Act was necessary as in a
democracy one had to ensure that “no one right is so exercised so as to
infringe upon the rights of individuals.”
The
high-level panel submitted its report to the Planning Commission on Thursday.
It will now be forwarded to the Department of Personnel and Training, which is
already looking into the privacy law.
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