Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Aug 30, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Aug 30, 2005 |
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Info-Tech
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Privacy Nasscom to mobilise public opinion on privacy issues
Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee
New Delhi , Aug 29 DOES living in an information age make you feel insecure about your personal information being misused? Have you felt the need for a legislation that protects your personal information residing with authorised users such as banks, hospitals or even Government bodies? While laws are being proposed to strengthen data protection, curb video voyeurism and control sting operations, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is embarking on a massive exercise to mobilise public opinion on `privacy issues' from a cross section of stakeholders, including the civil society. "Privacy issues need to be dealt with separately from data protection, which has been addressed in the proposed IT Act amendments. While data protection deals with unauthorised access and misuse, data privacy or privacy is about how an authorised user uses someone's personal information. This is not only an economic issue but a socio-cultural one as well. Nasscom plans to get public opinion on this issue through a debate amongst stakeholders — civil society, enforcement agencies, lawyers, financial institutions, Government and media," the Nasscom Vice President, Mr Sunil Mehta, said. He said the exercise, to be initiated in September, would culminate into compilation of a report, which would be submitted to the Government. Issues relating to privacy would deal with questions such as who is collecting the customer's data, are they collecting it with his consent, how are they storing or using it, as well as compensation in case the data has been used in a manner that the consumer did not authorise. "The debate will comprise topics such as the definition of privacy in the Indian context, do stakeholders feel the need for a law on this, the areas that should be covered under a law. It would also look at various global models," he added. Mr Mehta said that Nasscom had not included such privacy issues (pertaining to authorised users) in its suggestions to Government on IT Act amendment, except for sub clauses in Section 72 which talks about specific authorised users such as agencies implementing IT Act or intermediaries such as ISPs or Web sites. "The idea is to have a collective debate in a manner as to align the interest of businesses, consumers and the Government," Mr Mehta said. According to legal experts, currently there is no law that deals with invasion of privacy. "However, a 1964 Supreme Court judgement did recognise the right to privacy," they said.
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