Jail, Rs 2 cr fine proposed for violating privacy

A government panel working on India’s first privacy law has proposed a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to Rs 2 crore for snooping.

Updated on: Sep 3, 2012, 02:33:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A government panel working on India’s first privacy law has proposed a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to Rs 2 crore for snooping.

In its draft report on the proposed privacy act, the panel said unauthorised sharing of personal information or interception of communication and its disclosure should be made a cognisable offence. The government’s investigating agencies can intercept communication for national security, public interest and public order only through an executive order.

The panel said any information identifying people directly or indirectly was personal and its protection was the government’s job, unless a disclosure was required in “public interest”. People should also be informed why their personal information was being collected.

The proposed law prescribes a jail term of three years and fine of up to Rs 1 crore for unauthorised sharing or disclosure of one’s personal information given to service providers, such as insurance or telecom companies and government agencies.

Theft of personal data would invite a fine of up to R1 crore, the panel suggested, while providing for compensation to people whose privacy had been infringed.

The panel suggested a regulatory body — privacy commissioner having four regional offices — for registering complaints and enforcing the proposed law.

It also called for self-regulation by government agencies and service providers through self-regulating organisations under the supervision of the private commissioner.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought a high-level committee to frame an overarching privacy law after the civil society raised concerns over personal data being collected by government agencies, such as the Unique Identification Authority of India and National Intelligence Grid.

Unlike western countries, India doesn't have a law to protect one's privacy, resulting in unauthorised interception of communication, its dissemination on social media sites and misuse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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