E-Paper
No violation of privacy in state govt’s bulk messaging campaign: Kerala HC
The HC also ruled that there was no evidence of the data of employees being transferred directly to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) or the CMO engaging in privacy violation of employees
The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition alleging violation of privacy of government employees after their personal details were accessed from the official salary portal for bulk WhatsApp messages ]highlighting the state government’s achievements.
The bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas held that the messages sent by the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) regarding salaries and dearness allowance (DA) of government employees cannot be regarded as violating the privacy of the recipients.
The high court also ruled that there was no evidence of the data of employees being transferred directly to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) or the CMO engaging in privacy violation of employees.
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“It is evident that the nature of the messages sent relates to the salary and other added perquisites, which cannot be any rate of imagination, be regarded as a political campaign to impugn the message to the colour of illegality or as something done for an illegitimate purpose. The messages that have been sent to the employees of the state as well as persons whose data is in the SPARK portal relate to the DA and HRA. The message can hence be regarded as a measure of communicating to the employees of the government the benefits rolled out related to salary and other purposes, which can be viewed only as a measure of good governance by a social welfare state..” the judge said.
The petition, filed by a staff member of the general administration department of the State and a college associate professor, had alleged that the personal data of State government employees and social welfare pension beneficiaries were illegally accessed from the SPARK portal on the directions of the CMO for a bulk messaging campaign ahead of the Assembly elections. The petitioners claimed the action amounted to violation of privacy under Article 21 and provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
