PRIVACY IN CYBERSPACE

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Privacy is one of the most contentious legal issues arising in Cyberspace. Just as in the actual word, privacy is of extreme importance to not only an individual netizen but also corporations and Governments. For the present, privacy of the individual netizens has acquired critical relevance.  

There is no comprehensive legislation on privacy in our country. We do not even have a specific law on privacy like a lot of other countries. As such it has been left to the judicially to interpret privacy within existing legislations.  The right to privacy has been held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India as an integral part of the fundamental right to life under article 21 of The Constitution of India.

But while legislating India's first Cyberlaw namely the Information Technology Bill, 1999, the Parliament has omitted to deal with the crucial issue of privacy.  The IT Bill, 1999 does not define privacy. It only talks of privacy at one place namely section 71 as detailed below :-

"Breach of confidentiality and privacy

71.. Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person who, in pursuant of any of the powers conferred under this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder, has secured access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned discloses such electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend  to one lakh rupees, or with both."

The perusal of section 71 of the IT Bill shows that it has been drafted in a constricting manner to only refer to punish those persons who after having secured access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned, disclose such electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material to any other person.

It does not have any bearing on violation of individual's privacy in Cyberspace. Spamming or the practice of sending unsolicited emails to different persons has been not mentioned at all in the IT Bill, 1999. The fact of the matter is that whenever a netizen receives an unsolicited email, that itself contributes a violation of individual's privacy. That is the reason why many states in the USA like Nevada have legislated Cyber legislations banning spamming.

In addition, in today's scenario, a lot of websites collect information of net surfers which is often not protected but is sold for commercial considerations to other companies. In other cases, the servers of websites containing valuable information of consumers are hacked into and the said information is stolen for the purpose of valuable consideration. The stolen information is then invariably  sold to different companies who then send unsolicited emails to the email addresses of different persons. All these varied endeavours are a grave violation of individual privacy.

Cyberlaw has to tackle with this ticklish issue. I would suggest that individual netizens should be given the liberty to move court in India for monetary damages for violation of their individual privacy. However unfortunately, in India, awareness about privacy is at a very low level in the actual world, leave aside Cyberspace.

It is important that the government should legislate about privacy in Cyberspace. Websites must be mandated to follow strict guidelines on various issues concerning individual privacy. Websites must give a crystal clear notice to the netizen that they are collecting information, what is the kind of information being collected and for what purpose as also how the collected information about the netizen would be utilized. Netizens should also be given a choice to state as to whether the information being collected about them should be used for any other purpose except for fulfilling the transaction for which the information is being collected. For example, when I am buying music online, the website would ask different kinds of information about me and my tastes. In such a scenario, I should be given the choice to decide whether the information I give about myself to the website before buying music on the same, should be used for any other purpose by the said website except for the purpose of completing the transaction of selling music online to me.

Cyberlaw should also give the facilities of reasonable access to the netizen. Once a person gives his information on the websites he must have the right to access the said information collected on him by the website and in addition, he should also have a reasonable opportunities to make any corrections of the said information or of any errors as also the choice of deleting any or the entire data of information on him collected by the said website.

It is also essential for all web sites, portals and companies to ensure that the collected information relating to netizens should be properly handled to rule out unauthorised access of the same or its theft.

The Internet Industry has long talked of self regulation. However, the said self regulation has failed to check the abuse and violation of individual privacy.

Recently,  the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has recommended to the US Congress that new legislation be adopted to protect consumers' privacy online. The said news has created chaos in the industry and numerous voices have raised concern about the possible" big brother attitude" of the US Government. Whether or not, the US Congress will accept the recommendations of the FTC, only time can tell. Yet, the must important feature of this development has been that it has once again brought the issue of  online privacy of netizens on the centre stage of world attention.