INTRODUCTION
Privacy is
defined as the state of being alone or someone's right to keep their personal
matter and relationship secret.[1] It
is considered as one of the inalienable rights of humans. Privacy is protected
and guaranteed by the Constitution of India, 1950, as one of the facets of
Article 21 “Right to life and personal liberty”. Privacy is not only guaranteed
by the Indian constitution but UDHR[2],
ECHR[3] as
well as International Covenant on civil and political rights,[4] as
well as many international Treaties. Privacy has been regarded as an intrinsic
part of human life by different regions and cultures. Privacy is a concept that
can neither be clearly understood nor easily defined. It is perhaps the most
difficult to define[5].
Every Country has a Statute for the Protection of Right to Privacy. In India,
the Constitution[6]
guarantees the Right to Privacy as one of the intrinsic parts of Right to life
and Personal Liberty under Article 21.[7]
The Right to Privacy has been considered an inalienable right of Humans.
However Infringement of privacy can be claimed against the state, but it
remains an inevitable question upon the statutes that, in the case of Privacy
infringement over the internet, who should be held liable?
The systematic development in the
information and communication technology has improvised the ability and
accessibility of humans to communicate and share information with others, thus
enhancing our freedom of expression and democratic nature of the country. From
the generation of telephones and Newspaper to the present era of Internet
Communication, there has been a drastic modification of technology. However,
technological development has enabled and empowered us with greater possibilities
and every individual tends to utilize this technology to its extent, some of
these technological developments consist of E-Communication, E-File transfer,
E-surveillance, and E-Commerce etc.
It is pertinent to know that
individuals remain unaware of the threats while utilizing this medium of
communication and socializing, that their privacy has been thwarted. During our
regular visits over the internet we unintentionally or intentionally accept and
click many advertisements, offers, pictures and therefore we accept the
policies given by the websites, unaware that these policies can be binding
contracts at times.[8] But
during a normal pursuit of internet surfing, these policies are camouflaged
under the terms & condition, which enable them to access the data present
over the device, as well as keep a check over our working behavior and our
interests.[9]
A frequent example of such a program
is “Cookies”. Many times when we visit websites, they in return ask us to
accept the cookie storing policy, which is an algorithm working on our search
history and frequent visits to different platforms, as to configure their
website for the product or services we are seeking. Cookie can be considered to
be one of the most primitive types of programs over the internet which
infringes our privacy and broadcasts our personal data to successive other
sites for promotion and other advertisements. Another aspect of privacy
infringement can be understood by means of internet connection of our devices. Today almost any device connected to the
internet can be accessed from any other device, be it a feature of a platform
but it is nothing less than privacy infringement. We have already learned that
the internet is decentralized, autonomous and a consortium of hosts, i.e. the
data over the internet is not centrally stored or kept, and this data keeps
allocating to different hosts for storage. The data is not only collected from
our devices but from the government database, private database, as well as
every such organization which uses the internet. It is pertinent to know that
by virtue of certain software and programming one can easily access the data
stored on any device.[10] One
can visualize the data stored over the devices, Banking Details, Personal Data,
or Confidential Data etc. every data gets compromised.
CONCLUSION
Presently there are no methods to
protect our self from the privacy infringement, but one can take necessary and
precautionary steps to safeguard his interest while accessing the internet.
Some of these methods include, clearing cache and browsing history and the restricting browser and other software from accessing the storage of the device.
Using double protection for social media accounts.
REFERENCES:
[1]Privacy, Cambridge Dictionary.
[2] Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
[3] European Convention on Human Rights.
[4] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
[5] James Michael, Privacy and Human Rights 1 (UNESCO 1994)
[6] Constitution of India, 1950.
[7] K.S Puttaswamy vs Union of India, 2017
[8] The Non-Contractual Privacy Policy, sources
https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1641&context=iplj
[9]ibid.
[10] A comparative study of remote access technologies and implementation, IJSEA, Volume 4 Issue 4, 2015 ISSN - 2319-7560 sources https://ijsea.com/archive/volume4/issue4/IJSEA04041002.pdf
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