Need balance between privacy and public interest: SC

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday said invocation of public interest could not be grounds for seeking sweeping access to private information of persons holding public offices.

"The right to access information in public interest must be balanced with the right to privacy of individuals. There cannot be a provision allowing sweeping access to an individual's private information," said a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, while agreeing to entertain a petition seeking to challenge the restrictions built into the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act to safeguard privacy.

Appearing for a petitioner, senior advocate Indira Jaising said the provision in the Right to Information Act that allowed access to private data about the background of a person appointed to a public or constitutional office stood nullified because of the DPDP Act.

She said the state could access any data of any person under the guise of public order which could lead to state surveillance of citizens. The bench said ultimately, the court would have to define what data could be classified as public and private.

Under the Information and Technology Act, Jaising said, the person whose data was illegally accessed was liable to be compensated. But under the DPDP Act, the compensation would go to govt and not to the person whose data was accessed illegally, she complained.

She said Data Protection Board of India, the primary regulator of data privacy, did not have judicial oversight though it would be deciding competing rights. The bench agreed that in such situations, there should be a judicially trained mind on the board. "These matters require urgent adjudication," the bench said, and agreed to list it as soon as possible.

SC on Feb 16 had entertained three petitions which had alleged that the amendments to the RTI Act necessitated by the DPDP Act had reduced right to information to something that existed only on paper, as it provided an excuse to the authorities to deny information by classifying it as 'personal'. However, it had refused to stay the operation of the Act, whose provisions have been justified by citing the Supreme Court verdict in Puttaswami case, where right to privacy was recognised as one of the fundamental rights.

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