New IT Rules - Is Your Privacy at Risk ?
With the recent increase in cyber-crime and the increasing trend of hatred messages towards the Government, the Government of India has come up with its own data protection laws, which are mostly based on the model of the European’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Any individual who is a citizen of India has been covered under the said new data protection rules.
WHAT ARE THE NEW PRIVACY LAWS?
- Appointment of a resident grievance officer as part of a larger grievance redressal mechanism;
- Active monitoring of the content on various social media platforms;
- Monthly compliance report of Indian users;
- Self-regulation mechanism and oversight mechanism.
The foremost and major change that the Government had brought into the new privacy laws and which is facing the most backlash is the tracing of the original sender of the message.
The Government had demanded WhatsApp, the most used messaging application in India with an active user base of over 500 million, to trace the original sender of the message.
Criticism of the tracing of the original sender:
The major criticism was that the tracing of the original sender of the message would require WhatsApp to break the end-to-end encryption, in order to gather details of ‘who send the message originally’.
The WhatsApp chat is currently protected with end-to-end encryption which means that nobody except the sender and receiver of the message can read the message.
However, with the new rules in place, it would require WhatsApp to break the encryption and provide data to the Government regarding the original sender of the message.
Another criticism that the Government is facing is regarding the violation of the Right to Privacy and Free Speech. It is often argued that tracing the message to the original sender would break the Right to Privacy of the original sender and moreover, any criticism against the Government would be considered to be a violation of new privacy laws and the original sender would be punished under the new laws.
WhatsApp have moved Delhi High Court against the Government order directing it to comply with the new rules by 26th May, 2021. The major argument of the tech giant is that tracing the message to the original sender would not only be the violation of the Right to Privacy but would also require WhatsApp to break the end-to-end encryption. It was further argued on behalf of WhatsApp that the new rules would require to trace every single message as it cannot tell which message a Government would want to investigate in the future.
Therefore, in tracing every message, the Indian Government, in mandating traceability is effectively mandating a new form of mass surveillance.
The other privacy law, which is attracting criticism is regarding the removal of hatred content of various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The stance of the Government is that these hatred messages and posts insist on violence among the country and are a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the country.
Criticism against the removal of hatred content
The foremost criticism against the removal is that in case Government directs the social media giants to remove content that is against the sovereignty and integrity of India, Government will be a judge in its own cause in deciding which posts incite hatred and which does not.
A classic example of this is during the month of April when some BJP leaders trend the hashtag #toolkitbycongress to degrade the image of Congress by inciting that Congress has created a toolkit that is spreading hatred against the Government.
Had new IT Rules been in place, the Government could have forced Twitter to remove all the posts inciting the toolkit, however did not try to remove posts spreading hatred against the congress party.
Another criticism against the new rule is that Government will be the deciding factor as to which post is spreading hatred, which will result in hindrance to free speech.
GOVERNMENT STANCE
The major stand taken by the Government is that it respects the ‘Right to Privacy’ as a fundamental right and does not require WhatsApp to break the end-to-end encryption. Instead, it is asking WhatsApp to find a suitable alternative to trace the original sender of the message, by which it will be able to stop hatred messages against the Government and thereby will be able to protect the sovereignty and integrity of India.
Government is concrete in its stand regarding the violence, hatred messages incite and non-removing of hatred messages will lead to violence across the country.
CONCLUSION
With the recent IT Rules brought in place, the Government came under heavy criticism regarding the violation of the right to privacy and right to free speech.
As every fundamental right comes with reasonable restriction, these rights are also not absolute and restrictions need to be put in place in order to stop violence and stop hatred. However, do these rules went far ahead and try to impose more than reasonable restrictions? The case is still pending in the Delhi High Court.