New Delhi: Justice B N Srikrishna, a former Supreme Court judge, heading a committee of experts to deliberate on a data protection framework for the country, told News18 that the destruction of personal data after its use, and checking the misuse of the collected private information is what his committee was focusing on.
While there was nothing wrong in the government trying to fix a unique identification number for its citizens through Aadhaar, Justice Srikrishna said, “The real issue is what does the government want to do with the numbers? Are they going to use it to check someone is a homosexual or not? This is what needs to be seen.”
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) appointed an expert group headed by Justice BN Srikrishna to draft a data protection legislation.
The members of the committee are: Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of telecommunications; Ajay Bhushan Pandey, UIDAI Chief; Gulshan Rai, Coordinator, National Cyber Security; Rajat Moona, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai; Rishikesh Krishnan, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Indore; Arghya Sengupta, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
The committee’s core objective is to formulate a law to allay fears that data collected by the government is not safe and is susceptible to possible hacks and breaches.
“We are looking at balancing the requirements of the collection of data and protection of data. In a digital world, you cannot help collecting data. You go to any place they will ask your name, your father’s name, date of birth, etc. Whether you apply for a passport or anything. Then once you have collected the data, how you are going to preserve it, for what purpose are you collecting it. Did you take the consent of the person?” Justice Srikrishna told News18.
According to the government order, the committee has, “to make specific suggestions for consideration of the Central Government on principles to be considered for data protection in India and suggest a draft data protection bill.”
He also said that the committee will look into the possible act of “destruction of data as soon as the purpose of collecting it was over.”
“Will you destroy it as soon as the purpose is over? Will you make sure the data does not go into unauthorised hands? These issues need to be answered and, finally, a law will be drafted. Of course, the government will say we want it for security purpose and security is the magic trump card they will use, but how far is it correct and who is going to judge it? The law will see whether at all there is a security requirement or not. Otherwise, everyone will keep asking for the data and security will become some kind of a magic word,” said the former apex court judge.
This committee under the chairmanship of Justice Srikrishna has also started functioning close on the heels of the Right to Privacy verdict which, according to the former SC judge, will have a “great bearing on the draft law.”
“The privacy verdict is important in this case where it states that privacy is a fundamental right. The verdict will very much guide the committee on data protection law as well. The verdict is how you deal with fundamental right under Article 21. The article says no one’s life and liberty can be taken away except by the way of a law made by the competent legislature. That was held in AK Gopalan which was reiterated in Maneka Gandhi and other verdicts subsequently. It was clear that whatever law you make has to comply with Article 14 and conditions of 19(2) and not impose more than necessary restrictions,” said Justice Srikrishna.
On being asked a tentative date for the finalisation of the draft law, Srikrishna said, “You cannot ask me how the water is when I have not even stepped into the water. But it will done expeditiously.”
However, Justice Srikrishna is of the opinion that making Aadhaar mandatory of Indian citizens is nothing wrong as “it is a norm in all the foreign countries” but the main issue that needs to be decided is what would the government do with the data?
“I don’t understand why people have created such a fuss. This thing is there everywhere in the world. You go to the United States of America, you have the social security number, you go to Europe, you have the citizenship number, and likewise you got to Singapore, they have a similar number. What is so unusual about it? Asking for this and making sure that everybody has an identification is not bad. The real issue is what does the government want to do with the numbers? This is what needs to be seen,” said the former judge.
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