Paper: GS – II, Subject: Governance, Topic: Government Policies, Issue: Digital Constitutionalism.
Context:
The government recently rolled back its mandate for mobile phones to install ‘Sanchaar Saathi’ after concerns over data collection and potential surveillance, reviving debates on privacy, state power, and digital constitutionalism.
Key Highlights:
What Digital Constitutionalism Entails:
Digital constitutionalism extends constitutional principles like liberty, dignity, equality, accountability, and the rule of law into the digital realm. These values are increasingly threatened by:
- Data Collection: The pervasive collection of personal data by governments and private companies.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): The use of AI in decision-making processes that affect individuals’ lives.
- Surveillance Technologies: The deployment of technologies that monitor and track individuals’ activities.
Modern governance is becoming an invisible system, relying on biometric databases and predictive algorithms. Without strong constitutional protections, individuals are vulnerable to abuse of authority.
The Rise of Surveillance:
Surveillance has evolved beyond traditional methods, becoming subtler and pervasive through:
- Metadata Gathering: Collecting data about communications, such as time, location, and participants.
- Location Tracing
- Biometric Identification
- Behavioral Modeling
- Predictive Analytics: Using data to forecast future events and trends.
The Right to Privacy and Data Protection:
- The right to privacy is a fundamental right in India, affirmed by the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) And Anr. vs Union of India and Ors. (2017).
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, was intended to safeguard citizens’ data but has significant flaws:
- Broad Government Exemptions: The Act grants extensive exemptions to the government.
- Weak Oversight: The independent body overseeing the Act lacks sufficient power.
- Inadequate Remedies: The Act provides weak remedies for individuals whose data is misused.
- The Act prioritizes administrative convenience and national security over individual autonomy and dignity, making it an inadequate constitutional protection.
Efficiency vs. Personal Control in the Digital Age:
Constitutional values should be the starting point for data-driven governance. Freedom, equality, and privacy are too precious to be sacrificed for efficiency. Digital constitutionalism is not just a change in law but a defense of democracy in the algorithmic era, ensuring that technology serves the people rather than becoming their silent authoritarian master.
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