Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

thewire.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 215 posts

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#71

Post by ahamedirshad123 »

eklavya wrote: post #38
srean wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would that change with Aadhaar ? Corruption is hardly a technology issue, especially in an environment where corruption is so passe and enjoys patronage from the entirety of the polictical spectrum. Example, to disrupt the blackmarket of kerosene they started dyeing it, and that mattered zilch, because people were selling and buying dyed kereosene in the blackmarket without batting an eyelid. Everyone looked…

It's not a matter of would, it already has. So many subsidy/benefits accounts have been closed. Just search for news stories on this.

What was your opinion about Aadhaar before 2014? Same as your dear leader?

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#72

Post by devnonymous »

eklavya wrote: post #23
robinphilip1989 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to whether citizens are coerced to part with their personal information or not. If I need access to state programs of food, clothing, shelter, I should be willing to abide by regulations that make it easier to deliver these benefits. Aadhaar as of now is a direct coercion to part with biometrics and has inadequate features to protect against identity theft. Not having aadhaar means not getting d…

I am sure you meant marriage certificate, everybody has an undeniable license to marry :D

While I know you were making fun of the word 'license', what you claim is not true legally in India.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#73

Post by ahamedirshad123 »

fwx wrote: post #69

Can someone more well-versed in Indian law help me understand : Does this ruling prevent collection of biometrics or restrict it somehow under the Aadhar system? Also, I recall the Indian Government was pushing Aadhar Pay - a biometric fingerprint scan based PoS payment / verification system (likely it is already deployed, I don't live there so I don't know). What happens to that now?

This is where you should go. https://twitter.com/aparatbar

"Aadhaar hearings were gridlocked, withtout this judgement. Now it's legality will be tested."

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#74

Post by rmc »

dalbasal wrote: post #54

A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights. A right to water, is different to free speech. For everyone to have a right to water, someone needs to provide the water or be held accountable for not providing it. A default, state culprit needs to be designated. Privacy though, privacy is like speech or equality before the law or presumption of innocence.…

> A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights.

Correct. Right to a fair trail is also a positive right. To uphold it, the state must pay for a lawyer if you don't have one, the state must pay for enough judges (& associated costs) to ensure your trail isn't delayed ("Justice delayed is justice denied" and all that).

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics.

Plenty of legal systems have those rights, and also ban nazis or similar groups. It's not an either/or.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#75

Post by plinkplonk »

fwx wrote: post #69

Can someone more well-versed in Indian law help me understand : Does this ruling prevent collection of biometrics or restrict it somehow under the Aadhar system? Also, I recall the Indian Government was pushing Aadhar Pay - a biometric fingerprint scan based PoS payment / verification system (likely it is already deployed, I don't live there so I don't know). What happens to that now?

(not a lawyer, but have friends who are)

When the Government of India (GoI) mandated Aadhar for provision of many services (subsidies, marriage certificates, death certificates, collect taxes- people without aadhar can no longer pay income tax - etc) it was challenged legally in the courts. One of the main arguments was that Indian citizens had a fundamental right to privacy, and such 'enforced' collection of biometrics violated that right.

The Attorney General (appearing for the government) argued that there was no such fundamental right, and that citizens had no right to privacy.

This (whether or not privacy is a fundamental right) had to be resolved before these cases could move forward.

So the question was 'forwarded' to a 9 judge 'constitutional bench' to rule upon. Today all 9 judges ruled that Indian citizens had a fundamental right to privacy.

so now the Aadhar specific cases can go forward, now that there is a 'constitutional bench' ruling. A 5 judge bench will now consider those cases and rule upon the legality of Aadhar enforcement.

This ruling, that privacy is a fundamental right, will obviously affect the outcome of the Aadhar specific case(s) but how exactly - including what restrictions if any, could be placed on biometric collection via aadhar - is not known (yet).

That is my non lawyerly understanding of where things stand.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#76

Post by ahamedirshad123 »

This is epidemic. SA government is trying this now.

http://www.planetbiometrics.com/article-details/i/6211/desc/...

http://www.planetbiometrics.com/article-details/i/6206/desc/...

http://www.planetbiometrics.com/article-details/i/6219/desc/...

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#77

Post by denzil_correa »

vkrm wrote: post #19
denzil_correa wrote: post #6

Here's what the Attorney General - the government counsel - argued > He said that in developing countries, something as amorphous as privacy could not be a fundamental right, that other fundamental rights such as food, clothing, shelter etc. override the right to privacy. It's a question which has alway bothered me. What happens when two fundamental rights clash with each other?

IMO, this is a specious argument, especially in the Indian context. Access to food, clothing, and shelter are NOT fundamental rights[0]. On the other hand, the Aadhaar program (which is the context the above argument was made for) can be viewed as impinging on the fundamental "Right to Constitutional Remedies" as its governing body the UIDAI is set up in such a way that the UIDAI itself has sole authority on whether…

> Access to food, clothing, and shelter are NOT fundamental rights

This is not true. Food, water, education and shelter are fundamental rights under Article 21.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#78

Post by vkrm »

_jgdh wrote: post #63
vkrm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is currently a grey area. All ISPs in India have to abide by their licensing terms with the Department of Telecommunication which restricts encryption to 40 bit RSA or equivalent. Any higher grade encryption can only be used with special permission and requires the decryption keys to be submitted to the DoT. Whether or not this restriction also applies to end users and non-ISP organizations hasn't yet been teste…

You have a link to that? Either way, I'm not sure how that would be implemented, other than outright blocking sites that are HTTPS-only. But I don't think blocking Google, Facebook, Whatsapp and other major websites is going to fly. I have no doubt that the Indian government would like to read people's communications and internet history, but that's not possible today.

https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/how-india-reg...

AFAIK, the government has not attempted to prosecute anyone for using stronger encryption, and other government departments/organizations have made conflicting recommendations, especially when it comes to online banking and capital markets. Barring new regulations that clarify the government's position, the status quo is that ISPs cannot apply strong encryption themselves, but are not obligated to prevent their users from doing so.

At least one ISP has gone beyond this mandate and tried to block the use of stronger encryption by their customers[0].

[0]https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/indian-is...

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#79

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dalbasal wrote: post #54

A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights. A right to water, is different to free speech. For everyone to have a right to water, someone needs to provide the water or be held accountable for not providing it. A default, state culprit needs to be designated. Privacy though, privacy is like speech or equality before the law or presumption of innocence.…

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics.

I'm not convinced I know how I feel about this. I want to believe this is a false dichotomy. Can we have limits in polite society?

I keep thinking of the paradox of tolerance[1], which states, in brief, that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#80

Post by fwx »

plinkplonk wrote: post #75
fwx wrote: post #69

Can someone more well-versed in Indian law help me understand : Does this ruling prevent collection of biometrics or restrict it somehow under the Aadhar system? Also, I recall the Indian Government was pushing Aadhar Pay - a biometric fingerprint scan based PoS payment / verification system (likely it is already deployed, I don't live there so I don't know). What happens to that now?

(not a lawyer, but have friends who are) When the Government of India (GoI) mandated Aadhar for provision of many services (subsidies, marriage certificates, death certificates, collect taxes- people without aadhar can no longer pay income tax - etc) it was challenged legally in the courts. One of the main arguments was that Indian citizens had a fundamental right to privacy, and such 'enforced' collection of biometr…

So, basically, this has opened the door to debate about the legality of collecting biometrics, but we still have to wait for official rulings to see if a stop is put to collecting that data under the Aadhar umbrella?
Post reply on HN