Right of Privacy in the light of Cyber Law

Right of Privacy in the light of Cyber Law

The right to privacy has been held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in R. Rajagopal v. State of T.N. [(1994) 6 SCC 632] as an integral part of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of The Constitution of India.
Spamming, sending unsolicited mails and websites collecting information about individual surfers and selling it off for monetary considerations lead to violation of their privacy in cyberspace.
Telephone – Tapping is a serious invasion of an individual’s privacy. With the growth of highly sophisticated communication technology, the right to a telephone conversation, in the privacy of one’s home or office without interference, is increasingly susceptible to abuse.
Privacy concerns exist wherever uniquely identifiable data relating to a person or persons are collected and stored, in digital form or otherwise. In some cases these concerns refer to how data is collected, stored, and associated. In other cases the issue is who is given access to information. Other issues include whether an individual has any ownership rights to data about them, and/or the right to view, verify, and challenge that information
Various types of personal information often come under privacy concerns. For various reasons, individuals may not wish for personal information such as their religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, or personal activities to be revealed. This may be to avoid discrimination, personal embarrassment, or damage to one professional reputation.
In this day and age, the right to privacy is becoming more essential as every day passes. With all our lives being splattered over the media be it through social networking sites or the spy cameras, we need protection so that we can function in a way we want to and not think of others before our actions.
There is no comprehensive legislation on privacy in our country. As such it has been left to the Judiciary to interpret privacy within existing legislations. On April 11, 2011, India Ministry of Communications and Information Technology notified the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 under the Information Technology Act, 2000. India now has a privacy law, brought into force with immediate effect with wide ramifications on the way companies will do business in India.
The firm is competent to deal with cases involving invasion of privacy even in the absence of a suitable law governing this issue. The firm puts all its experience into use in handling cases arising out of:
Insecure electronic transmissions
Data trails and logs of email messages
Online transactions
Tracking of web pages visited
Phone tapping
Spamming
Unauthorized Access
Identity theft