Appreciating the Supreme Court of India’s judgement asserting privacy as a fundamental right, Union Minister for Law and Information & Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that in terms of Aadhaar the centre believes that privacy should be a fundamental right, with subject to “reasonable restrictions”.
“The government already sees privacy as a fundamental right, but all fundamental rights, the right to privacy is not an absolute right,” he said.
Explaining the court’s verdict the minister said that right to privacy is all about maintaining a proper balance of equities between individual interests and mandatory legitimate formality concerns of the state.
He further said that the court has permitted logical restrictions concerning moral, social issues or matters related to the efficient delivery of welfare payments.
He said that the law would just not be binding the government but it will also put a check on all private international as well as national agencies involved in collection of data in any form.
“As regards to Google and others, we are proud that India is emerging as a digital power, today FDI is completely free in the IT sector, Google and Facebook are empowering Indians, but I will also give (a word of) caution, the tech giants should also respect the laws of the land, that’s my request,” he said, while explaining the implication of right to privacy on tech-giants.
“The rationale for having a data protection law committee will only ensure a robust data regime for India,” said Prasad.
