Right to privacy: On Day 2 petitioners tell Supreme Court to lay down broad contours

Hearing on right to privacy before the nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court continued for the second consecutive day today. The petitioners made a persuasive case for a broad definition of the right to privacy.

Arvind Dattar, senior counsel for the petitioners, argued that right to privacy flows from Article 14 (right to equality), Article 19 (freedom of expression) and Article 21 (right to life). The court must not strictly lay the right to privacy under a single article, he said.

Dattar argued that only the broad contours could be laid down rather than a strict definition. He said that neither the definition nor the restrictions should be laid exhaustively.

Justice Chelameswar remarked that "the right to privacy may have vague contours but not clear boundaries".

Justice



Chandrachud questioned senior counsel Anand Grover arguing for the petitioners and posed that how far the right to not to disclose identity can be protected especially when the state is using or collecting the data for social welfare schemes.

"So can a citizen refuse to give his name or details of his parents, or can a single mother choose not to share particulars of the father," questioned Justice Chandrachud.

The apex court also questioned the extent of data use and protection. The court said that a distinction must be drawn between legitimate and illegitimate data. For example when a state uses artificial intelligence to predispose an investigation or to identify "future criminals", that profiling is illegal. If the data is collected for socio-economic scheme or program that data won't be termed as illegal profiling.