Right to Privacy - I See you...

I SEE YOU...

Privacy: noun

·                    A state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people.

·                    The state of being free from public attention.

The simplest words have the toughest practices. Do you peep into your neighbour’s home? Do you keep a watch on people going in and out of your neighbour’s house? Do you check your spouse’s phone? Do you read your sibling’s diary? Do you peep through key holes? (You pervert! Slap yourself.) If you are doing any of these things under the garb of – if it’s happening before my eyes, how can I ignore it? Or my battery died and I needed to make an urgent call so I used my spouse’s phone. Or I need to make sure my sibling is not falling into bad company. Or I was just ensuring the woman wasn’t pouring kerosene all over her self– then, dear human you are invading someone’s privacy.

For the longest time we have let such behaviour pass. With technology making its way into our everyday life we have been reminded time and again that privacy is not a matter of choice, it is not a selective right but is in-fact our fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

If you are the type who thinks that the police should have complete access to a suspected terrorist’s phone, or that the government has the right to access information to “prevent” terrorist attacks, or that the government should have a free hand in dealing with citizen’s information under the garb of strengthening the country’s security, then please feel free to either turn left or right. We are walking a straight path here and you might not like what I have to say. This post may offend some but my intention is to educate.

Today, the world we live in is divided into Androids and Apples and Windows. On social networking platforms we are divided into haves and have nots. (The ones who have a Facebook account and the ones who don’t.) 

In early 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook took a stand. He chose not to weaken the Apple software (iOS) by adding a vulnerability to its software thereby reducing the device’s security making it easier for the government to access the device. This came by after the San Bernardino shooting incident. Why one should applaud Tim Cook’s decision to not comply with the government is simple – He protected every Apple product owner’s privacy in doing so. If a vulnerability was to be introduced it wouldn’t just be on Farook’s phone but on all phones operating on the software. But of course people wouldn’t care about such a thing but they would of course scream about celebrity photos being leaked all over the internet after the iCloud was hacked.  For the not so up-to date with tech news, the celebrity photo leak happened before the shooting incident. Are we all caught up? Okay.

Are you wondering why I am writing this post? Well, we discussed terrorists and we discussed celebrities, let’s get real now. Let’s discuss about people like you and I.

On January 28th there was a news snippet of a man being taken into custody for having violently hit his son. The incident came to light because the mother had taken a video of the entire incident on her husband’s phone (Incident occurred in November 2017). The father’s phone had glitches and he had given it for servicing (In January, 2018). The service guy ended up watching the video and then uploaded the same on social media and this incident caught everybody’s attention. You know what though? Nobody gave a rat’s tail about the fact that the service guy put this video up.

Let us now take a moment and think about instances when we have given any of our gadgets for servicing. Did you have photographs in it? Ah haan? Of a girl who might very well be your sibling or spouse or child. As innocent as the photograph might have been, these make it to ads that say, “Are you lonely, why don’t you chat with Cathy from Mysuru area or find more people in your area?” The person in the photograph never consented for it to be used in this manner. But hey! It happens.

Are you familiar with the famous Mysore mallige video? This was back in the day when smart phones were unheard of and camcorders were the coolest things. Of course any gadget is only as amazing as the person who uses it. In this instance the man videotaped himself and his girlfriend having sex and then gave the same to a video guy to have it written on a CD. (Face palm!) That’s how Mysore became more famous as did the two in the video.

Here is the thing; the guy only had to write the video on a CD. He wasn’t asked to put it on the internet. But he did.

That’s the state of privacy in our country. It doesn’t have to be so, again take a moment and log into Facebook. Look at the ads that appear. They come from your browsing history.(Alright sucker, you use ad block. But why do you use ad block? Exactly!) Facebook is just one big example, there are many more websites that do the same based on your browsing history. What impact this has, has been worded at page 247 and 248 (The judgment has been divided into various sections, the excerpt that I have used was dealt with in Section ‘S’, that talks about Informational Privacy.) of the judgment between Justice K.S.Puttuswamy Vs. U.O.I

“170 Ours is an age of information. Information is knowledge. The old adage that “knowledge is power” has stark implications for the position of the individual where data is ubiquitous, an all-encompassing presence. Technology has made life fundamentally interconnected. The internet has become all pervasive as individuals spend more and more time online each day of their lives. Individuals connect with others and use the internet as a means of communication. The internet is used to carry on business and to buy goods and services. Individuals browse the web in search of information, to send e-mails, use instant messaging services and to download movies. Online purchases have become an efficient substitute for the daily visit to the neighboring store. Online banking has redefined relationships between bankers and customers. Online trading has created a new platform for the market in securities. Online music has refashioned the radio. Online books have opened up a new universe for the bibliophile. The old-fashioned travel agent has been rendered redundant by web portals which provide everything from restaurants to rest houses, airline tickets to art galleries, museum tickets to music shows. These are but a few of the reasons people access the internet each day of their lives. Yet every transaction of an individual user and every site that she visits, leaves electronic tracks generally without her knowledge. These electronic tracks contain powerful means of       information which provide knowledge of the sort of person that the user is and her interests388. Individually, these information silos may seem inconsequential. In aggregation, they disclose the nature of the personality: food habits, language, health, hobbies, sexual preferences, friendships, ways of dress and political affiliation. In aggregation, information provides a picture of the being: of things which matter and those that don’t, of things to be disclosed and those best hidden.”

When you understand the significance of your browsing history the internet becomes a very scary place. So, imagine handing over a gadget to someone you trust to make sure it is functioning properly and he takes complete advantage of it. The repair man is not a hero.

We are idiots. We are idiots to mock others just because a small aspect of their life has become public. We gawk at their discomfort. We pride ourselves for being different. We put our nose in the air and say, that we’d never be that kind of a parent… until you are in the shoes of the victim whose privacy was invaded.

Up next is a slightly “loaded” post on Aadhaar.