My Right Or State's?

The Supreme Court judgment on the right to privacy will have far-reaching repercussions. It will decide whether an individual’s right is larger than that of the State.

- Alam Srinivas

PRIVACY invades almost aspect of our lives. Sadly, slowly but surely, privacy is vanishing out of our lives. You switch on the phone, and the mobile service provider can track your location and movement. You send a text on Whatsapp, change your status on Facebook, and they can track your likes and dislikes, habits and preferences. Your safety and sexual orientation, to a large extent, depends on your ability to invoke and enforce your right to privacy. Other people cannot dictate what you wear, what ideology you hold, and what you eat and drink. 

In most ways, privacy is the individual’s right to make a choice. In theory, and in an ideal situation, it should encompass every choice, be it related to family, gender identity, and surveillance. This is why the nine member constitutional bench of the Supreme court, which decide on the right to privacy, asked in “what areas” will this choice extend to. Hence, a definition of this right, and its specifics, become crucial. The idea about such a right is so “amorphous” that we need to know “its content”, “its contours”, and the obligations that the State has to protect them.

But the moment one defines privacy, one will obviously restrict it. The moment one says that it extends to specific areas, and no more, the definition will be contested there and then, and for decades after that. This is why the bench, headed by chief Justice JS Khehar, in such an attempt may cause more harm than good. It will set in a never-ending momentum that will impact several other laws, acts and rules of the country. In fact, whatever the apex court decides in this case, there will be far-reaching and sweeping effect on several issues being debated today.