Right To Privacy To Boost The Encryption Market In Five Years

Carlos Creus Moreira, CEO, WiseKey who has spent most of his time as a UN expert on IT and eSecurity was recently in India. His visit to India coincided with the Supreme Court’s landmark  judgment on making privacy the fundamental right. Moreira finds the judgment unprecedented and a far cry that will boost the encryption market in India. To justify his point, he compares the judgment with the European Union’s the right to be forgotten which triggered a wave of cyber security in that continent. Here are the excerpts of the interaction:

- Onkar Sharma

How will the Supreme court judgment impact the market and India as economy?

I was the Chief Security Officer for United Nations for 15 years. All my career, I have worked as an expert on IT, eSecurity for UN and other agencies in Europe. Then I created WiseKey, a cyber security company. So my focus has always been in protecting people and entities. Your right to privacy is a fundamental right, which is a human right. Your work, your sexual orientation and your religion are your personal information that should not be shared without your consent with anybody. This should not be communicated either digitally without your consent. Given this, the Supreme Court judgment is a major milestone for the democracy in this country.

Aadhaar, which is a technology-driven project, takes your fingerprints and iris scans but also collects your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like who-you-are, what-you do, where-you-live, etc., which you might not want to share with anyone. In the latest legislation, the European Union has also moved in the same direction of providing the fundamental right of being forgotten or the right to disappear. It means if one day you choose not to be any more on the internet for various reasons such as retirement or adopting an ascetic’s life, etc., you could do that.

Is it possible to implement the Supreme court’s judgment while everything is on the web and users do not have control over their information on social networks?