Overarching guidelines needed to guard personal info: SC

The Supreme Court yesterday said that there have to be "overarching" guidelines to protect an individual's private information in public domain to ensure that it was used only for an intended purpose.

A nine-judge Constitution bench, dealing with the contentious issue whether right to privacy was a fundamental right, rejected the plea of a Gujarat government lawyer that misuse of personal information could be dealt with on a "case-to-case basis" and said an all-embracing guideline was needed keeping in mind the size of the population.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar, also referred to the fact that India was a signatory of a 1948 international convention which recognised privacy as a human right. Referring to arguments put forward by the Maharashtra government, the court said, "Even if we accept it that the Constituent Assembly dealt with it (privacy issue) and decided against including it as a fundamental right, then how you will deal with the fact that India is a signatory to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which recognises it."

The bench, also comprising justices J Chelameswar, S A Bobde, R K Agrawal, R F Nariman, A M Sapre, D Y Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and S Abdul Nazeer, said there has to be an "overarching" or all-embracing guideline to ensure that private information, put in public domain, is used only for an intended purpose. "If I give personal information like names, parents' name and telephone numbers for a particular purpose, then a reasonable expectation will be that it is used only for that particular purpose... (Otherwise) how we will deal with the violations?" it asked. On the issue that a large number of people have put their personal information in public domain, it said, "When you have so many users, then you cannot decide on facts of each case. You have to have overarching principles or guidelines to regulate."