With the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 receiving presidential assent, it is only one step away from being brought into force by the government. Once the amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005, is notified, government offices around the country can deny all personal information contained in government records.
With the partial deletion of the wording in Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, citizens requesting information will no longer be able to argue that the information has a nexus to public activity or that the disclosure is justified in the larger public interest.
Any attempt to rollback these amendments, even if the process takes a decade, has to begin with building a consensus on one core issue: that it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to declare informational privacy a fundamental right in the 2018 Puttaswamy case. It was ultimately this declaration of informational privacy as a fundamental right that provided the government with bulletproof legal cover for the amendment to Section 8(1)(j).
At the heart of the right to informational privacy is the requirement of the “informed consent” of the person whose information is to be accessed. The right to information, however, does not work if the government has to secure consent from every citizen before releasing their information under the Right to Information Act.
25/08/2023