Zeitgeist Of Individual's Right To Privacy: Peeping Through The Data Protection Framework

The normative foundation of the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 (hereinafter referred to as "Data Protection framework") is the outcome of the judgment passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India¹. That vide the said judgment right to privacy has been recognized as a fundamental right emerging primarily from Article 21 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court vide the aforesaid judgment clarified that the right to privacy is not an absolute right and that a person's privacy interests can be overridden by competing State and individual interests.

In 2011, i.e. before Justice Puttaswamy judgment (supra) judgment, the Government propounded the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices And Procedures And Sensitive Personal Data Or Information) Rules, 2011 (hereinafter referred to as the SPD Rules), were issued under Section 43A of the IT Act. The said Rules read with Section 43A of the Act,