{"id":177175,"date":"2022-04-01T20:51:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T15:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=177175"},"modified":"2022-04-01T20:51:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T15:21:07","slug":"this-is-a-criminal-attack-on-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/this-is-a-criminal-attack-on-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"This is a criminal attack on privacy\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/span><\/b>: Recently, the\u202fCriminal procedure (Identification) Bill 2022<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>was introduced in the parliament by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Bill aims to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 that has been in need of amendment for several decades.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What has been proposed in the bill?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The <\/span>definition<\/span><\/b> of <\/span>measurements<\/span><\/b> has been proposed to be broadened.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/strong> It would include new techniques like iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples etc.\u201d in addition to behavioural measurement like signatures\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/strong> The definition has also allowed the police machinery to do <\/span>analysis <\/span><\/b>of the<\/span> measurement<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Data capture and \u2018choice\u2019<\/span><\/b>: <\/span>The proposed bill allows the police and prison officials to take measurements of all persons who are placed under arrest. It will include those who are arrested for petty crimes like a traffic violation, etc.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, at present, data is collected only of convicts or persons arrested for an offence which is punishable with a minimum of one year\u2019s imprisonment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Storage of Data<\/span><\/b>: <\/span>It allows the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to collect data and maintain it as a digital record for a period of 75 years. It will be used for prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of any offense\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the issues in the proposed bill?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The Bill was neither put up for <\/span>pre-legislative consultation<\/span><\/b>. It was also not indicated in the legislative agenda in the Parliament session.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposed Bill states that a person, <\/span>\u201cmay not be obliged to allow taking of his biological samples\u201d.<\/span><\/b> It means it <\/span>offers a choice<\/span><\/b> to a person to refuse to give biological samples. <\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/strong> Firstly, this \u201c<\/span>choice<\/span><\/b>\u201d is limited to \u201c<\/span>biological samples<\/span><\/b>\u201d. It is not applicable to \u201c<\/span>iris and retina scan\u201d.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

–<\/strong> Second, the person can exercise his choice only if a police officer confers such a choice to a person. It means, a <\/span>police officer has discretion<\/span><\/b>. It can lead to misuse of discretion.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposed bill does not talk about the <\/span>manner<\/span><\/b> in which the records will be used for preventing crime. In fact, it means it may lead to surveillance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It may lead to the development of <\/span>parallel databases<\/span><\/b> of the \u201cmeasurements\u201d by the law enforcement agencies. For example, <\/span>Rajasthan<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>Punjab State Police departments<\/span><\/b> already have such databases. The proposed law has also not been linked to a centralised database called as the <\/span>Crime and Criminal<\/span><\/b> Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS<\/span><\/b>) which is operated by NCRB.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Absence of a data protection law<\/strong> means the database will suffer from weak enforcement.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Once an <\/span>innocent person<\/span><\/b> or the <\/span>masses who lack social and economic power<\/span><\/b> in Indian society enter their \u201cmeasurements\u201d within the system, they will be subjected to it almost for their entire life. For example, <\/span>Pardhi Adivasi community <\/span><\/b>which was once designated as a criminal tribe has continued to face preventive surveillance and predictive policing based on caste-system for centuries.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The Supreme Court of India pronounced \u201c<\/span>Right to privacy is a fundamental right<\/span><\/b>\u201d in the <\/span>Puttaswamy judgment<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, the <\/span>legislature<\/span><\/b> and the <\/span>executive<\/span><\/b> have the responsibility to protect the fundamental right to privacy.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This protection is important to prove that India is a <\/span>constitutional democracy<\/span><\/b>, rather than a mere <\/span>electoral democrac<\/span><\/b>y.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/b>: The post is based on an article \u201c<\/span>This is a criminal attack on privacy<\/span><\/b>\u201d published in The Hindu<\/strong> on 1<\/strong><\/span>st<\/strong> April 22<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Recently, the\u202fCriminal procedure (Identification) Bill 2022 was introduced in the parliament by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs. The Bill aims to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 that has been in need of amendment for several decades.\u00a0 What has been proposed in the bill?\u00a0 The definition of measurements has been… Continue reading This is a criminal attack on privacy\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-177175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704763007},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}