Informational privacy can’t be a fundamental right: A-G

New Delhi: Attorney General K.K. Venugopal on Thursday asserted in the Supreme Court that  “informational privacy” can never be a fundamental right.

The A-G made this submission before a nine-judge Constitution Bench comprising the Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde, R.K. Agrawal, Rohinton Nariman, A.M. Sapre, D.Y. Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and S. Abdul Nazeer, hearing the issue whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right or not.

When justice Chandrachud told the A-G that America lagged behind Europe in protecting informational privacy, Mr Venugopal reiterated that the right to privacy could not be determined without taking into account cultural and environmental norms, which he held the US courts had done and that India should not imitate foreign jurisprudence.

Justice Chandrachud expressed the need to determine what kind of data gets protection under privacy laws, which in turn brought up the question of balancing compelling state interest and legitimate state interest. To the A-G’s subsequent argument for the consideration of legitimate state interest (with which justice Chandrachud and Nariman refused to agree), justice Chandrachud observed that one area of concern for all us here is that the need for robust data security mechanisms.

Referring to the calls received daily on mobile phones, the judge pointed out as to why the data are provided to service providers when the data is shared between the state and the individual.