Introduction -

From the time we've stepped into this technological world, our privacy has become less crucial than digital privacy. The number of hours we've spent on our smartphones truly resides in the dire need for effective Digital privacy laws. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution mentions the right to life which subsumes further innumerable rights, privacy being one of them. Privacy can be further differentiated into physical and digital privacy. Digital privacy if defined in simple terms would be a fair transfer of files and documents among various devices without any private information being leaked. It is a kind of control exercised over one's business and information. Digital privacy is exercised during communication drills, information sharing, and individual usage. In each of these areas, the privacy regarding the sharing of ideas needs to be kept private.

Digital privacy laws in India -

Talking about India since 2010, there has been a strong public discourse around the need for privacy legislation in India. In November 2010, a “Privacy Approach” paper was released to the public which envisioned the creation of a data protection legislation. In 2011, the Department of Personnel and Training released a draft privacy bill that defined a privacy regime that included data protection, and surveillance and recognized privacy as a fundamental right subsumed under article 21. In 2012 the Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy was published. Presently, the Department of Personnel and Training is drafting the text of the Government's

Privacy Bill -

In 2013, the Centre for Internet and Society drafted the Citizen’s Privacy Protection

• Bill: A  citizen’s version of privacy legislation for India. In 2019 BJP led government introduced The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill but unfortunately it failed to gain the assent of both houses. The new version introduced last year opens up an arena of questions by Opposition lawmakers, technology companies, and advocacy groups. India’s proposed data protection law undermines everyone’s, including children’s, fundamental rights to privacy and security by enhancing the power of the state to conduct surveillance.

Bursting the myth -

Just in case you feel that end-to-end encrypted texts, accepting all cookies or denying, third-party restrictions enabled, private account settings enabled and limited interaction options on various websites and apps are concerned about your safety, I must burst your myth for sure. Data privacy options available on each app or website are just another norm that has to be compulsorily abided by the owner. How much of it is usually maintained is just up to the actual data developers. Recently the Internet is flooded with data breach news from - Us eye clinics suffering data impacting 92000 paints, Toyota, and Cowin app data got leaked by the hackers etc .According to IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, 50 gov websites have been hacked and 8 data breaches took place in 2022. Almost 4.7 million email accounts got breached in India, according to a report by Swedish VPN services company Surfshack making India the 7th most cyber-breached country in the world. The sharp increase in this data breach is because of the lack of a dedicated data privacy law in the country and also the lack of actual awareness among the people regarding data safety measures.

The reality behind data sharing -

When you give some information you own to any of those companies that give you in exchange access to the Internet, you are bound to the above terms and conditions. A maximum number of times we are so lethargic to read data on one page of terms and just simply tick mark the box accepting it. Ultimately the assent that you give to these companies is to use your data in innumerable ways and even share it with various other companies. Outside any contract, there are hackers and governments. They may have access to the information you have given to such companies, without being bound by the terms and conditions you subscribed to. People don’t have a clue about what terms and conditions and privacy policy means to them in terms of how their information will be handled in the due course.

In other words, what you say can be kept secret, but who called or emails must be known. That fact is itself revealing. Broadly, such information is known as metadata.

Likewise with social media sites… the ‘social’ part is there just to grab your attention. This is very effective because the content is very personal and therefore very appealing to their users. Television advertisers can only use statistical methods to determine who is seeing because there’s no actual feedback mechanism — it’s a one-way broadcast but websites can know exactly who is using them, the activity status and the time spent per day on their apps or websites and they can collect a wide range of information.

Hence it can easily be proved that digital privacy is just a myth. Only on papers, laws, records, and statutes is it coded but in real terms there exists a huge gap between the actual service providers and their data safety laws. 

Solutions -

In the physical world, it’s sort of analogous to changing the transportation system to allow people to remove license plates from their cars. So as in the digital world, it's going to be pretty challenging to bring about rigid digital laws. The best solution to keeping that private would be extremely strict laws that prevent the tracking of metadata. That said, with the proper use of the right VPN, a correctly configured browser, and the right encrypted chat and voice apps, one can come remarkably close even today to a safer digital environment. Measures that users falling at the other end of the trajectory need to do are browse securely, use a good Virtual Private Network (VPN) and keep their location access off and not share with every other app. This shields your actual internet location (something called an IP address) from the websites. One must not leave personal information about oneself and generally try to completely exclude the use of payment via the Internet and the like. You need to use VPN with TOR or the anti-detect browser Gologin, this will also help to maintain privacy.

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