Privacy Matters

Privacy India (www.privacyindia.org) invites the public to attend “Privacy Matters” -

a conference on the theme of privacy - to be held on January 23rd at NUJS Law School
in Kolkata. The conference will focus on discussing the challenges to privacy that
India is currently facing. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of
study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g.,
the TRAI Act for telephony or RBI guidelines for banking, India does not as yet have
a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts.
This lack of uniformity has led to ironically imbalanced results. In India today one has
a stronger, legally sanctioned, right to privacy over telephone records – Radiagate
notwithstanding - than over one’s own medical records. The absence of a minimum
guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV
patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. whose rights are
routinely violated with impunity.

The emergence of information and communications technologies over the past two
decades has radically transformed the speed and costs of access to information.
However, this enhanced climate of access to information has been a mixed blessing.
Whilst augmenting our access to knowledge, this new networked information
economy has also now made it much easier, quicker, and cheaper to gain access to
intimate personal information about individuals than ever before. As people expose
more and more of their lives to others through the use of social networks, reliance on
mobile phones, global trade, etc., there has emerged a heightened risk of privacy
violations in India. As privacy continues to be a growing concern for individuals,
nations, and the international community, it is critical that India understands and
addresses the questions, challenges, implications and dilemmas that violations of
privacy pose.

Who We Are
Privacy India was set up in collaboration with The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS),
Bangalore and Society in Action Group (SAG), under the auspices of the international
organization ‘Privacy International.’ Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides
assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies, the media
and the public in a number of countries (see www.privacyinternational.org). Its Advisory
Board is made up of distinguished intellectuals, academicians, thinkers and activists such as
Noam Chomsky, the late Harold Pinter, and others, and it has collaborated with organizations
such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

RSVP : elonnai@privacyindia.org, prashant@privacyindia.org