“Privacy is not something that I'm merely
entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite.” – Marlon Brando
The Information
Age
Welcome
to the age of Big Data. Welcome to an era where omnipotence is proportional to
the amount of information you command. Welcome to an era where the
establishment and the corporate houses know your choices and preferences better
than yourself. They already know what you want to buy, what you want to own, where
you want to travel and what financial transactions you are involved in. There
is nothing to hide as everything you do today is quantified and collated inside
servers that are thousands of miles away from you. Scary isn’t it? One might
even relate to the idea of Skynet
featured in a successful film series called Terminator
featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Of course the omnipresent and super powerful
search engine today known by a different name is the obvious reference here.
Furthermore
the amount of data that is collected everyday is astounding to say the least.
As per Eric Schimidt, CEO of Google, the amount of data collected between the
genesis of human civilization and 2003 is nearly equal to the amount of data
which is collected every two days in present times. Now that’s some statistics
which will sweep you off the floor. All this data is floating over the internet
most of which is unsecure and can lead to vulnerabilities of various sorts.
Moreover, this data set is here to stay and would probably keep us in doubt for
eternity. This creates the risk of Identity
thefts, Cyber crimes and cyber espionage. And these are not just
lethal-appearing phrases, they are considerably lethal.
Need for
Transparency
From
this very apprehensive picture of big data, emanates the question of
transparency. Transparency is the practice of having everything out in the open
for all to see be it the policy decisions, be it the records created for
government services or be it anything else. In fact, World Bank defines
transparency as one of the crucial features of Good Governance. Now a day’s
transparency is one of the prime parameters on which the effectiveness of a
government is measured. With the advent
of the Right to Information almost
everywhere in the world, the governments are being forced to be more proactive
in information dissemination to avoid such unwanted litigation.
The
struggle for Right to Information in India started in the form of a social
movement to unveil the red carpet and to look beyond it. The Mazdoor Kisaan
Shakti Sangthan (MKSS) was one of the key factors which forced the government
to open up the vogue of secrecy. This organization under the leadership of
Aruna Roy was looking into the non-payment of wages to workers in Rajasthan and
started demanding the right to see and verify the government records in this
regard. In her paper titled “Fighting for the right to know in India”[1],
she describes how the locals are planning for a dharna in a busy market town of
Beawar, in central Rajasthan. It takes form of a procession and moves through
the town roads like a snake eventually culminating into a protest in front of
the office of the local authorities.
Such movements against local authorities started to come in vogue at
several other places as well. It was as if a wave had struck aiming to demolish
the veil of secrecy. One thing led to another and suddenly people wanted to see
more of what the governments are actually doing on records. And hence was born
the movement for Right to Information.
The
latest paradigm in the evolution of Public Administration is of e-government[2]
or Digital era governance as it is popularly referred to in administrative
journals. This Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform has
empowered the citizens and at the same time has provided the Governments an
avenue to realize transparency. Within a blink of an eye, a draft bill can be
uploaded and eventually can be seen and deliberated upon by millions of
citizens. The comments and suggestions can easily be captured by creating
online forums. Citizens can be made aware and sensitized about various
programmes and issues through this medium. If not for this instrument, it would
have been utterly difficult to realize the idea of transparency.
Predicaments to
Transparency
But
every rose comes with its own thorns. Transparency and big data are great idea which
seem to be good intentioned as well and are possibly quintessential in this
global age. But there are certain components which have the potential of being Orwellian which refers to those elements
which are destructive for a free and open society, a term coined after George
Orwell. We all know who Edward Snowden is and we all are aware what he stands
for. As per the claims made by him, US government and it’s agency named NSA were
allegedly snooping on individuals to the extent which no one can ever imagine.
This is apparently being done very secretively without letting anyone know even
a little thing. The whole episode has sent shock waves across the world and has
made citizens from various other countries aware about their right to privacy
and the iron fist forced upon them by the governments.
To
understand this in our national dimension, let’s take the illustration of RTI
in India. We all know the good side of it so would be redundant to mention it
here. But also one needs to understand the flip side to it. As per certain news reports, every year
nearly 30 RTI activists are either killed, criminally intimidated or beaten.
Nothing is being done to protect the identity of the whistleblowers. Without
doing the same how do you expect people to come forward and make their case
heard. It is very obvious that they would rather chose to be silent than being
made silent in a not so good way. And why are we moving so slow to protect the
whistleblowers, you just need to realize those who are to make the call are the
ones most likely to get affected.
The
other example is that of the UID project. Again prima facie, you would think of
it as a brilliant proposition that would eliminate the duplication of the
identity cards which we have to get from a myriad government departments. The
idea to link it to our accounts is even more brilliant. But among the general
apprehensions surfacing today is that our bio-metric stats are not stored with
the best of security framework and the risk of identity theft is imminent and
ever present. People would like to know what layers of security are being
provided and how safe their personal identities are. But nothing particular has
been done to mend the trust deficit in this regard and that can prove a costly
affair later on.
Privacy Vs
Transparency
All
these above discussed cases hint at an ongoing debate between Privacy and
Transparency. To those well versed in Indian Polity would easily relate it to
the debate between Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties. Some sections
assert the prominence of the former and others opine that the later are equally
important and relevant. Can some rights be compromised to realize a particular
duty? Can some duties be neglected to fulfill a particular right? These are
difficult questions with not a single correct answer. Both are relevant at
their places and a fine balance needs to be struck when they come face to face.
And every single situation would have its own unique solution. Imposition of
generalizations would be a futile exercise.
On
the same lines we need to understand that both are relevant in their own frames
and a fine balance is what we should aim for. This answers the compatibility
question between the two. Now the only dilemma left is that of how to strike
that balance. One school of thought believes that the yardstick should be of “Public Interest”. Whenever there is
predicament on the question of a compromise between privacy and transparency,
we ought to see what is best in the larger interest of the people. There would
be times when the levels of transparency would have to be reduced and there would
be times when the Right to Privacy shall be curtailed to some extent.
Right to Privacy
Bill[3]
This
brings us to the question that is anything being done in India to facilitate
the much talked about Right to Privacy. A very detailed bill was drafted and
has been discussed in the pubic circles for years but it is still to see the
light of day. The basic purpose of this act is to protect the citizens against
the misuse of data by the government authorities. To obtain various services and licenses,
citizens have to present certain personal vitals and records to the respective
departments. All such records then stay with those departments and at times
some confidential information lies at the risk of being compromised. As of now,
the bill targets all the citizens only but the other question being shall it be
expanded to cover all residents? Besides it also deals with the delicate
phenomenon of interception by Intelligence agencies.
Now
one needn’t debate on the relevance of such agencies as they are paramount
considering the question of internal security. What one needs to debate is that
the bill also pondered upon the possibility of giving a blanket exemption to
such Intelligence agencies. Now as Lord John Acton had said, “Power
corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Ergo we must think of
certain safeguards to prevent the abuse of such raw power. Such blanket
exemption should only be given in rarest
of rare cases which pertain to the national interest but of course it would
be very difficult to prove such urgencies. But the difficulty in the provision
of safeguards should never be an excuse for absolutism. In this regard, the
bill also proposes the constitution of a Data Protection Authority (DPA) which
would also be mandated to prevent the stealing of personal information.
Another
debate that is parallel and ongoing is that whether this Right to Privacy can
be said to be derived from the Right to life and personal liberty as provided
by Article 21. Various judicial pronouncements can be sighted to substantiate
this argument. A recent Supreme Court bench while deciding on a matter
pertaining to privacy went on to say that “If a man is not safe in his own house, then what remains in
Article 21 (right to life and liberty)? Where is the liberty then? If privacy
is not there in liberty, then what else can be there?” Looking at it from an individual’s
perspective, there might be certain private vitals which they consider disturbing
to be made public and hence the correlation can be made. Another line of
thought which has been coming up is that rather than monitoring all the
citizens why not only monitor those who are part of the power hierarchies.
These are the people who are at positions where such abuse is possible so why
not limit the sample to them. Intriguing thought indeed and I am sure the
future stakeholders would be coming up with an amicable solution. But the
counter view presented is that when it is also about ensuring internal security
of the nation and for this there can be no compromises and a zero tolerance approach
has to be adopted.
To
understand the importance of privacy it would be apt to quote long time privacy
activist Simson Garfinkel. In his work Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in
the 21st Century[4], he tries to argue why people are so particular about their privacy. On
this note he goes on to say
“Privacy is about self-possession, autonomy, and
integrity…. Over the next fifty years we will see new kinds of threats to
privacy that don’t find their roots in totalitarianism, but in capitalism, the
free market, advanced technology, and the unbridled exchange of electronic
information.” This very statement presents the whole worldview which we
discussed above in a very concise and precise way that speaks for the need to
have privacy. Some people argue that they don’t care about Privacy as they have
nothing to hide. Edward Snowden smartly compared it to the situation where
people do not care about Freedom of expression because they have nothing to
say.
Now the question comes how to evaluate whether
the model designed by us balances the elements of privacy and transparency. A
better way to understand this would be to take an organization as a reference
point. The work Privacy Payoff offers us
a great tool to determine how a particular company is performing in terms of
the local information policies and how well they manage customer privacy. They
refer to their tool as the “Privacy Diagnostic Tool Workbook which
keeps in mind these basic privacy principles such as limiting the collection,
disclosure, duration of retention of records etc.” Moreover they also provide a
questionnaire pertaining to “Privacy Impact Assessment” which is
turning out to be an excellent tool for figuring out whether the novel technological
solutions deployed by that company are privacy compliant or not.
Now taking a global perspective on privacy laws,
the difficulty is that every country has a different set of Privacy laws and
this becomes a big issue for the Multi-national corporations (MNCs) and to
clear this legislative jungle, this work by IT experts Albert J. Marcella Jr.
and Carol Stucki titled as “Privacy Handbook: Guidelines, Exposures, Policy Implementation,
and International Issues”[5] proves to be an
oasis in a desert. Full credits to the makers of this work for trying to
accommodate almost all the countries irrespective of their sizes and
influences. This in fact became a big issue when several big American firms
were asked to comply with the European privacy norm in order to continue their
businesses in Europe. Such situations arose with other companies as well in
several other nations which eventually led to the development of this kind of a
study.
As we move forward in the digital age where freedom and
privacy have become ultra important for all individuals, the industry is
gearing up to use this as a marketing propaganda. Or rather this has already
materialized in certain ways. Brands are being made and popularized using
privacy as a prop. Internet Service Provider (ISP) company Earthlink were
floating a funny commercial accusing other ISPs of sharing and leaking personal
information. A similar project was launched by Microsoft titled as Trustworthy
computing. This is indeed a smart move to have an early grab as it is almost
certain that the Privacy movement is going to get global and is going to
succeed not very far from now.
Having understood the relevance of both Privacy and
Transparency in modern times, now we need to cautiously craft a sturdy
framework that can sustain both these components simultaneously eventually
laying a strong foundation upon which we can build a civilized society. As we have already agreed that transparency is
one of the core democratic values which we cannot do away with. What we need to
keep in mind is that such information which are pivotal to the strategic and
security interests of the country should be dealt with in a secured and sophisticated
manner to avoid any mishaps.
On the other hand, we need to give due recognition for a
Right to Privacy and we ought to make sure that we move forward in a
mission-mode approach for its realization. As we advance through the various
paradigms of Public Administration, we have moved from New Public
Administration (NPA) to New Public Management (NPM). That represented a
transition from rowing to steering. But the future which belongs to the
empowered and aware citizenry demands the paradigm of New Public Service (NPS)[6]
which requires the authorities to move from steering to serving. And in this
light, the Right to Privacy becomes even more crucial that one could imagine.
Once upon a time, Thomas Hobbes conceptualized the legendary
“Social Contract Theory” so that there could be order and not chaos in the
society. Today to build a civilized society in this global information age, we
need another social contract between the citizenry and the establishment which
calls for a fine balance between the Privacy of citizens and the Transparency
in governance. With the realization of one such contract, thou shall see the
rise of Good Governance. We started with a wonderful quote on Privacy and we
end with an equally sublime quote on transparency having come full circle.
“I've
come to learn there is a virtuous cycle to transparency and a very vicious
cycle of obfuscation.” – Jeff Weiner
References
1.
Fighting for the
right to know in India – By Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey
2.
Reinventing
local governments and the e-Government initiative – By Alfred Tat-kei ho
3.
Right to Privacy
Bill on Centre for Internet and Society’s website.
4.
Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century by Simson Garfinkel
5.
Privacy Handbook: Guidelines, Exposures, Policy
Implementation, and International Issue by Albert J. Marcella Jr. and Carol Stucki
6.
New Public
Service by Robert Denhart and Janet Denhart
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