News Analysis India

Tag: privacy

  • Chhattisgarh HC: Recording mobile phone conversations without permission violates right to privacy

    By PTI

    BILASPUR: The Chhattisgarh High Court has ruled that recording the mobile phone conversation of a person without the latter’s knowledge amounts to a violation of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    The HC was earlier this month hearing a petition moved by a 38-year-old woman challenging a family court’s order allowing her husband’s application in a maintenance case pending since 2019.

    The HC observed that the husband recording his wife’s phone conversation without her knowledge amounts to violation of her right to privacy and also the petitioner’s right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    and also the petitioner’s right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    The woman had moved an application for a grant of maintenance from her 44-year-old husband at the family court in the Mahasamund district.

    The man moved the family court seeking re-examination of his wife on the ground that certain conversation was recorded on the mobile phone and he wanted to cross-examine the petitioner and confront her with the conversation recorded on the phone.

    The family court in an order dated October 21, 2021, allowed the man’s application, following which the woman approached the HC in 2022 challenging the family court’s order, her lawyer Vaibhav A Goverdhan said.

    The man was trying to prove before the family court through the mobile conversation that his wife was committing adultery and hence he need not have to pay maintenance to her once they are divorced, he said.

    During the hearing in the HC, the woman’s counsel submitted that the family court had committed an error of law by allowing the application as it infringed on the right of privacy of the petitioner, and without her knowledge, the conversation was recorded by her husband and the same cannot be used against her.

    He quoted some judgments passed by the Supreme Court and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

    On October 5, Chhattisgarh High Court Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey set aside the verdict of the family court.

    “It appears that the respondent (husband) has recorded the conversation of the petitioner (wife) without her knowledge behind her back which amounts to the violation of her right to privacy and also the right of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the HC noted.

    “Further, the right of privacy is an essential component of the right to life envisaged by Article 21, therefore, in the opinion of this court, the learned family court has committed an error of law in allowing the application under section 311 of the CrPC along with the certificate issued under section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act. Accordingly, the order passed by the learned family court is hereby set aside,” it added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

    BILASPUR: The Chhattisgarh High Court has ruled that recording the mobile phone conversation of a person without the latter’s knowledge amounts to a violation of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    The HC was earlier this month hearing a petition moved by a 38-year-old woman challenging a family court’s order allowing her husband’s application in a maintenance case pending since 2019.

    The HC observed that the husband recording his wife’s phone conversation without her knowledge amounts to violation of her right to privacy and also the petitioner’s right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    and also the petitioner’s right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    The woman had moved an application for a grant of maintenance from her 44-year-old husband at the family court in the Mahasamund district.

    The man moved the family court seeking re-examination of his wife on the ground that certain conversation was recorded on the mobile phone and he wanted to cross-examine the petitioner and confront her with the conversation recorded on the phone.

    The family court in an order dated October 21, 2021, allowed the man’s application, following which the woman approached the HC in 2022 challenging the family court’s order, her lawyer Vaibhav A Goverdhan said.

    The man was trying to prove before the family court through the mobile conversation that his wife was committing adultery and hence he need not have to pay maintenance to her once they are divorced, he said.

    During the hearing in the HC, the woman’s counsel submitted that the family court had committed an error of law by allowing the application as it infringed on the right of privacy of the petitioner, and without her knowledge, the conversation was recorded by her husband and the same cannot be used against her.

    He quoted some judgments passed by the Supreme Court and the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

    On October 5, Chhattisgarh High Court Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey set aside the verdict of the family court.

    “It appears that the respondent (husband) has recorded the conversation of the petitioner (wife) without her knowledge behind her back which amounts to the violation of her right to privacy and also the right of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the HC noted.

    “Further, the right of privacy is an essential component of the right to life envisaged by Article 21, therefore, in the opinion of this court, the learned family court has committed an error of law in allowing the application under section 311 of the CrPC along with the certificate issued under section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act. Accordingly, the order passed by the learned family court is hereby set aside,” it added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

  • Woman gets ‘creepy’ messages from Swiggy agent, shares experience on Twitter

    By Online Desk

    Prapthi, a Delhi-based woman, revealed on Twitter that a Swiggy agent has been harassing her by sending ‘creepy’ messages on WhatsApp. She tweeted a screenshot of the message, too.

    Taking to Twitter, Prapthi said: “I’m sure that most women here can relate to this. I got a grocery delivery from Swiggy Instamart on Tuesday night. The delivery guy sent me creepy messages on WhatsApp today. Not the first time, not the last time something like this is happening.” Later, the woman lodged a complaint with Swiggy’s customer service team. 

    “Please do not take harassment allowed by your app lightly,” she told Swiggy, adding that agents knew their clients’ addresses and can put them in a dangerous situation.

    “I’ve been in a position when an incident evolved into a real physical threat as a result of law enforcement agencies’ inaction. So this was a trigger,” Prapthi stated, adding that she will no longer order food late at night or while she is alone at home as a result of the incident.

    Swiggy’s customer service team and the CEO’s office contacted her, stated Prapthi in an update shared on June 15 “They listened to me and informed me that they would take all necessary steps to stop it and learn from it so that it would not happen again,” she wrote.

    Apps such as Swiggy and Zomato use number masking technology — this way, their agents as well as customers can contact each other via calls/texts on the app platform (a data call using the phone’s Internet services) without knowing each others’ phone numbers.  

    Here, the Swiggy delivery agent obtained Prapthi’s phone number because she had placed a voice call to him, and then he messaged her on WhatsApp. “What I’ve understood is that the number masking function works if we use the app each time we call the delivery partner. If we have used the app once to call them and then use our call log to call them again, they see our number”, Prapthi speculated in her Twitter thread.

    Few Twitter users meanwhile encouraged her to report this incident to the police.

  • Algorithms of social media platforms should not violate fundamental rights: Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: No algorithm of any social media platform should violate fundamental rights of Indians, and the laws and jurisprudence would need to evolve continuously to keep pace with the changing nature of internet, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said.

    The remarks by the Minister of State for IT come amid allegations of Facebook’s system and algorithms fuelling hate speech and fake news.

    Recently, revelations by whistle-blower Frances Haugen have led to global concerns that Facebook allegedly put profit before public good, and did not do enough to shed its ‘growth at all costs’ culture that propelled its rise to capture 2.

    91 billion monthly active users globally, including over 400 million in India.

    When asked about what action the Indian government would look at in the backdrop of the allegations made by the whistleblower, Chandrasekhar said there are algorithms that are replacing human intervention and are also prone to failure.

    “We understand that there are algorithms that are replacing human intervention and those algorithms are also prone to failure, which may be just unconscious failure or it could be deliberate bias and that there is a need for algorithms to be designed by these platform that are not infringing the rights of our Indian citizens to Article 14 (non-discrimination), Article 19 (freedom of speech), and Article 21 (right to privacy),” he told PTI.

    These are fundamental rights of Indian citizens and “no algorithm of any platform should be able to violate that, that we are aware of”, Chandrasekhar said.

    Noting that the government is very much aware of the issues of algorithmic bias, Chandrasekhar said he was personally aware about it and had also spoken about the same in 2019 in Parliament.

    There is a “basket of user harm issues” arising every day in online space, the minister said, adding that “there is a need for our laws and jurisprudence to continuously evolve and keep up with the changing nature of the internet and all of the good and the bad”.

    “Now, that is a process that our legal rules and laws, as they evolve, will start addressing like I said, there is a basket of user harm issues that are arising every day. IT Act is from 2008 and 2000. The rules are more recent,” he observed.

    According to him, the government and the IT Ministry understand the constantly evolving nature of cyberspace and the internet, and will continuously engage with industry and users on the issues.

    “We will constantly be trying to evolve a framework where consumers are protected, they find that the internet is safe and trusted for them and that the intermediaries are accountable. This, we will continue to do, and whether it is on algorithms or on any other issue, we will continue to make our efforts in doing that,” Chandrasekhar said.

    Haugen, an employee of the Facebook integrity team until May 2021, leaked tens of thousands of internal documents, including many from employee discussion sites, company presentations and research papers, that have unveiled the inner workings of Facebook.

    She has suggested that Facebook made changes to its “dangerous” algorithms that contributed to divisiveness in society, and realised these tweaks kept people returning to the platform.

    She has also filed complaints against the company with the US securities regulator.

    Following the revelations, the ministry reportedly wrote to Facebook asking for information around the algorithms and processes used by the platform and sought details of steps taken to safeguard users.

    Facebook has recently rebranded itself as Meta.

    As per data cited by the Indian government earlier this year, there are 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers and 21 crore Instagram account holders in the country.

    Earlier this year, India enforced new IT intermediary rules aimed to bring greater accountability for big tech companies, including Twitter and Facebook.

    The rules require social media platforms to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours and set up a robust complaint redressal mechanism with an officer being based in the country.

    Social media companies are required to take down posts depicting nudity or morphed photos within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.

    Significant social media companies — those with over 50 lakh users — also have to publish a monthly compliance report disclosing details of complaints received and action taken as also details of contents removed proactively.

    According to Chandrasekhar, the IT Ministry is also planning a massive outreach next year in the form of a dialogue with public, consumer forums, academia, industry and others on fast-evolving online space and what more needs to be done to ensure that internet is open, safe and trusted.

  • Won’t compel users to accept new privacy policy, WhatsApp tells Delhi HC 

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court on Friday that till the data protection bill comes into force, it would not compel users to opt for its new privacy policy as it has been put on hold.

    WhatsApp also clarified before bench of Chief justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh that it would not limit the functionality for users who are not opting for new privacy policy in the meantime.

    ALSO READ | Delhi HC refuses to stay CCI notice to Facebook, WhatsApp in privacy policy matter

    Appearing for the instant messaging platform, Senior Advocate Harish Salve said, “We voluntarily agreed to put it (the policy) on hold…we will not compel people to accept.”

    Salve said that WhatsApp would nonetheless continue to display the update to its users.

    The court is hearing the appeals of Facebook and its firm WhatsApp against the single-judge order refusing to stop the competition regulator CCI’s order directing a probe into WhatsApp’s new privacy policy.

  • 30-day notice under UP Special Marriage Act optional, says HC

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  In a big relief to inter-faith couples, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ruled that the publication of notice of intended marriages under the Special Marriage Act can’t be mandatory as it violates the right to privacy. 

    The court said publication of such a notice and inviting objections to it, “would be an infringement of the fundamental rights of liberty and privacy”. It is up to the couple to decide whether to publish the notice or not, said Justice Vivek Chaudhary. The single-judge bench passed the order while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by a Muslim woman who had converted to Hinduism to marry a Hindu man.

    The petitioner said her father was not letting her live with her husband. The bench also observed that the publication of notice 30 days ahead of the intended marriage will affect the couple’s freedom to solemnise the marriage “without interference from state and non-state actors.” If the couple did not make a written request for publication of notice, the Marriage Officer “shall not publish any such notice or entertain objections to the intended marriage and proceed with the solemnization of the marriage”, said the 47-page judgment.