India's Top Court Rules Privacy a Fundamental Right in Blow To Government

India's top court unanimously ruled on Thursday that individual privacy is a fundamental right, a verdict that will impact everything from the way companies handle personal data to the roll-out of the world's largest biometric ID card program. From a report: A nine-member bench of India's Supreme Court announced the ruling in a big setback for the Narendra Modi-led government, which argued that privacy was not a fundamental right protected by the constitution. The ruling comes against the backdrop of a large multi-party case against the mandatory use of national identity cards, known as Aadhaar, as an infringement of privacy. There have also been concerns over breaches of data. Critics say the ID cards link enough data to create a comprehensive profile of a person's spending habits, their friends and acquaintances, the property they own and a trove of other information. "This is a blow to the government, because the government had argued that people do not have a right to privacy," said Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer involved in the case.

Comments

Amazing

[Nocturrne]

A court in a 3rd world country, full of people that worship cows, is able to make better decisions than the US. Really sad...

Just wondering...

[hyades1]

Is this the first time a large, democratic government has expressly considered meta-data in a ruling?

Re:Just sad

[dunkelfalke]

The two axis system is useful for a more precise classification of the fringe, but for current politics of most of the first world countries one axis usually is enough because that fringe is usually a tiny (albeit vocal) minority. On the two axis system that one axis would run diagonal from the not quite bottom left (where on that picture democratic socialism and anarcho-communism share their border) to the not quite top right (shared border of capitalism and fundamentalism). For USA this axis wouldn't work, though, because the whole left side is missing, but on the right side there is a much larger variety of options. Hence you can take the two dimensional political compass, remove the whole left half and you are good.

Re:"Progressives" pissed off!

[MightyMartian]

Well, first of all I doubt there are that many "progressives" arguing against free speech. Probably there are about the same number as there are "conservatives" who want to ban flag burning.

But as you can see the problem of "natural rights" is not necessarily cut and dried, and really in many respects it's somewhat irrelevant to their application. Prior to 1865, a slave could have all the natural rights imbued by his creator that he wanted, but it did him absolutely no bloody good, as governments in both Free and Slave states seem ill-prepared or outright hostile to the idea that those rights existed or if they did that anything should be done to protect them.

In the end, it's all down to whether the Powers That Be and the polity accept the existence or application of those liberties. In the US, questions of liberties come down to the Constitution, and fortunately, all the players have thus far decided to allow that document and the jurisprudence surrounding it limit their actions. So again, you're down to a consensus in US society that, like it or hate it, the government is self-limiting in this regard. If the government were to turn to tyranny, or was overthrown and replaced by a tyranny, I'm afraid the notion of "inalieable rights" and a dollar could buy you can of pop.

This is why I reject the notion of Natural Law entirely. It's at best a rather wayward philosophical position, at worst it's just simply a theological position masquerading as a philosophical position. But then again, my belief that sentience imbues an individual with some essential freedoms isn't any better, I'm just glad I live in a society where the vast majority of fellow citizens also happen to agree. If I had been a professional Cambodia in the 1970s or a Jew in Poland during WWII, well, my belief wouldn't have done me the least bit of good.