Snooping authorise hold to account

Snooping authorise hold to account

Some people’s privacy will need to be breached.

The controversy over the snooping software Pegasus being embedded in the WhatsApp application of some activists and individuals should not go waste. This is the right time to put in place a proper system of authorisation and accountability for official snooping. In an ideal world, neither the State nor any private individual has any business to invade a citizen’s privacy. But we do not live in an ideal world. Individuals and organisations that pose a threat to the safety of other individuals or to the security of the State and the people abound. It is the responsibility of the State to place such people under surveillance, including by monitoring their communications with all means possible. The point is not to dispute this, but to ensure that this facility is not misused by the State and its functionaries for any illegitimate reason.

Right now, the situation is quite murky. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that electronic snooping is carried out only when senior civil servants authorise such a move. This is the position, in theory. However, snooping has been a widespread activity, much of it without any proper authorisation. That reports had emerged of electronic listening devices in the office of former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee or that the Niira Radia tapes had dominated the public discourse for weeks on end testify to both the prevalence of snooping and to huge holes in the integrity of the system to make sure only authorised snooping takes place. India could take some useful lessons from the US in this regard. Any act of placing anyone under surveillance requires a judicial order. And an account of the snooping carried out and its results must be placed before a committee of the legislature dealing with intelligence.

The draft law on data protection produced by a committee headed by Justice Srikrishna left breach of privacy by the State for reasons of security to be dealt with by a separate law. It is time to talk about that separate law, come out with a draft, and after taking on board inputs from wide consultation, legislate it.