May 2016 12

The Need for a Dedicated Privacy Legislation in India: Next Steps

Cosntitution Club of India, Rafi Marg, New Delhi

The panel discussion is being hosted by Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrashekhar, in association with Software Freedom Law Centre. It seeks to bring together experts from civil society, academia, the private sector and the government to deliberate on the need for a horizontal privacy protection. Anja Kovacs of the Internet Democracy Project is one of the panelists.

The discussions would cover two themes-

a) Balancing the concerns of National Security and Safeguarding Citizen’s Privacy

The panelists discussing this would be-

  • Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of Parliament
  • Usha Ramanathan, Legal Researcher
  • Saikat Datta, Journalist, Expert on National and Cyber Security
  • Dr. Anja Kovacs, Director, Internet Democracy project
  • Representative, Data Security Council of India

b) Taking from Global Experience, formulating the essential elements for India’s privacy framework

The panelists discussing this would be-

  • Apar Gupta, Lawyer and Internet activist
  • Prasanth Sugathan, Counsel for SFLC​.in
  • Sharad Sharma, CEO, Brand Sigma and Co-founder iSPIRT
  • Prasanna S, Lawyer

Through these conversations, the panels would examine best practices from privacy-aware regimes, the limitations of collection, retention and disclosure of personal information of citizens in providing intelligence insights, along with discussing what encroachment upon privacy could be legitimate as States look into national security concerns and emergency situations.