Weaponising privacy to curtail the right to know
Weaponising privacy to curtail the right to know
Publish Date: 2026-05-25 11:17:00
Source Domain: www.hindustantimes.com
Five separate public interest challenges to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act now await the attention of a five-judge bench at the Supreme Court. Their resolution will decide whether democracy is to deepen and become truly an enterprise between citizens and administration or drifts the populace into suppression.
It is too often forgotten that the right to know is part and parcel of freedom of expression — the anchor of democratic functioning, which includes accountability, transparency and participation. (HT Archive)
The petitioners argue that under the guise of protecting privacy, the people’s right to access information is being deliberately and unreasonably weakened. For one, a “data fiduciary” — any government, corporation, hospital, university or news organisation — that has collected personal information can now hold it close. That is a separate concern.
The disquiet is over Section 44(3). It allows government-held information to be withheld simply because it is to be treated as “personal”, with no duty to weigh privacy against transparency, accountability or the public’s right to know. The Court itself has framed the central question with admirable precision: What is public data and what is private data — and can information about a person holding public office ever be called private?
The petitioners argue that Section 44(3) is far too broad, fails the proportionality test laid down by the nine-judge bench in Puttaswamy — legitimacy, necessity and minimal impairment — and drives a coach and horses through Article 19(2), which permits only narrow and carefully tailored restrictions on the fundamental right to know.
It strips away the public interest override built into Section 8(1)(j) of the Right To Information Act 2005, which allows personal information to be withheld only where it has no relation to public activity or public interest, or where disclosure would amount to an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Given that…
