Advocacy For Youth Privacy Laws and Policies in India

Real world existed before the invention of computers and internet, where people met other people in physical world, which is not the case anymore, the invention and advancement of internet, has divided the world is into two parts firstly, a real physical world and secondly the virtual world, which is becoming the only world for the youth now a days. The privacy of a person as defined by many come to one conclusion that one shall be allowed to do whatever he wants to do within the boundaries of law. Privacy is the right to be left alone or to be free from misuse or abuse of one’s personality. Now hopping onto Youth Privacy, it can be defined in the contemporary world with high Technological advancements, as it relates more to online privacy and protection of data in the world of internet which is not limited to online modes but also stretches to the physical privacy. The privacy if internet was not existing would have concerned and limited to physical privacy and the ambit of the same would have been narrow but situation is not the same as earlier. Technological advancements in India started to peak during and post covid-19 period. Now in India there are almost 1.14 billion subscribers of network including the non-active ones. Assuming 10% non- active subscribers, this reduces to 1.03 billion active subscribers which means a very large population of India is now connected to the Internet. The Right to Access Internet was declared as the fundamental right under article 19(1)(a) of Part III of Indian Constitution in the case of Anuradha Bhasin & Anr v. Union of India and Ors. This clearly shows that person enjoying its one fundamental right might lead to breach of another right. The paper focuses on discussing the term “Youth Privacy” and analyse the importance of it in todays era Across the globe. The paper mainly focuses on the existing legislation on the digital privacy and privacy as a right. It further extends to suggest some advancement that can be made in the laws existing as well as any law which required to be legislated by the Parliament of India in near future. This paper aims to connects dots between Youth Privacy and the technological advancement and their safeguarding. The Youth need more and strong statutes for protecting themselves in both the world i.e., real and virtual world. The State need to make more laws to regulate the access of personal information available online on different platforms and segments.