Abstract

Privacy is an inalienable right which gives true meaning to human existence. Today, we are living in a world where every private act whether in seclusion or in public- is a share or tweet away from becoming content for public consumption. In such a scenario, law ought to emerge as the saviour- in letter as much as in spirit. A monumental judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court which reinforced the right to privacy of individuals and upheld it as a fundamental right was Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2019) 1 SCC 1. However, while the K.S. Puttaswamy Judgment recognized the right to privacy of individuals, it fell short of advocating for this right in public spaces, perhaps due to lack of adequate statutory backing. It is thus observed that while actions under tort law and criminal statutes do exist, in the Indian legal paradigm, there are no specific tests or standards to measure breach of privacy in day-to-day life, eg. in scenarios where one is simply walking down the road, sitting in a metro or even if one is a celebrity stepping out for chores. In this light, practices in countries like UK, Brazil and Argentina where even publication of pictures without consent is a civil infraction must be studied. A more progressive approach adopted by the House of Lords is the twin test of reasonable expectation of privacy and the balancing of the aim of publication against the proportional harm caused. It is critical that the ever-blurring lines between home and public spaces are factored in by legislators and courts alike, especially with the takeover of technology. After all, the right to privacy rests in a ‘person’, not in a ‘place’.

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