Thank you for commemorating 7 years of Puttaswamy with us at #PrivacySupreme

7 years of Puttaswamy

In 2012, a band of lawyers and activists took to court challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar project and corresponding legislation, arguing across quarters how the UID dream dents the Indian welfare and social security safety net, undermines individual choice and autonomy, and poses threats to a certain ‘right to privacy’ that Indian citizens enjoy by creating a conducive environment for state-enabled profiling and surveillance. A few years later, though the constitutionality of Aadhaar and its grounding legislation would be substantially upheld, the relentless pursuits from across the board to get the state to respect, protect, and fulfill individual privacy as a constitutional right, would not go in vain.

This is because on August 24, 2017, the nine-judge bench would go on to pronounce a unanimous and unequivocal judgment in (Retd) Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India, recognising privacy as a fundamental right and an extension of the right to life guaranteed by the Indian Constitution under Article 21. 

The historic two-part Puttaswamy judgment may not have handed us the outcome we wanted, but it built us a foundation on which to keep fighting our fight towards data empowerment, recognition of privacy as a tenet of dignity and autonomy, and holding the state accountable not only for its attempts to intrude on individual privacy, but also for meeting its positive obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the fundamental right to privacy. The winding 1000+ page judgment gave us substantial judicial interpretation of privacy and bodily autonomy in ways that progress queer rights, gender identity, rights of incarcerated persons, and so on—enriching the fabric of human rights jurisprudence and advocacy manifolds. So while the judgment is not picture perfect, and its effect may be watered down by various externalities (read Retd Justice S Muralidhar’s keynote address to know more), we must still commemorate what Puttaswamy gave us, and forge ahead together as a society to see it be implemented.

To that effect, every year, IFF hosts its flagship event Privacy Supreme in late August to mark the anniversary of the judgment, getting prominent voices in policy, law, technology, gender, caste, and several other disciplines together with the IFF community under one roof to talk all things privacy. We put together panels and dialogues spotlighting contemporary issues in the space and encourage extensive audience interaction. This year was same same but different.

A peek into PS ‘24

Privacy Supreme 2024, held on August 22 (Thursday) at the India International Centre, saw a new format, an illustrious lineup of speakers, and immersive games and art to keep all attendees abuzz. The evening began with a powerful keynote address from Dr S Muralidhar (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India; Former Chief Justice, Orissa High Court). Read the transcript of his speech here.

Our main event for the evening, an unmoderated panel (or UnPanel), had a narrower focus on the ‘Future of Privacy in India’ across six aspects of daily life—AI, love & relationships, health, social security, leisure & loitering, and dissent. Split across two parts and two rounds of audience interaction, our domain experts talked about what privacy looks like in their specific context, the regulatory environment, the impact of the Puttaswamy in shaping conversations, and what the future holds for us. Here’s the lineup and a quick thematic rundown:

• Amber Sinha (Information Fellow, Tech Policy Press) spoke on facets of artificial intelligence that do not get much mention in mainstream conversations—privacy harms of emerging technologies and how we can apply our learnings, and the unchecked use of AI by the state in governance and administration.
• Shefali Malhotra (Research Consultant, Centre for Health Equity, Law and Policy) spoke on health data privacy under our dormant data protection law, vulnerabilities in health data management and flow under existing systems, and the fallacies of our digital health mission.
• Nikhil Dey (Founding Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) illustrated the realities of the Aadhaar project by telling stories from the field about exclusion from pension rolls and other social security schemes, and the exacerbated damaging effect of ‘voluntary mandatory’ schemes for rural India.

• Mihir Samson (Advocate, New Delhi) explored what it means to seek love in an online and increasingly policed state, especially for queer and trans* persons, and the obligations and liabilities of dating platforms in protecting users from and reacting to online gender-based/sexual violence.
• Smriti Parsheera (Research Fellow, Interledger Foundation) spoke about the ‘right to loiter’ and taking up space in public places, the encumbrances in doing so in present-day India from surveillance to policing, and whether the right to loiter can extend to online spaces.
• Dr Anand Teltumbde (General Secretary, Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights) joined us remotely to speak about the value of dissent and free speech in the face of an increasingly shrinking democracy, how the state has long created backdoors and restrictions to speech, and how engaging in dissent can threaten individual privacy.

And there were games!

The IFF team put together interactive games and “commentary” artwork (don’t @ us, MIB) for attendees to partake in. Here is a glimpse of it (and answer keys you may have been waiting for 👀). For starters, we offered zodiac readings for everyone at the registration desk—some sweet, some salty (don’t @ us, geminis)…

We created a rather tricky word hunt—solve the clues, find the words in the grid, and take home a grand prize of one (maybe two) mangobite/melody! Yes, you heard that right, TWO candies—as you can see, IFF has really upped its budget this year. Please help us recover by donating now.

Psst—if you want the solutions to the word hunt, get them here.

We gave you a range of headlines on absurd uses of AI and asked you to pick the fake ones from the real ones (or the fact from the fake). We will admit, this is difficult… because AI use cases are getting weirder everyday, and Indian government departments show no signs of stopping. From AI in food processing to protecting wild animals, we have it all! Peek into the answer key to see which headlines are real and which we made up.

We then asked you to pick India’s new digital public infrastructure (DPI) by drawing chits out of a blackbox—because this is seemingly how the Indian Union government does it. MeitY has preferred a wide (if any) definition for what constitutes DPI, where not only the usual suspects like UPI or ONDC, but anything from DigiYatra to APAAR student ID is being hailed as DPI without subtext or apparently much of a criteria. So we piloted IFF’s homegrown production, ‘Kaun Banega DPI’, to help them out.

But little did we know, our own Executive Director would not be immune to it…

Finally, we ran the inaugural edition of the INDMCCDPSCA. What do you mean you have not heard of this before? It is, ofcourse, the IFF Non-Democratic Meaningless Consultation Closed-Door Privileged Stakeholders’ Choice Awards! 

The time has come, finally, to crown the winners of INDMCCDPSCA for each category. You voted for your picks… but it does not matter because we went ahead and chose winners on an arbitrary undisclosed closed-door criterion anyway (in trademark MIB fashion). Here are the results:

1. Lifetime achievement award nominees: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY); Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to MeitY! 
2. Best shocking Bill introduction award nominees: Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA); Telecommunication Act, 2023; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to DPDPA, because we do not know how to pronounce the last three Bills!
3. Most breached/leaked award nominees: Aadhaar; BSNL; Aarogya Setu/CoWIN. This one was easy, the INDMCCDPSCA goes to Aadhaar!
4. Best worst named law award nominees: Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, 2023; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023; Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. And because we still cannot say these right, the INDMCCDPSCA goes to all three! What even is a sanhita!
5. Best least independent authority award nominees: Election Commission of India; Data Protection Board; Internet Shutdown Review Committee(s); MeitY Rule 7 Committee. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to DPB, because it managed to be least independent before it is even formed or the law behind it operationalised! Guts!
6. Best cinematography award nominees: Staqu Technologies; Parliament Cameras; Delhi RWA (resident welfare association). And the INDMCCDPSCA cannot go to anyone but Staqu because they are likely watching us and might go snitch to their besties, UP police!
7. Nothing to hide award nominees: Pegasus; CERT-In; Draft Broadcasting Bill, 2024; Surveillance orders (Apar v MHA); Electoral Bonds; Sealed cover; Rule 16 Blocking Rules 2009. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to Pegasus, because it can truly ensure we have nothing to hide!
8. Most awaited debut award nominees: ‘Digital India Bill’; Rules for Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. As both are “going to be ready in a month’s time” since May 2023, the INDMCCDPSCA goes to both!
9. Best dialogue award nominees: “In a way, spectrum is similar to atma, which is ajar, amar as described in Shrimad Bhagwad Gita. Like atma, spectrum too does not have any physical form, yet it is omnipresent.” – Draft Telecommunications Bill, 2022; “Better be unique than being best; Aadhaar means unique” – Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (Aadhaar-5 Judge). And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to the Puttaswamy quote, since it’s their sibling judgment’s birthday! 🥳
10. Best performance in a negative role award nominees: Telcos/TSPs demanding for ‘Fair Share’ and ‘Same Service, Same Rules’; Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022; PIB Fact Check Unit. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to the Komolika of net neutrality, telecom service providers!
11. Best worst Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules award nominees: IT Rules, 2021; IT Amendment Rules, 2022; IT Amendment Rules, 2023. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to 2021!
12. Hottest pair award nominees: Ministry of Civil Aviation and DigiYatra Foundation; Ministry of Finance and National Payments Corporation of India; Government Departments and Exemptions under the RTI Act, 2005. And the will they-won’t they INDMCCDPSCA goes to MCA and DigiYatra!
13. Most voluntary mandatory award nominees: Unique Health Identification Number (UHID); Aadhaar; FASTag. And the INDMCCDPSCA goes to our rising star, FASTag!
14. Best AI vedic city award nominees… no, we would not dare. The INDMCCDPSCA goes to Ayodhya because we literally could not find more nominees! Maybe because it’s not a thing!

Thank YOU for making the show a Supreme success

The event witnessed overwhelming participation, with over 400 registrations and approximately 220 attendees. For our audience, which was a mix of technology policy professionals, lawyers, students, journalists, among others, we wished to embark upon a new journey with a new format—and we hope we have been able to encourage conversations, unlock fresh perspectives, and driven you to keep fighting the good fight alongside us to firmly and incessantly protect our privacy.

Privacy Supreme 2024 was supported solely by the generous and ever-giving IFF community with no official sponsors. Any success we achieved with this event is a testament to the unwavering support of our many donors and members. We extend our deepest gratitude to them for standing by us in a time when democracy faces challenges and uncertainties. If you would like to help us cover the costs of this Privacy Supreme 2024 and support similar such events, donate to IFF—it keeps us alive and kicking.

For those who could not join us on Thursday 😥or are eager to relive conversations from the event—not to worry because segmented recordings will soon be available on our YouTube channel and will also be published by our media partner, The Wire. We will update this post and embed the video recording as soon as we have the final edited version!

Privacy Supreme may be over, but our keenness to improve is not (and will never be). Please send any feedback, suggestions, and/or comments our way at events@internetfreedom.in. Until next time!