Privacy concerns grow in India
By Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post, February 3, 2012
NEW DELHI--The Indian government's recent announcement that it taps nearly 300 new phones every day has sparked a debate about privacy in a country that traditionally views such concerns as an ugly offshoot of Western individualism.
Indians tend to stress identities of family and community over any others. But a growing desire for privacy and what many say is a government assault on it are creating tension in this nation of 1.2 billion people.
The reasons for the shift, experts say, include changing family structures and lifestyles among the urban middle class, as well as a mass media explosion and the Internet, just as the government has begun tapping more phones and using surveillance cameras in more public places.
The constitution does not guarantee a right to privacy here, nor does the country have a data protection law to guard against the misuse of personal information. But the government has proposed a wide-ranging privacy law, and a coalition of organizations and activists, including the newly formed advocacy group Privacy India, is trying to help shape it. The groups and officials are discussing the issue at a national conference in New Delhi this week.
"An enormous amount of information about us is being collected. Not only are the phones being tapped, but taped phone conversations are leaked to the media and Internet. All this is making people nervous," said Apar Gupta, a partner in the New Delhi-based law firm Advani & Co. who participated in sessions about the law.
In a crowded nation where large families live in cramped spaces--adult children often living with their parents, for example--there has been little insistence on personal space and privacy. Passenger lists, including name, gender and age, are posted on the outside of train cars. Students' names and grades are pasted on the walls of high schools and colleges. Sustained eye contact and staring are acceptable public behavior. And a 10-minute conversation with a stranger can seamlessly lead to questions about salary, caste and religious affiliation.
"We are culturally trained to say, 'It is not about me.' But now public discussions about privacy are beginning to come up every time there is an attack on it," said Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Information Technology in New Delhi, who is conducting a survey on Indians' perceptions of privacy. "What is changing is that Indians are beginning to demand privacy protection for the information they share digitally, even though they are still not able to articulate a demand for privacy within the families and communities."
A flurry of developments in recent years have raised concern here, including sting operations conducted by TV news networks targeting politicians; secretly recorded cellphone videos of ordinary people as well as celebrities; and the release of taped phone conversations, usually involving politicians, corporate lobbyists, journalists and businessmen.
Even a government program to collect biometric and personal details of more than 600 million Indians by 2014--and link the database to welfare programs, banks and hospitals--has come under a cloud after a parliament panel and activists questioned the exercise in the absence of an effective privacy and data protection law.
But perhaps the biggest concern here is government surveillance of ordinary citizens.
Not unlike in the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, India has undertaken a massive overhaul of its surveillance capabilities since attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. India has bought a variety of interception equipment, officials say, and has given its intelligence agencies unlimited powers to bug phone calls and e-mail.
Last week, Mumbai officials announced that they plan to blanket the city in London-style surveillance by adding 6,000 new cameras to the existing 400.
"We understand we need it for security, but they will be collecting horrendous amounts of data about our lives. What will they do with it? Who will keep it? And for how long?" asked N.S. Nappinai, a Mumbai-based lawyer who favors making the government privacy bill tougher. "Are we going to be policing the police all the time?"
