August 1, 2015
Basic right
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” said Patrick Henry (“A basic right is in danger”, July 31).
The right to privacy is an integral part of the right to liberty.
The Attorney General had erred in saying that citizens have no constitutional right to privacy. There are apprehensions that citizens have already sacrificed their privacy in favour of a supposedly better life under the Aadhar card. Now, with the government drafting the controversial DNA profiling bill which will collect more sensitive personal data from people, the AG’s argument becomes all the more glaring.
Canada’s federal privacy law has established rules to govern the collection, the use and the disclosure of personal information by commercial organisations. The government must first enact necessary protection laws on the lines obtained in countries like Canada or the EU before drafting the controversial DNA bill.
Kangayam R. Narasimhan,
Chennai