May 09, 2018 00:00 IST
Data leaks and security breaches have become a part of 21st-century life. However, how organizations — especially the government — react to such events is important in assuring the citizen that this is something not to be condoned and something that must be made more infrequent through greater security. Taking away personal data (for whatever purpose) without the consent or knowledge of the individual is as good as property theft — both are violations of rights and constitute an act of coercion. The theft of information can be humiliating for the person whose data has been stolen. Personal data can be of various kinds and misuse could lead to substantial losses for the owner. This is often not realized.
In India too, data breaches are becoming more common. The reactions of the people who fail to prevent the breach and those of the government and the experts who know how certain security lapses lead to breaches can, at times, be shocking. Some time back, the government of Andhra Pradesh put up on its website the Aadhaar details of a large number of citizens. When the lapse was pointed out, the government hastily removed some of the details, but claimed that it was done to provide transparency regarding beneficiaries of certain publicly-funded projects. The more recent news about the Employees Provident Fund Organisation data breach is even scarier.
Financial details could be widely misused. The government has chosen to remain silent, as have civil service experts. Transparency is not the opposite of privacy. Achieving transparency by the coercive violation of privacy is patently wrong. Silence on the part of the government can only be seen as a gradual and systematic blurring of the lines separating the private and the public spheres. This is an ominous sign; it portends greater control and manipulation on the part of agencies and institutions of the lives of ordinary citizens. Unlike in India, the Equifax data breach — it had taken place in the United States of America last year — had led to a quick apology and beefed-up security.