Tag: right to privacy
12. October 2022
A few days ago a Dutch court ordered a Florida – based company to pay a compensation of 75.000 Euros to an employee. The employee had been fired because he had refused to keep his work computer’s camera on the whole day, as required by the company, being concerned with the fact that this was an invasion of his privacy.
After he was fired he took his former employer to court, suing for wrongful termination; the judges recognized the issue and stated that the American company’s regulation was a violation of the employee’s privacy and were in violation of data protection laws. The worker had already stated his complaint with his employer, also stating that they already could see his shared screen while he was working, and that it was not necessary for him to keep the camera on.
Rather than a matter of personal data protection, this was a matter of the employee’s right to privacy, as stated in Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights: the court argued that the company’s request was disproportionate and intrusive of the worker’s privacy.
According to Dutch law, an appeal is possible for the company within three months of the ruling. In the aftermath of the ruling, the company shut down its offices in Rijswijk, Netherlands, where the plaintiff worked.
29. August 2017
In the past few years, India’s government aimed to build up the world’s largest biometric database, named Aadhaar. So far, more than a billion citizens have been registered to the identity programme, whereby eye scans and fingerprints are collected. In order to make sure that all citizens registered to the Aadhaar database, the government restricted access to government services for those who are not part of the database.
Critics expressed concerns about the implications of possible future data breaches, jeopardising the privacy of more than a billion Indians. It was also feared that the Indian government could use the database for surveillance purposes.
Last week, a nine-member panel of India’s Supreme Court ruled that a right to privacy is a part of article 21 of the Constitution of India. This historic ruling could result in the abrogation of the mandatory enrolment to the Aadhaar database. Furthermore, any future laws aiming at restricting privacy, will now “have to be tested on the touchstone of article 21”. It remains to be seen whether the ruling will also have lasting effects on the civil liberties and the daily life of Indians.
4. August 2017
The Indian Supreme Court has to decide if the “right to privacy” should be considered a fundamental human right.
According to the Wire, a bench of nine justices was set up after several petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of India’s Aadhaar scheme, with some petitioners claiming that the biometric authentication system is a violation of the privacy of Indians. The bench examined over the last two weeks the nature of privacy as a right in context of two earlier judgements. Back in 1954 and 1962 these judgements came to the conclusion that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right. Legal experts expect the judgement in the last week of August.
Times of India reports that the Supreme Court outlined a three-tier graded approach to examine the question whether privacy can be considered as a fundamental right. The Bench therefore configures privacy into three zones. As stated by a justice of the Bench, the first zone could be the most intimate zone concerning for example marriage or sexuality. The state should only intrude this zone under “extraordinary circumstances provided it met stringent norms”.
The second zone would be the private zone. This zone could involve personal data like the use of credit card or the income tax declaration. In this zone, “sharing of personal data by an individual will be used only for the purpose for which it is shared by an individual”, it is further said.
The third zone would be the public zone. This zone should require only minimal regulation. However, that should not mean that the individual would lose the right of privacy, but “retain his privacy to body and mind”.
