The Surveillance Law Landscape in India and the Impact of Puttaswamy

Abstract

India, like countries across the world, has experienced a growth in the avenues of State surveillance, driven by an expansion in the technical capacity of the State to conduct surveillance and the increased use of electronic communications and information technology tools by individuals. Indian doctrine surrounding the right to privacy represented a patchwork of protections that did not confront this modern paradigm until the landmark judgement by a nine-judge bench of
the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India. The judgement reaffirmed the right to privacy as embedded in the Indian Constitution and provided an analytical framework to evaluate the constitutionality of privacy-infringing measures such as State surveillance, by adopting the proportionality test.

This report harnesses this new conceptualisation of the right to privacy and applies the analytical framework provided by the Supreme Court to assess India’s framework for targeted and modern surveillance programs.

Keywords: privacy, Puttaswamy, surveillance