The Union government is bringing something called the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and as per this new law, private information will no longer be disclosed in responses to RTI queries.
What private information you ask? Suppose you file an RTI application to find out whether a claim made by a certain government official or minister about having a certain degree is true or not, this petition can now be denied because it is seeking “private information”. As the Internet Freedom Foundation points out:
…the vague definition of “personal information” allows authorities to arbitrarily deny RTI requests, and the amendments threaten previously public data, such as electoral rolls or policy records, by classifying them as private. The DPDP Act risks creating a new version of the Official Secrets Act, where officials can hide essential governance information under the guise of privacy protection.
In a time when asking questions of the powerful is already risky business for members of the Press, such a measure cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to protect the powerful from public scrutiny.
The RTI Act already had robust protections for private information built into it, as pointed out by the IFF.
In its original form, section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act 2005, allowed the withholding of personal information if its disclosure was unrelated to any public activity or interest or would result in an unwarranted invasion of privacy. However, this restriction was subject to an important safeguard: if the Central Public Information Officer (“CPIO”), the State Public Information Officer (“SPIO”), or the appellate authority determined that disclosing the information served a larger public interest, it could still be made available. Additionally, a proviso ensured that any information accessible to Parliament or a State Legislature could not be denied to the public, reinforcing the Act’s commitment to transparency.
Think about that for a moment – a law that gives you – a citizen of India – the same amount of access as the Parliament or the State Legislature. That is the law being diluted. That is what is at risk of being taken away from you.
It is important that you sign this petition asking the government to roll back Amendments to the RTI Act and to repeal Section 44(3) of the DPDPA. And after you have done that, share the petition with other responsible citizens of India. If some of them need videos to make up their minds, send them this reel by Anuj where he points out that not only has this sort of provision been warned against by the Supreme Court of India in the past, there are laws in other countries to make sure such overreach doesn’t get in the way of healthy civic activity.
