“Big Brother is watching”, is the catchphrase of George Orwell’s disturbing dystopian novel, ‘1984’. He had foreshadowed the dawn of a global surveillance state wherein the public had no privacy and all their activities were under watch, most of the times, without their knowledge. The ‘Big Brother’ today is the State and the ‘Ministry of Truth’ are the surveillance networks they have employed to keep a watch on our activities in the digital world.
Privacy matters because human beings are basically Subjective mental beings who enjoy privacy and their private minds. Subjective, I write, because of the fact that all of us enjoy our private lives by virtue of having our own minds. All of us have an identity of our own and what we are and who we are depends a lot on our privacy. We all have something to hide from others, be it our family, colleagues, employer, friends and so on. Now, holding private information does not necessarily mean that it is bad.
Privacy matters because it is a Fundamental Right and the Supreme Court of India also ruled in its judgement this year that the ‘Right to Privacy’ forms an integral part of Article 21(A) under the Right to Life and Liberty under Part III of our Constitution.
Privacy matters because it serves as a guardian of our ability to speak and express ourselves freely without fear. Privacy is, therefore, necessary for the functioning of a Democracy. Whereas an invasion of privacy is justifiable under certain instances where the intention of the invasion is for a general good (for example, invading the social media accounts of terrorist organizations to prevent planned attacks) but this tool must not be used to curb free speech and free-thinking. Many times, authoritarian regimes curb this very freedom like in Turkey and North Korea.
With surveillance and invasion of privacy online, the world will become a ‘Digital Panopticon’ like the one proposed by Jeremy Bentham, where our behaviour will be governed by surveillance.
Comments
Post a Comment