Laws for surveillance in India and the concerns over privacy

The government of India has claimed that all interception in India takes place lawfully in response to the finding by a global collaborative investigative project that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used to target at least 300 individuals in India.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021

Communication surveillance in India takes place primarily under two laws — the Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Information Technology Act, 2000.

While the Telegraph Act deals with interception of calls, the IT Act was enacted to deal with surveillance of all electronic communication, following the Supreme Court’s intervention in 1996.

In Public Union for Civil Liberties v Union of India (1996), the Supreme Court pointed out lack of procedural safeguards in the provisions of the Telegraph Act and laid down certain guidelines for interceptions.