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KOLKATA: The Indian government will shortly impose hefty penalties on business process outsourcing (BPO) firms that compromise on the data privacy of individual customers. It is likely to tighten the provisions linked to data privacy and data protection in the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, and is working closely with the US to emulate existing global best practices in the realm of data security and privacy, a senior official in the communications ministry told ET. There is a view in sections of the government that the present IT Act, 2000, does not adequately address data privacy concerns of individuals . And hence the need for more stringent legislation by way of penal provisions to effectively deal with companies passing on sensitive personal in-formation of individuals to third-parties without prior consent.

As the government tries to put a legal framework in place for phone-tapping, a 126-year-old law has come to its rescue. Sources in the law ministry say, thanks to a provision in the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 that allows government in public interest to intercept messages, a new law may not be required at all. However, a directive - instead of a new law - may not take care of some of issues on tapping that have constantly been raised by experts. For instance, India is one the few countries, where tapping can be carried out without a court warrant.

MUMBAI: A local metropolitan magistrate's court on Tuesday restrained the media from either publishing or telecasting images related to the CCTV footage of the July 13 triple blasts. Magistrate N J Shende in his order observed, "If identity of the witnesses is disclosed to the public at large, it may hamper the smooth investigation of the case and may cause threat to such persons." "I am of the opinion, in view of the provisions enumerated under Section 44 (of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), in order to safeguard the life of the people and witnesses, the application is allowed," said Shende.

On Wednesday, acting Chief Justice of the high court AK Sikri, while hearing an unrelated case, had asked traffic police to desist from publishing names and photographs of violators on its social networking site as it involved breach of privacy. The court had said that it "may take cognizance" of such action in future.

In the season of phonetaps, comes a startling admission by the Enforcement Directorate that while probing charges of money laundering, it intercepted phone conversations between members of the Singhania group, that runs Kanpur-based LML, and their lawyers. The tap was done just days before a court order was due in the case. The recorded conversations, said ED's counsel additional solicitor general Harin Rawal, raise questions regarding the Allahabad High Court order that stayed the ED probe. In their order, on June 9 last year, a vacation bench of Justice Rakesh Sharma and Justice Shyam Shankar Tiwari had called the ED's investigation "wholly without jurisdiction and contrary to the mandate of FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act)". In the first of his two opinions, on June 21, 2010 - which form the basis of the government's Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court last September challenging the HC stay - Rawal said: "To put it briefly, a couple of days prior to the interim order being rendered by the Honourable Division Bench, a conversation is recorded that would clearly be a reasonable basis to believe that the Honourable Division Bench has passed an interim order on considerations which are other than legal or judicial."

New Delhi: Indian citizens won't be shielded from prying by government agencies if the Union home ministry gets its way with the proposed privacy law. The ministry is insisting that intelligence and law enforcement agencies be kept out of the purview of the proposed Act, and allowed to continue monitoring the activities and carry out electronic surveillance of citizens, officials familiar with the situation said.

"The Madras high court has held that assets details of IAS officers furnished to the government in a sealed cover can be made available under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Inspection of asset details of the officer concerned can be allowed as well, it further held. "

IT is 30 years since a Congress Member of Parliament, V.N. Gadgil, suggested an Act for the protection of privacy, designed, no doubt, to curb press exposure of the wrongdoings of politicians. In reality, it is all but impossible to draft a statute that strikes a fair balance between people's right to know and the protection of a person's privacy. In India, as in the United Kingdom, there is no tort of privacy. India's law of torts (that is, civil wrongs punishable in damages) is based on case law, English and foreign. However, the Supreme Court of India has inferred right to privacy from the ones explicitly guaranteed. Article 21 of the Constitution contains a guarantee of personal liberty and it is obvious that personal liberty also involves the right to privacy.

NEW DELHI: Responding to concerns about breach of privacy due to intercepted phone calls being made public, government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it has taken steps to devise ways to destroy taped conversations that are private