A Petition has been moved before the Supreme Court of India, challenging the lack of regulations and the sorry state of affairs regarding cyber crimes and bullying, data breaches, and online hate campaigns. ( Shubham Awasthi Vs. Union of India ).
In the Petition, Adv Shubham Awasthi has remarked very categorically that the Government is focused on Digital India and has been trying to champion it in recent times, which increases security challenges in digital space, using secure software, applications, and portals. Programs like ‘Digital India’ cannot succeed in achieving their objectives unless all government departments take collective action to ensure real e-governance. For that, e-security has to be a critical element of this drive. So far, cybersecurity in India has not received the attention it deserves.
As the cases of data breaches and cyber-attacks are enhancing day by day, the digital future is already here. Nearly every aspect of our lives has become digitized. We must ensure that laws and policies are based on fundamental rights. Laws must enable us to satisfy our basic needs and flourish while offering protection against the abuse of power. It will be not wrong to state that there may be no resource as powerful or as vulnerable as data in the modern era.
The Petition is moved by Adv. Shubham Awasthi. The Petition was pending and is now being listed on 15th November, 2021. The Petition is another in the line of Public Interest Litigation filed by Adv. Awasthi to make India a better place.
In the Petition filed through Adv Vivek Narayan Sharma, the Petitioner has prayed for the practices of new and efficient data privacy policy laws to prevent the violation of privacy against an individual and has direct to formulate new guidelines for the creation of mechanisms to counter hacking, data theft, allied issues and creation of robust cyber cells in every district for proper grievance redressal, tracing the perpetrator of online crimes and vitriol spewing trolls to name a few. It is quite pertinent to mention here that the Public Interest Litigation seeks to address all the significant problems with hacking, data breaches, cybercrimes and has tried offering solutions and measures to be adopted amongst other things. What is noteworthy is that the Petitioner has mentioned while talking about the changes in our society that, “at the same time, the law must be acutely aware of the views of Indians, particularly the common man and woman, perhaps new to data but with clear views on right and wrong, benefit and harm.”
On 12th November 2021, CDS General Bipin Rawat also said that Cybercrimes in India during the pandemic went up by 500 percent. He also added that Data Protection Bill needs to be cleared soon as Data Theft has become a common crime.
