Orissa HC brings up right to be forgotten

Orissa HC brings up right to be forgotten

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  24.11.2020

For the first time, a constitutional court talked about social media users’ right to be forgotten and said that at present, the law was silent on the remedy for victims of sexually explicit videos/pictures often posted on social media platforms by spurned lovers to intimidate and harass women.

“No person, much less a woman, would want to create and display grey shades of her character. In most of the cases, like the present one, women are the victims. It is their right to enforce the right to be forgotten as a right ‘in rem’,” said Justice S K Panigrahi of Orissa High Court on Monday.

HC: Victim can’t keep looking for fresh links

A victim of objectionable online content cannot be expected to keep on looking for fresh links, Delhi HC said while hearing a plea that a woman’s photograph was being wrongly shown on social media as the Hathras rape victim.

HC: No law that recognises right to be forgotten

Capturing images and videos with consent of the woman cannot justify the misuse of such content once the relation between the victim and the accused gets strained as it happened in the present case, Justice Panigrahi said, underscoring the need for a legal bulwark against the growing menace of “revenge porn”.

The man, who had stealthily recorded sexual acts with his partner and posted them on social media after she spurned him, was seeking bail. Denying him bail, Justice Panigrahi said, “If the right to be forgotten is not recognised in matters like the present one, any accused will surreptitiously outrage the modesty of a woman and misuse the same in cyber space unhindered.”

Justice Panigrahi added, “Undoubtedly, such an act will be contrary to the larger interest of protection of the woman against exploitation and blackmailing, as has happened in the present case. The sloganeering of ‘beti bachao’ and women’s safety concerns will be trampled.”

The ‘right to be forgotten’, requiring erasure of data when it is not needed or following revocation of consent by the subject, is recognised under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe’s digital privacy law. However, the concept is yet to be recognised under Indian law.

The high court said given the nature of the beast, posts on social media got shared by numerous users and even after offensive videos/ pictures on the handle from which it was uploaded was disabled, the objectionable content continued to circulate in social media much to the chagrin and harassment of women.

Justice Panigrahi said there was no law which recognised the right to be forgotten even though it was in sync with the right to privacy, which the Supreme Court in the K Puttaswamy case had ruled to be intrinsic to right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Full report on www.toi.in

Times View: Most of us inhabit the digital world to a greater or lesser degree. It is a reality we can neither run nor hide from. The “right to be forgotten” online has been part of a raging debate for years. It is good news that the judiciary is engaging with the subject. Legislatures also need to grapple with it. We need new laws to face these new challenges that concern all of us.

If the right to be forgotten is not recognised...

any accused will surreptitiously outrage the modesty of a woman and misuse the same in cyber space unhindered

—Justice S K Panigrahi

Orissa High Court