Privacy Issues In Cyberspace

Avishek Gautam, B.A. LL.B.(Hons) National Law University, Jodhpur & Arvind Verma, LL.M, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow

I. INTRODUCTION

Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available. . . .Ways may some day be developed by which Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. Justice Louis Brandeis.

The computer and the modem have fulfilled Justice Brandeis' 1928 prophesy in his landmark dissent in Olmstead v. United States.2 Our private lives are now exposed by electronic retrieval and publication of personal information. While Justice Brandeis was primarily concerned about governmental intrusion into private lives, his prophesy and his description of the right to privacy as "the right to be let alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men"3 should apply equally to such intrusion by non-governmental entities. The computer and modemprovide both an economical and efficient means of finding needed information. Yet, as increasing amounts of personal information are collected and revealed electronically, there is growing concern over the resulting loss of privacy.