(Wl-3311)-Beyond Citizen Oversight: Problems with the Trade-off between Transparency and Privacy

The amendment to the Right to Information Act, 2005, introduced under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, presents a disharmonious trade-off between privacy and transparency. By discarding existing safeguards that allowed access to personal information in the public interest, the amended proviso grants greater secrecy to the government under the guise of protecting privacy. This shift threatens to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to access information in cases involving corruption, human rights violations, and police atrocities.