Privacy is the terrorist’s best friend

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 10044 OF 2010

CENTRAL PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER,

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ….. APPELLANT(S)

VERSUS

SUBHASH CHANDRA AGARWAL ….. RESPONDENT(S)

W I T H

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 10045 OF 2010

A N D

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2683 OF 2010

J U D G M E N T

SANJIV KHANNA, J.

44. In K.S. Puttaswamy (supra), it is observed that the Canadian 

Supreme Court in Spencer (supra) had stopped short of 

recognising an absolute right of anonymity, but had used the 

provisions of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 

to expand the scope of the right to privacy, used traditionally to 

protect individuals from an invasion of their property rights, to an 

individual’s “reasonable expectation of privacy”. Yet the Court has

observed that there has to be a careful balancing of the 

requirements of privacy with legitimate concerns of the State after 

referring to an article29 wherein it was observed that:

“Privacy is the terrorist’s best friend, and the terrorist’s 

privacy has been enhanced by the same technological 

developments that have both made data mining 

feasible and elicited vast quantities of personal

information from innocents …”