We often talk about privacy but don’t seem to really understand it in all its complexity. We are concerned about giving up our right to it but are unclear about what it is exactly that worries us. Going Luddite is not really an option but we would still like to understand how technology is intruding into spaces that were previously off limits.

1. Vol 9 | Issue 2 | April 2017
Privacy
Transparency
Secrecy
New Definitions in an Open World

2. We often talk about privacy but
don’t seem to really understand
it in all its complexity. We are
concerned about giving up our
right to it but are unclear about
what it is exactly that worries us.
Going Luddite is not really an
option but we would still like to
understand how technology is
intruding into spaces that were
previously off limits.
This issue of Viewpoint seeks
to examine various aspects
of privacy and information
sharing against this backdrop
of technological expansion and
vague fear.
There is a a fascinating historical
perspective on privacy, a
viewpoint from an internet
The Past and Future of
Privacy:
A spirited analysis of the evolution of
privacy from hunter gatherer times to
the modern era.
Surviving Surveillance and
More:
How regulation and technology can
be leveraged to preserve privacy and
enable transparency.
All in the Pursuit of a Story:
Indian journalism and related
thoughts on privacy, anonymity and
data-driven stories.
A Changing View of Privacy?:
The privacy concerns of different
generations and the sharing habits of
millennials.
researcher describing the
primary flaw in the design of
Aadhar, a view on media ethics
in this area and a millennial’s
take on what privacy means to
her and her generation.
We think you will enjoy these
articles and their attempt to
map ideas of privacy in an
increasingly open world.
Decoding Privacy In this issue

3. The Past and Future of
Privacy
A spirited analysis of the
evolution of privacy from
hunter-gatherer times to the
modern era. How will it play out
in the future? Only time may tell.
What is Privacy?
Simply speaking, privacy is the state
of being free from public attention.
It is the right of an individual to stay
away from the public eye. It is not
secrecy. It is, however, your freedom
from intrusion and interference.
Your right to privacy is a fundamental
human right, as articulated in
the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and it is
non-negotiable.
What’s more, you shouldn’t have
to hide in the remotest corners of
Siberia to exercise this right.
Information privacy, on the other
hand, is a different kettle of fish.
Information privacy is the right to
have some control over how your
personal information is collected and
used.
In today’s world, information privacy
steps across boundaries and joins
forces with transparency.
Which brings us to the next question:
what exactly is Transparency?

4. Again, broadly speaking,
transparency is the state of being
open to public scrutiny. However,
a closer look indicates that the
interpretation of transparency is
three-pronged.
1. Transparency as a public value
embraced by society to counter
misdeeds
2. Transparency that is synonymous
with out-in-the-open decision-
making by governments and other
bodies
3. Transparency as a pillar of good
governance in programs, policies,
organizations, and nations.
Privacy and transparency are both
entirely desirable. Yet, of late, it
seems to be a case of either – or.
In a world that is zipping towards a
flat and transparent environment,
it seems like privacy, as it was
known and respected in the past, is
redundant. As individuals and as a
society, the scales seem to be tipping
in favour of laying it all out in the
open.
Starting with selfies and social media,
we place our most intimate moments
into the hands of complete strangers.
Love, grief, passion, elation,
break-ups, anger, hunger, celebration,
funerals, religion, political affiliation
and that mosquito bite on the tip of
your nose…they are all available for
public consumption.
The fact is, historically speaking,
privacy as a concept was an alien
one. In pre-historic times, homes
did not have walls. Hunter-gatherer
societies lived in communal caves.
Hunting, cooking, eating, sleeping,
sex, childbirth, bathing, praying…all
of these activities had an audience.
Privacy, as we know it, is a concept
that evolved only around 500 to 600
years ago.
The earliest practitioners of
privacy were perhaps those whose
sophisticated knowledge of geometry
and mathematics helped them build
walls. However, it was with the
advent of Christianity, and with it,
the concept of internal morality and
the need to cloister oneself from the
evils of society, that privacy gained
currency.
For example, silent reading only
became popular when the printing
press made books cheap enough for
individual ownership.
Pox and the Black Death threw the
spotlight on unclean and crowded
communal living places. And this
inspired the evolution of private
rooms, baths and beds.
By the 15th and 16th century, it
became common for those who could
afford to do so, to shelter themselves
from the public eye.
The Right to Privacy was first formally
addressed in the United States by
Louis Brandeis, an Associate Justice
in the Supreme Court. Ironically,
the primary reason used to justify
this right in 1890 is the one still
used to justify it today: technology’s
encroachment on personal
information.
Laws were passed, and in time,
the Right to Privacy became a
fundamental right.
Yet, in parallel, notwithstanding these
laws and rights, one phenomenon
began to regain strength. Citizens
once again began to find comfort in
being a part of the crowd.
Town-criers, newspapers, postcards,
telegrams, radio and telephone
started reaching out to public
audiences. At town squares, coffee-
houses and public gatherings,
privacy began to lose ground.
Eavesdropping, spying and gossiping
became a rewarding occupation.
So, when during the American
Civil War, intercepted wiretapped
messages landed on President
Lincoln’s table routinely, hardly any
anti-establishment slogans were
raised.
The age of electronic surveillance had
dawned.
Mass surveillance got underway
sometime before World War I.
Military intelligence wore the garb
of national security and passed
private roadblocks. Already, phone
tapping had been ruled constitutional
for effective law enforcement,
largely targeting gangsters in the
Prohibition era. A brief shutdown
of electronic surveillance may
have resulted in the catastrophic
surprise at Pearl Harbour. The rest
is history. Now there was ample
justification for Operation Shamrock
- a comprehensive mass surveillance
program to catch Soviet spies after
World War II.
Thus, blossomed the use and
abuse of technological espionage.
Remember Watergate?
Technological espionage could also
be termed transparency, as long as it
was used by the State, for the greater
common good.
Yet, transparency today has come
to mean that not only the State, but
anyone with the means to pay for
them, can buy your most private
details.
Rising costs and paucity of open
living spaces have once again
made the community living model
popular. Burgeoning skyscrapers,
gated communities and apartment
complexes stand testimony to this
reverse migration.
Your free Bluetooth, wi-fi, smart
homes, smart connections, smart
cards, location tracking devices,
health trackers, unique identity cards
and all the promises they come with
are not really free. They come at
some cost to your privacy.
Every nanosecond, your every
action (including the ones that are
involuntarily happening inside your
mind and body) is usable information
for someone or the other. No
behaviour escapes categorization.
Believing that it is “good for you”,
you have exchanged privacy for
transparency. And you don’t even
know who you have given it to.
The situation is not that dire, of
course. Hopefully, transparency may
usher in accountability, and counter
corruption and other ills that plague
society today. It just might be the
check and balance that is needed
to rein in the unscrupulous and the
powerful. However, the law cannot

5. discriminate between people. It must
be common for all – the haves and
the have-nots.
Transparency places voluminous
amounts of highly sensitive personal
data in the hands of the government
and private bodies. As of now, there
is no 100% fool-proof mechanism
to protect this data. While there is a
promise of crackdown on corruption
and tax evasion, there is no reciprocal
commitment of protection from the
government in case of identity theft.
Transparency, if used to discriminate,
divide and program human thought
and action, is a ticking time bomb.
It is hard to say if a balance can be
struck…if the light between privacy
and transparency can shine both
ways.
When the future is history, we’ll have
some answers.
Maya George is Vice-
President (Content) at
The PRactice.
Thoughts on Surviving
Surveillance and More
On the need for a privacy law
and the importance of sound
technological design to preserve
both privacy and transparency.
There is a common perception
these days that privacy is no longer
a serious concern for most people.
That is a myth that needs to be
quickly debunked. If that were true,
people would be sharing more
detailed personal information with
abandon. But no matter who it is,
there is always some personal data
that they do not want to put out in
the public domain. That is the real
definition of private information. To
varying degrees, everybody believes
in some form of privacy.
The fact that people share information
more freely online is not indicative
of a shift in our attitude towards
privacy. It just points to another
important right that has become more
prominent in recent times: the right to
publicity. In many ways then, private
information is like currency in the
attention economy. Each of us should
be able to decide how much of it we
want to spend and where.
Any system we devise then to protect
an individual’s right to privacy cannot
impede on his or her desire to share.

6. They may willingly choose to share
information with the government or
the private sector and that is their
prerogative. However, the problem
arises when they are not completely
aware of what can be done with this
information.
In theory, most people know the
risks involved in sharing personal
details online. But until they have
an actual negative experience as
a result - stalking, identity theft or
a bank account being hacked - it
remains a peripheral concern. A good
analogy would be that of a cigarette
smoker who is completely aware
of the risks of lighting up but only
feels compelled to do something
about it following a cancer diagnosis.
Awareness, in both instances, does
not lead to prevention.
This is where regulation can come in
to protect individual interests. Many
people choose not to wear seat
belts but the government doesn’t
depend on accidents to change
this behaviour. Instead, it uses a
more proactive approach based on
enforcing laws mandating seat belt
use.
A good privacy law has to do two
things. It needs to be built around
protecting the rights of citizens
but it should also provide a more
uniform landscape for corporations
to operate in. There is tremendous
opportunity for monetization of
personal information today. However,
corporations may not be willing to
take risks in developing products to
take advantage of this opportunity
in the absence of a predictable legal
environment.
There are already about fifty sectoral
laws in India covering media,
healthcare, banking, e-governance
and more. But they have been
developed at different points in time
and don’t follow the same standards.
Many are also outdated.
What we need now is a horizontal
layer and an omnibus law that will
be administered by the Office of
the Privacy Commissioner. This law
should avoid going into too much
detail and steer clear of niche rules
for different sectors. Managing the
nuances of areas as varied as Fintech
and HR can be achieved through a
system of co-regulation under which
each industry is encouraged to come
up with its own set of rules and
standards. The Privacy Commissioner
can examine these for compliance
with the spirit of the law and, in some
cases, suggest tweaks to improve
their efficacy.
The purpose of the law is to provide
a high level framework, largely
consisting of principles issued by
the privacy regulator. Beyond that, a
co-regulatory process will ensure that
we don’t over-regulate industry and
stifle innovation.
The right to privacy is a fundamental
right for individuals but so is the
right to transparency. In India, the
latter is enabled by the RTI and the
expectation it has created is that
the government shares data with
its citizens. Privacy, on the other
hand, needs secure technology in
order to be protected. A project like
UIDAI bills itself as a unique identity
database but creeps into the realm of
surveillance with its use of biometric

7. technology. Its primary design flaw
lies in the fact that all its information
resides in a centralized database that
is essentially a honey pot for hackers.
Even if the information is sealed,
there is a price for access that may
tempt an insider. And given that
the data can be tampered with, the
design of UIDAI is not good for either
privacy or transparency.
These issues are rarely debated
because UIDAI is a pet project of
techno-utopians. When it comes to
technology, this group believes that
more is better than less, expensive
options are likely to work better
than cheaper ones, and complex
is preferable to simple. This is not
always true but techno-utopianism is
an ideology that is increasingly hard
to counter.
The reality is that surveillance,
whether through UIDAI or another
system, is an important and
inescapable ingredient in national
security. It’s a bit like salt in cooking.
You need tiny amounts to truly
appreciate the various flavours of
security but, if you go overboard
with it, you may actually undermine
it. Once we have all the necessary
elements of a privacy law in place,
then surveillance can happen in a
targeted fashion. However, mass
surveillance under which everybody
is surveilled at all times is never
justified.
In a democracy, privacy, security
and transparency are all equally
important. With the right legisla-
tive framework and technological
backbone, we can have them all.
Sunil Abraham
is the Executive Director
of the Centre for
Internet and Society,
a Bangalore-based
research organisation.- As communicated to Viewpoint
All in the Pursuit of a Story
Indian journalism and related
thoughts on privacy, anonymity
and data-driven stories.
When it comes to privacy, there are
numerous boundaries that news
organizations must ideally observe.
Unfortunately, in India, the vast
majority do not do that. There are
a slew of factors responsible for
this - the primary ones being failing
business models, a lack of editorial
control and indifference towards
ethics across media outlets. We see
this blatant disregard for privacy in
television news all the time. There
are several lines news channels
should not cross when covering a
story and it doesn’t take tremendous
journalistic instincts to figure out
where these lie. They involve simple
guidelines such as respecting the
privacy of assault victims, those who
have been otherwise victimised or
who specifically ask for privacy. But
as a community, we largely ignore
those boundaries. In some cases
of rape, we may not reveal names
but we still provide enough clues
regarding the identitiies of the victims.
So, we have still violated the privacy
rule in spirit, if not by its formal
definition.

8. Intense competition is one reason
why issues of privacy are
sidestepped in the industry. Television
is a prime example of such a
competitive landscape. At last count,
there were 700 news channels across
India of which no more than ten are
profitable. That gives one a sense
for the financial pressure faced by
Indian media. It may not justify the
behaviour but it does explain it.
There is no doubt that a journalistic
code of ethics is vital for every news
reporting organization. Again, this
is something most Indian news
organisations have not formalised. A
handful do operate under a published
code of ethics or an ombudsman. But
such ethical guidelines or oversight
are largely missing across the board.
Another important aspect of privacy
in journalism involves protecting
the anonymity of sources. Reliable
sources are vital to journalism. When
they provide information of a sensitive
nature, they may also be subject
to retaliatory action. Increasingly,
governments everywhere are using
the bogey of national interest to
coerce or intimidate journalists into
revealing their sources.
Identifying sources is something
journalists should do in the rarest
of rare cases - such as when an
individual’s life or personal safety
is under threat. National interest
is not grounds for breaking this
agreement. Once we start using
that as a test, we will find ourselves
on a slippery slope. It weakens our
credibility with potential sources,
making them less likely to open up
in the future. It also compromises
a big part of journalism’s role in a
democracy - to serve as a watchdog
that calls attention to the missteps
of government. In this adversarial
capacity, we have to be ready to face
some pressure and even harassment.
The rise of populism globally has
already impacted journalism’s ability
to be truly adversarial. In places like
Turkey, an increasingly dictatorial ruler
has pre-emptively imprisoned close
to 200 journalists who might have
opposed his agenda. In a democracy,
the pressure is more subtle but still
real. The best way to resist it is for
news outlets to present a united front
against such coercion. Unfortunately,
that is difficult to achieve in a
fragmented and factionalised media
landscape. And journalism in India,
despite having expanded significantly
in recent years, has also caved in the
face of growing populism. In-depth
investigation and coverage - of public
schemes or of the inner functioning of
governments or businesses - is hard
to come by in this environment.
It is a truism of our time that we are
living in an age of information or news
overload. At the same time, our ability
to distinguish between truth and
falsehood is greatly diminished. The
24/7 avalanche of news - both real
and fake - comes at us from different
angles through the phones we can’t
stop checking. We no longer have
the time or inclination to focus on a
story in order to assess its credibility
or importance. It’s incumbent upon
journalism and journalists to address

9. A Changing View of
Privacy?
How have our notions of privacy
shifted over the last two decades?
Are we letting go of our expectation
of it? Does a younger generation of
digital natives care less about the
issue?
Researchers and marketers have
been examining these and related
questions more closely in recent
years because the answers are
relevant for policy, legislation and
guidelines surrounding privacy.
Interestingly, studies seem to indicate
that the generational gap in this area
is not as stark as is widely assumed.
A 2013 Washington Post-Pew
Research Center poll found that
while online sharing was widespread
among the young, older individuals
were not too far behind. So, there
may be a degree of stereotyping that
comes into play when discussing the
digital habits of millennials.
However, the same poll (as well
as similar surveys) also found
that millennials are less worried
about being targeted by marketers
Samar Halarnkar
is Editor of IndiaSpend.
com, a public interest
journalism website.
- As communicated to Viewpoint
this issue. This is where data can
come into play. For example, we can
run the statements of government
leaders, politicians and other public
figures through regular fact checks. In
the process, we are likely to find that
many of them routinely exaggerate,
misrepresent or distort these facts.
The problem with reportage is that it
forces us to occupy some position
on the ideological spectrum. But
data enables us to place people,
events and trends in perspective
without resorting to subjective
analysis. To the extent that we can
strip out opinion and provide just the
facts, it allows people to arrive at
their own considered conclusions.
Such data-driven storytelling will
be important if journalism has to
push back against the onslaught
of alternative news and boost its
relevance.

10. Varsha Srinivasa
is a 19 year old who is
currently studying at the
University of California in
Los Angeles (UCLA).
than their parents. They express
a higher degree of concern about
government-backed surveillance but
rarely change their online behaviour
to reflect this concern.
To quote a senior Pew researcher
associated with the study: “Privacy
is not an on/off switch-it’s more like a
spectrum. We make various choices
in various situations, depending on
perceived risks and benefits.”
For now, it appears as if the internet
has redefined risk boundaries for
everyone on it, regardless of when
they were born.
Source:
Greenblatt, Alan. When it Comes to Online
Privacy, a Disconnect for the Young.
<http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechcon-
sidered/2013/06/10/190433719/when-it-
comes-to- online-privacy-a- disconnect-for-
the-young>
Born Free to Share:
A millennial viewpoint
I think technology is one of the
greatest ironies of my life - the
more I use it, the less I realize how
much I rely on it. It seems to extend
its influence a bit more everyday,
whether it’s through a new app,
a new device, or a new website.
And so, when I do take the time to
sit back and consider how deeply
immersed I am in the digital realm,
I’m always taken aback at how
helpless I would be without it.
It’s quite clear that this intense
dependence on the internet is
shared by almost all millennials
today, and social media in particular
is a powerful force in our lives. A
five second scan of a stranger’s
Facebook timeline can give us their
relationship status, their college,
and details about their most recent
road trip. This begs the question -
with so much personal information
readily available to the masses, has
our sense of privacy and security
diminished?
In general, I don’t feel threatened by
the amount of information I share
with others on the internet, and as
far as I can tell, neither do my peers.
I believe that this lack of concern
stems from the way that teenagers
take advantage of social media. We
use it to manufacture new, virtual
versions of ourselves, versions that
are constantly laughing with friends
or taking interesting trips. Because of
the amount of control we can exert
over our digital personas, we can
ensure that the world only sees what
we want them to see. Knowing that
photographs or posts online may not
be an entirely accurate representation
of our experiences allows us to retain
some semblance of privacy - only we
know the real truth.
We undoubtedly share more of
ourselves with the public than the
generations before us did, but I
think that the sheer number of
young people revealing the same
information about themselves quells
any concerns we may have about
security. Posting your hometown
on Facebook or Instagram seems
less frightening if you know that the
majority of your friends are doing it
too.
Additionally, as an article in The
Atlantic points out, users of social
media sites are already “primed
to give up their right to be alone”.
Most sites will ask strings of
questions about your past education,
relationships, and homes, making it
seem as though it is perfectly safe
and normal to post such things.
These factors, along with the fact
that young people are generally less
paranoid about the dangers of the
outside world than adults, are - in
my opinion - what allow millennials
to be unconcerned with their lack of
privacy online. There are, of course,
variations in terms of the amount of
information that is shared, but as a
group, we feel far less violated by
digital sharing and are less likely to
find it intrusive.
It’ll be interesting to see whether this
feeling changes as we grow older
and are faced with some of the harsh
realities of the world, but for now, we
are the generation that has grown up
along with the internet, and we are
not yet afraid of it.

11. In Defense of the Flawed
Whistleblower
Whistleblowers are not always
saints, but they don’t need
to be.
Long before transparency
became the byword it is today,
whistleblowers were the ones
holding public entities accountable.
Armed with insider access and a
hyperactive moral compass, these
individuals routinely exposed
corruption, fraud and other forms
of unethical behavior within
organizations.
There are famous and, in some
cases, infamous whistleblowers,
And then there are lesser known
ones who do their whistleblowing
away from the media spotlight. For
every Edward Snowden granting
interviews from Russia, there is
probably an accountant who quietly
and unceremoniously lifts the cover
on his employer’s book-keeping
violations.
The celebrity variety is known to
tackle outsized issues such as
the Orwellian spying tactics of
governments. In 2013, Edward
Snowden’s leaks kickstarted

12. References:
http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/02/21/
what-made-deep-throat-leak/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/
edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jul/14/
julian-assange-whistleblower-wikileaks
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/
sideways-view/201310/whistleblowers
http://www.livemint.com/
Politics/00dYm9IyrdHsMJDVJe5vYN/Supreme-Court-
wont-interfere-with-whistleblower-law.html
a public debate about mass
surveillance and the individual right
to privacy. The former CIA employee
has claimed a larger purpose aimed
at furthering public interest in his
actions. Despite that, his manner
of exposing the overreach of
American intelligence networks has
been controversial. He is wanted
in the US for leaking top secret
documents and violating World War
I era laws against espionage. Public
opinion is divided on whether he is
a hero or a traitor although there is
greater support for him outside the
country and among millenials.
It was with a view to protecting
leakers like Snowden and their right
to leak that whistleblowing site,
Wikileaks, was launched in 2006. Its
founder, Julian Assange, is nothing if
not controversial. Even his supporters
view him as a flawed hero with the
shadow of sexual assault charges
still hanging over him. To his critics,
Assange is an egomaniac who is not
held back by scruples of any kind.
Still, this self-styled ‘information
archivist’ is not one to be deterred in
his mission. Given his approach to
information dissemination, Assange is
largely at odds with traditional news
reporting. He has accused journalists
of not doing enough to protect their
sources and of being sloppy with
their homework, among other
failings.
For the most part, however,
whistleblowers and journalists have
been partners in a joint quest to
bring the truth to light, the former
providing the facts; the latter the
storytelling.
One of the biggest scoops in US
political history was delivered by
two journalists based on information
supplied to them by a source
cryptically codenamed ‘Deep
Throat’. It was only much later that
that Deep Throat was identified as
Mark Felt, an FBI long-timer who
devised an elaborate system to talk
to the Washington Post journalists
without being detected. The story
that Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein subsequently published in
1972 about the events at Watergate
and the degree to which the Nixon
administration was eavesdropping
on political adversaries, brought
down that presidency.
For Felt, it was a dangerous gambit
given his position within the FBI and
the political environment at the time.
Ever since his involvement became
public knowledge, many have
speculated on why he did it. In more
recent years, Woodward himself has
concluded that Felt’s motivation
was not entirely patriotic. Instead,
he was probably driven to talk by a
personal vendetta against the Nixon
administration after it had bypassed
him for the role of FBI Director.
All of this may be why
whistleblowers make such complex
case studies. On the surface,
their actions appear heroic but
their motives are not always easy
to decipher. Particularly now, at
a time when dirty linen can be
washed and aired completely on
social media, organizations have
to be mindful of the damage that
an angry and vengeful employee
can do. Increasingly, it is also hard
to separate real whistleblowers
from trolls taking aim under the
cover of anonymity. The irony
here is that anonymity has largely
been recognized as necessary for
whistleblowing to flourish without
fear of retaliation. Now, it may
also be a shield for those who just
want to fire unwarranted salvos at
organizations with which they are
miffed.
But when one considers how
many reforms across industries
whistleblowing has enabled over
the decades, this seems like a
minor consideration. Dedicated
whistleblowers press ahead despite
public backlash and accusations
of disloyalty to company or
country. Globally, they have
exposed malpractice in healthcare,
challenged the polluting ways of
energy companies and held Big
Tobacco responsible for concealing
important research on the effects of
smoking.
In India, questioning crusaders
have tried to expose adulteration
and extortion as well as the general
sleaze and corruption that taint our
lives and environment.
The cost of pursuing the cause
can be harassment, persecution
and even death. The tragic cases
Sangita Srinivasa
is a Bangalore-based
writer and the editor
of Viewpoint.
of outspoken individuals like
Satyendra Dubey and Manjunath
Shanmugham remind us that
whistleblowing is often fatal in India.
The starkness of this reality moved
the Indian parliament to strengthen
protection for whistleblowers in
2014 but several provisions of
the new law are still being ironed
out. Even when it does pass,
there is likely to be a gap between
legislation and enforcement.
Clearly, what we should be
examining more closely is not the
motivation of whistleblowers but the
degree to which they are protected
from their targets. The world is
not served by a detailed character
sketch of a whistleblower. But it is
made poorer by the untimely death
of one.

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