A growing shadow over digital constitutionalism - The Hindu
The recent reversal of the government’s order to pre-install Sanchar Saathi on all smartphones has reignited debate over what digital governance should — and should not — mean for fundamental rights. The move exposed tensions between efforts to curb cybercrime and the risk of undermining privacy, autonomy, and consent. The term Digital Constitutionalism captures the idea that constitutional values — like dignity, equality, accountability — must guide digital tools and policies. Without safeguards such as transparency, accountability, and legal recourse, people risk being reduced to mere data points rather than citizens with rights. As algorithms, biometric systems, and automated decision-making shape life, there’s growing urgency to embed constitutional protections deeply into digital governance.
The Key points
- The compulsory Sanchar Saathi order was rolled back after concerns about privacy risks, lack of consent, opaque data collection and potential state overreach.
- Digital constitutionalism seeks to extend core constitutional principles — liberty, equality, dignity, rule of law — into digital governance and regulation.
- Modern surveillance tools (metadata collection, facial recognition, location tracking) create an invisible — yet pervasive — architecture of control and monitoring.
- Algorithms that decide welfare, jobs, policing or credit access often operate as opaque “black boxes,” with little transparency or possibility of appeal.
- Existing laws (such as the Information Technology Act, 2000) focus more on regulating platforms than on protecting individual rights, leaving significant gaps in accountability.
- The digital-governance shift without proper checks risks turning citizens into passive data-subjects, eroding democratic participation.
- Judicial protections for privacy — as in the Puttaswamy v. Union of India judgment — are at odds with sweeping data- and surveillance-heavy policies that lack necessity, proportionality, or informed consent.
- Addressing these concerns demands institutional mechanisms: independent digital-rights oversight, mandatory transparency and audits, checks on surveillance and automated systems.
- The debate signals a broader reckoning: technology must not become a means of unchecked control — democracy and constitutional values must stay central even in the digital age.
- The Sanchar Saathi episode is a cautionary example: digital efficiency or security must not come at the expense of privacy, autonomy and trust
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