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The petition was filed by the Trinamool Congress MLA Mahua Moitra seeking a stay on the order passed by the government regarding tapping of all the activities on social media. The Broadcasting Engineering Consultants India Limited, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) issued a “Request for Proposal” or RPF calling bids and proposals for setting up of a social media communications monitoring tool under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar issued a stay notice against the Ministry and sought assistance from the Attorney General.
Petitioner contended under the following order of the Government, right to privacy (article 21 of the Indian Constitution) of the citizens would be compromised. She alleges that the main purpose behind this surveillance is suppressing the voices that are critical of the government. Another contention given by the petitioner is that under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution there must be a reasonable nexus between the law made by the government and the purpose that has to be achieved, presently there is no nexus behind giving extraordinary powers in the hands of executive.
The work that has to be performed according to the RPF was not only to collect information and data from social media instead it covers the emails in its ambit. The RPF stated: “A technology platform is needed to collect digital media chatter from all core social media platforms, as well as digital platforms like news, blogs and forums along with a proprietary mobile insights platform in a single system providing real-time insights, metrics and other valuable data. The social media analytical tool should have a comprehensive analytics system to monitor and analyze various aspects of social media communication and World Wide Web.”
According to the RPF the analytical tool must have the capability of predicting the nature of the post made on the social media platforms. The nature can be termed as positive, neutral and negative that will help in understanding the effect of the various campaigns of the government. The next date for further hearing given by the court is 3rd August, since the RPF last date is 30th August.
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