Media association challenges govt.’s data privacy law in Supreme Court

Why in the News

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, framed to protect personal data, is now challenged as a law that treats journalism like any other data processing, with no exemption. The Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) has challenged provisions of the Act and the DPDP Rules, 2025 in the Supreme Court as a violation of journalistic freedom. A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India is to hear the batch of petitions.

What is the DPDP Act, and who has challenged it?

1. What the law does: The DPDP Act and its 2025 Rules form India’s comprehensive data protection law. It works like a permission slip: an organisation needs a person’s consent to use their data.
2. Duties and enforcement: It places duties on data fiduciaries (entities that decide how personal data is used) and requires them to report data breaches. The Data Protection Board of India decides breach cases.
3. Petitioner: The DNPA’s members span the media spectrum, including outlets owned by the Ambani and Adani Groups. The Hindu is a DNPA member.
4. Wider litigation: Activists have filed a batch of petitions against the law, and the DNPA petition is listed with them before the same Bench.
5. The takeaway: The case will test whether a law built to protect personal data can apply to journalism without restricting free speech.

Why do publishers say journalism is exposed?

1. No journalistic exemption: The law gives no exemption to journalistic activity as a distinct class of data processing.
2. Consent and erasure regime: Publishers, editors, reporters and correspondents must give notice and obtain prior, verifiable consent before using a person’s data. They can also be compelled to erase it.
3. Who is affected: The petition says this threatens journalistic work by journalists, ground reporters, citizens, whistleblowers and Right to Information (RTI) activists.
4. Constitutional grounds: The provisions are said to restrict the right to information and free speech protected under Articles 14 and 19(1)(a).
5. Conflict with Puttaswamy: The petition says the law contravenes the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy privacy judgment. That judgment held privacy inviolable and fundamental to human dignity and life.

What do the State’s powers and the RTI change mean for the press?

1. Section 36 requisition power: Section 36, read with Rule 23 and the Seventh Schedule of the Rules, lets the Centre demand any information from any data fiduciary or intermediary (a platform carrying others’ content).
2. Missing safeguards: The power carries no judicial oversight, no necessity or proportionality requirement, and no notice to the affected data principal (the person the data is about).
3. Risk to sources: The petition says such a power can be turned to identifying and targeting journalistic sources, which makes it constitutionally infirm.
4. Change to the RTI Act: Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act amends Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005. As a result, no category of “personal information” can now be disclosed under the RTI Act.

Challenges

1. Privacy versus press freedom: Privacy often clashes with transparency and freedom of the press, leaving courts to balance competing fundamental rights.
2. Wide government exemptions: Critics argue the Act gives the government excessive exemptions on grounds such as sovereignty and public order.
3. Weaker RTI: The blanket bar on personal information has weakened the RTI Act as a tool of transparency.
4. Uncertainty for newsrooms: Until the Court rules, publishers face open questions over consent and erasure duties for their reporting.

Way Forward

1. Journalistic exemption: Parliament should define journalistic processing as a distinct class with limited, tailored obligations.
2. Judicial check on requisitions: Section 36 demands should need prior judicial approval and meet the tests of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality.
3. Public interest override: The Rules should be amended so that public interest remains the overriding factor in RTI disclosure.

Conclusion

The case turns on whether privacy and press freedom can be reconciled inside one data protection law. What to watch is whether the Bench reads in a journalistic exemption or demands judicial oversight of the Centre’s requisitions.

Back2Basics: K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017)

1. What it held: The Supreme Court recognised the right to privacy as intrinsic to personal liberty under Article 21.
2. Wider anchoring: Privacy also draws protection from Articles 14 and 19, read together with Article 21.
3. Proportionality test: A restriction on privacy must have the backing of law, serve a legitimate aim and be proportionate to that aim.
4. Informational privacy: Its scope covers personal data, Aadhaar details, medical records and online footprints.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2024] Under which of the following Articles of the Constitution of India, has the Supreme Court of India placed the Right to Privacy? (a) Article 15 (b) Article 16 (c) Article 19 (d) Article 21* ANSWER: (d)”