Syllabus: Indian Constitution — historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.
Context
- The Centre withdrew its directive requiring smartphone manufacturers to pre-install the ‘Sanchar Saathi’ app from 2026.
- The rollback followed public concerns over ambiguous data practices, lack of consent mechanisms, surveillance risks, and indefinite data storage.
Meaning of Digital Constitutionalism
- Refers to applying constitutional values — liberty, dignity, equality, accountability and rule of law — to digital governance systems.
- Increasing use of biometric systems, AI-driven tools, and algorithmic governance has created spaces where constitutional protections are weak or absent.
Growing Concerns in the Digital Space
- Automated systems increasingly mediate KYC, welfare delivery, employment, health data, and political communication without user awareness.
- Power is concentrated with technology developers, enforcement bodies and private corporations, reducing citizens to passive data units.
- Surveillance is now silent and continuous through metadata, location tracking, biometrics, predictive modelling and behavioural analytics.
- This environment fosters self-censorship and restricts dissent, undermining democratic participation.
Legal and Institutional Gaps
- The Puttaswamy judgment (2017) recognised privacy as a fundamental right, but the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 provides wide exemptions for the State and weak individual safeguards.
- India lacks comprehensive surveillance legislation, independent oversight, or transparent auditing mechanisms for high-risk algorithms.
- Existing laws (e.g., IT Act, 2000) focus on platform regulation rather than protection of citizen rights.
Key Areas of Harm
- Facial recognition risks discrimination and misidentification, as seen globally.
- Algorithmic opacity leads to welfare exclusion, unfair profiling, and arbitrary content removal.
- Citizens often lack remedies due to slow judicial processes and low digital literacy.
Need for a Digital Rights Framework
- Creation of an independent Digital Rights Commission for oversight and accountability.
- Strict limitations on surveillance based on necessity and proportionality.
- Mandatory algorithm audits, bias testing and rights to explanation and appeal.
- Stronger data protection through purpose limitation, minimal collection and strict penalties for misuse.
- Digital literacy as an essential element of democratic empowerment.
Conclusion
- As governance becomes data-driven, constitutional values must anchor technological deployment.
- Digital constitutionalism is essential to ensure that technology remains accountable to citizens, not an unchecked instrument of control.