Govt Using Employee Data To Communicate Benefits Not Privacy Violation: Kerala High Court Dismisses Plea Challenging CMO's Bulk Messages

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday (March 10) dismissed a plea alleging violation of privacy of government employees and judges by the State by sending bulk messages to their phone numbers, which was illegally accessed from SPARK [Service Pay Roll Administrative Repository for Kerala].Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas pronounced in open court: "Thus, if used for legitimate purposes, including for good governance in a social welfare State, the data collected can be utilised without falling within vice of infringement of the right to privacy of an individual...Since KSITM is a part of government of Kerala and the impugned message was sent through the Whatsapp account registered in the name of KSITM by using the data in its possession, if the nature of the message was not for any illegitimate purpose, such messaging has to be regarded as irreproachable. Hence, the question boils down to whether the data was used for a legitimate purposes...As this Court has already held that, there is neither any material to indicate that any data has been transferred to the Chief Minister's office nor are there any particulars available to conclude that the Chief Minister or his office had any access to such data, there is no merit in this writ petition. The message sent by KSITM informing details about DA and HBA cannot be regarded as violating the right to privacy of the recipients of those messages. Hence, this writ petition is dismissed."It was found that the messages challenged refer to informational aspects, regarding enhancement of Dearness Allowance and the house building advance and were sent as part of good governance of Welfare State:"It is evident that the nature of the message sent relates to the salary and other perquisites/benefits, which cannot by any stretch of imagination be regarded as a political campaign to impute the message with a colour of illegality or as something done for an illegitimate purpose. The message that has been sent to the employees of the State as well as to persons whose data is kept in the SPARK portal, relates to the DA and HBA, which are not extrinsic to the services for which their names have been enrolled. The message can hence be regarded as a measure of informing the employees, the benefits rolled out relating to salary, and other perquisites, which can be viewed as a measure of good governance in a social welfare State...This cannot be considered as illegal or for any illegitimate purpose, even if elections are on the corner. Yet another question canvassed by the petitioners was whether the identity of sender of the messages was shown as Chief Minister's office was illegally proper. Constitutionally, India follows the parliamentary system of governance..."Last week, the Court had heard the Advocate General Gopalakrishna Kurup and Senior Advocate George Poonthottam, who appeared for the petitioners. It had then reserved the verdict.The plea was moved by an employee of State's Department of General Administration along with an Associate Professor of KTM College, Malappuram who is also an elected member of the Syndicate of the University of Calicut. They had alleged that that the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) violated the privacy of government employees by illegally accessing their personal information, including mobile phone numbers, email IDs.According to them, the personal information of the state government employees, judicial officers and beneficiaries of government schemes was illegally accessed by the CMO. The action, according to them, amounts unauthorised access of personal data in contravention of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and is a violation of their right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.The petitioners' case was that the State could not have accessed information given by them for one purpose and used it for another purpose as long as they had not specifically consented for the same. The 9-judge bench decision in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.), and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors. was referred to argue that the decision lays down how data can be collected, how it can be collected by the government for a particular purpose, and when it can be used for a different purpose.According to the petitioners, the primary question to be considered is whether the data mining as carried out is a legitimate exercise. If it is not a legitimate exercise, that is contrary to Article 21 and the Apex Court's decision in Puttaswamy case.The Advocate General had argued that State is the custodian of data and that once consent is given by a Data Principal for storing data in SPARK, which is facilitated by Kerala State IT Mission, the State, including the Chief Minister becomes custodian of the data. Moreover, as long as there is no provision of law prohibited such an act, it is not illegal or illegitimate.It was further contended that there is nothing illegal or illegitimate regarding the messages sent by the KSTIM using the centre ID ...

Govt Using Employee Data To Communicate Benefits Not Privacy Violation: Kerala High Court Dismisses Plea Challenging CMO's Bulk Messages

K. Salma Jennath

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