Informational Privacy
Definition
The dimension of the right to privacy, articulated in Justice Chandrachud's Puttaswamy 2017 opinion, that grants individuals the right to control information about themselves and to prevent the State from using collected data for purposes beyond the original collection rationale.
- Jurisdiction
- India
- Case
- Puttaswamy, 2017
- Author
- Justice Chandrachud
- Right established
- Control over personal information, including against State reuse
Common questions
How does informational privacy limit what the State can do with data collected for a scheme like Aadhaar?+
Under this doctrine, data collected for one stated purpose such as identity verification cannot be repurposed for unrelated State uses like surveillance or profiling without fresh justification, since the individual retains a right to control how their information is subsequently used.
What distinguishes informational privacy from the broader right to privacy recognised in Puttaswamy?+
The broader right to privacy covers bodily autonomy, decisional privacy, and other dimensions, while informational privacy is specifically the strand concerned with control over personal data, making it the dimension most directly relevant to data protection and surveillance law.
Related terms
- Consent Imbalance
- The structural condition recognised by EU data-protection authorities and courts under which formal consent to biometric collection is not freely given because...
- DPDP Act S.17(2) Exemptions
- Provisions of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 allowing the Central Government to exempt State instrumentalities from the Act's requirements in...
- Proportionality Test (Puttaswamy)
- The four-part standard from Puttaswamy 2017 for assessing the constitutionality of state interference with privacy: (1) legitimate state aim, (2) suitability of...
- Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (UK)
- UK statute enacted in direct response to S and Marper v. UK, which reformed the retention framework for DNA profiles, fingerprints, and...
- Puttaswamy 2017
- Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1: nine-judge bench Supreme Court of India judgment holding that privacy...
- R (Bridges) V. Chief Constable of South Wales Police (2020)
- UK Court of Appeal decision holding that the deployment of automated facial recognition by South Wales Police lacked a sufficiently clear and...
- S and Marper V. UK (2008)
- European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber judgment holding that indefinite retention of fingerprints, cellular samples, and DNA profiles of unconvicted individuals...
- Section 57 (Aadhaar Act, Struck Down)
- The provision of the Aadhaar Act 2016 that permitted private companies and individuals to require Aadhaar authentication for their own purposes, struck...
- UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India)
- The statutory authority established by the Aadhaar Act 2016 to operate the Aadhaar biometric identification system, oversee enrolment, and administer the authentication...