Abstract

As early as 1988, the UN Human Rights Committee, the treaty body charged with monitoring implementation of the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights (ICCPR), recognised the need for data protection laws to safeguard the fundamental right to privacy recognised by Article 17 of the ICCPR. Even though the 21st century has witnessed a tremendous increase in the use of the internet and other related services the laws governing the same were not up to mark. With the world concentrating in the cybersphere, there has been a constant need for legislations that were bound to protect the virtual rights of a person. As people tend to spend more time in the virtual space information has been generated and stored in the form of data. Every activity we do in the digital sphere generates data, with or without our consent. Similarly, the generated data may be personal or non-personal data. Even with the huge amount of data being collected and processed there have been no specialized laws that focus on the protection of the data. The main question that arises in this regard is the nature of the data collected, the purpose for its collection, the duration for which the data is stored, which entities are provided access to the data, what is done with the data after the specified use and what are the measures in case of breach of these collected data. Countries have been trying to clarify the ambiguity surrounding them by proposing and implementing specialized laws that deal with the aspect of data protection. With the world witnessing a recent trend in the evolution of data protection laws, India has also taken the initiative to come into compliance with the global race by proposing legislation in accordance with the aspect of data privacy and protection. One of the major factor to be considered is the importance of consent in upholding the digital privacy of a person. There have been several complications revolving around the concept of consent and some of them have been taken into consideration for the purpose of this research.

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