Delhi govt receives notice from HC over live streaming of classrooms

The petition filed in the Delhi HC on the behalf of petitioners by counsel Jai Anant Dehadrai, Sidharth Arora, Jaskaran Singh Chawla and Soujanya Ketharaj has highlighted the violation of three fundamental rights through their petition.

Delhi government has received a notice from the High Court of the national capital over a plea challenging the government’s decision of installing Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) cameras inside classrooms of Government and private schools and the dissemination of the live stream footage. The Delhi government’s decision on live streaming of classes has been challenged on grounds of violation of privacy and Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India.

The government has been issued notice by the Delhi High Court bench of DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh on Tuesday. The matter has been listed for March 30, 2022 for further hearing. According to the ANI report, the plea was filed by the Delhi Parents Association and the Government School Teachers' Association, Delhi against the Government of NCT Delhi and four other respondents (including private firm - Technosys Security System Private Limited).

The petition filed in the Delhi HC on the behalf of petitioners by counsel Jai Anant Dehadrai, Sidharth Arora, Jaskaran Singh Chawla and Soujanya Ketharaj has highlighted the violation of three fundamental rights through their petition.

The petition stated that the government’s decision regarding the installation of CCTV cameras inside classrooms, without obtaining specific consent from either the students and their parents and the teachers is a gross and direct violation of the Fundamental Right to Privacy as held in the 9-Judge Constitutional Bench decision of the Apex Court.

The petition stated, the installation of CCTV cameras inside classrooms, without obtaining specific consent from either the students and their parents and the teachers is a gross and direct violation of the Fundamental Right to Privacy as held in the 9-Judge Constitutional Bench decision of the Apex Court. Such consent must be informed, specific and thus cannot be a one-time broad-based and all-encompassing parental authorization.

In the complete absence of a data protection regime or any other statutory/regulatory framework to protect citizens' data, the twin acts of obtaining and then storing children's data on private computer servers are fraught with danger and are thus also violative of the Fundamental Right to Privacy, stated the petition.

The petitioner also expressed objection to the idea of cross-sharing classroom footage with other parents and inevitably with unauthorised third persons. The plea expressed concern with the storage of the video footage of their wards in the absence of a secure infrastructure.

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