IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics) Rules, 2021: Constitutionally Justified Or Not?

Authors: Abhishek Charan, Student of Alliance School of Law, Alliance University, Bangalore

Best Citation – Abhishek Charan, IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics) Rules, 2021: Constitutionally Justified Or Not?, Indian Journal of Legal Review (IJLR), 3 (1) of 2023, Pg. 459-465, ISSN – 2583-2344.

Abstract

On 25th February, 2021, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021(herein after referred to as “IT Rules, 2021”). These rules triggered a discourse from all the stakeholders who are directly and indirectly affected by these guidelines. This comes after couple incidents of violence which are believed to have been caused through messages over platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and also on few films or shows which are released over platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. 2021 has introduced significant due diligence requirements which need to be followed by any intermediary be it a significant social media intermediary, a news and current affairs content intermediary or an OTT platform. These rules relate to compelling interception, monitoring, and decryption of communications. These rules seem to violate Article 19(1) (a) by seeking to impermissibly deprive intermediaries of their safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act, and violates the K.S Puttaswamy judgment- Article 21’s guarantee of privacy by requiring traceability by design. This paper focuses on whether the IT Rules of 2021 complies the law set by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in K.S Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1 and also whether the traceability mandate of the IT Rules would be helpful or not.

Keywords: IT Rules 2021, Traceability, Puttaswamy judgment and Right to Privacy