Rahul Matthan

Our personal space is dear to us all. We live our lives in full public view on social media - posting photos of the food we just ate or even expressing intimate feelings for our loved ones - but there are still things we would rather not share with the world. Indeed, it is privacy that sets man apart from the animals who must stick together in the wild for their own safety. But mankind was not born private. Our primitive ancestors too lived in large groups, every member of which knew all there was to know about the others. Privacy evolved over time as man developed technologies to wall himself off, even as he remained part of the society at large. But just as some technologies enhanced privacy, others - such as the printing press or the portable camera - chipped away at it. Every time this happened, man opposed the technology at first but made his peace with it eventually to benefit from the obvious good it could do. We are at a similar crossroads today with data technologies. Aadhaar is one example of the many ways in which we have begun to use data in everything we do. While it has made it far easier to avail of services from the government and private enterprises than ever before, there are those who rightly worry about people's private data being put to ill use - and, worse, without consent. But this anxiety is no different from that which we felt during the teething troubles of every previous technology we adopted. What we really need is a new framework that unlocks the full potential of a data-driven future while still safeguarding what we hold most dear - our privacy. In this pioneering work, technology lawyer Rahul Matthan traces the changing notions of privacy from the earliest times to its evolution through landmark cases in the UK, US and India. In the process, he re-imagines the way we should be thinking about privacy today if we are to take full advantage of modern data technologies, cautioning against getting so obsessed with their potential harms that we design our laws to prevent us from benefiting from them at all.

Unlocking Our Data-Driven Future

Privacy 3.0

The Law Relating to Computers and the Internet

N. Balakrishnan

Swamy Manohar

A Draft E-commerce Bill

Technology lawyer and privacy expert Rahul Matthan presents an original view of the role technology can play in data governance.

India's Revolutionary Approach to Data

The Third Way

Nikhil Narendran

Though fair dealing provisions with respect to computer programs have been in existence for more than a decade, the interpretation of these provisions is still vague due to the lack of judicial precedents. This has caused considerable amount of confusion about the scope and ambit of these provisions and the true legislative intent, both in the industry and in the user community. This article attempts to clarify the fair dealing provisions dealing with computer programs under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. This article also tries to address the question on whether 'fair dealing' is in fact a right or an exception. It is a common practice among software companies to have a clause in their user licenses by which the users waive their right to reverse engineer the software supplied along with the license. The authors also examine this common practice which will amount to waiver of fair dealing right and examines the enforceability of such clauses.

Rahul Matthan

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