Reconciling the Right to Privacy With National Cyber-Security Imperatives

The chapter analyses the struggles of privacy and cybersecurity governance in India in comparison with some of the best practices used in other countries and the elements of collision between the core rights and the security needs of the country. Based on the Puttaswamy judgment, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the paper, by taking comparative lessons of the European Union rights-based GDPR and Canadian malleable, principles-based, PIPEDA/CPPA regulation framework, offers insights into the formulation of the arbitration process under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. It offers a hybrid-type policy framework which entails privacy-by-design, proportionality independent oversight and cross-border data adequacy frameworks. It insists on the reinforcement of the Data Protection Board of India making checks on surveillance activity. Its purpose is to achieve protection of the constitutional values and at the same time perform secure, non-innovation-restricting digital governance in the age of transformation driven by AI and international information flows.