Right To Privacy

The media for a while now has been complaining of access to information and rightly so as government officials even refuse to share public information meant for the public.

Ironically, when government agencies want information from the public then there are no limits at all, including private information.

The private media experienced this first hand a few years ago in the tenure of the former BICMA head when BICMA asked all newspapers to share their loan details and subsequently published it in a public report for all to see.

This was a serious and illegal breach of the business secrets and privacy of the media houses.

The latest episode of the Finance Minister being given not only the overall data on Fixed Deposits, but also the names of the account holders is a glaring breach of privacy.

The Financial Institutions and the RMA will not accept the buck but the buck lies with one of them for sharing such private information with the Finance Minister.

The minister is also wrong to seek such information in his personal capacity and use the information freely to influence the public debate on taxes on fixed deposits.

Everybody has a right to their own views on the fixed deposit tax debate, but it is not right to share private information like this.

The sharing of such information violates several laws like the CCPC, Penal Code, ICM Act 2018 and the most important of them all which is the Constitution.

The Constitution guarantees Right To Privacy for a good reason which is to protect personal information like medical records, financial information, etc. or something as human as what happens in the four walls of a house or one’s room. The right is given especially so that state or non-state actors cannot violate it unless there are laid out legal grounds.

In a small society like Bhutan, where ‘everybody knows everybody’ the right to privacy is even more important.  For example, the leaking of a medical record can cause havoc in the life of a person.

We live in an age where we are handing over more and more information to government agencies all stored in servers and computer systems. This information is being handed over in the public interest, not for powerful people or those with vested agendas to go through and abuse it.

One of the defining features of Bhutan is a high level of trust between the people and the government. That trust gets weakened when private information is misused.

It is not just an issue of breaking trust but also a legal offence under multiple laws and officials freely sharing such information need to be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

“To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”
Anthony Burgess