PRIVACY IS ALL THAT MATTERS: SC ON PRE- INSTALLED APPS IN SMARTPHONES

(In correspondence to the PIL filed in SC regarding the Pre-installed Apps in our smartphones)

Privacy is a fundamental human right that helps us in establishing our boundaries and to safeguard ourselves from any external source that might create problems for us. It further helps to protect ourselves from the arbitrary and unjustified use of power by government, big companies etc. (enshrined under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution).

Recently, a PIL has been filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in regard to the data collected by the huge smartphone companies through the Pre-installed Apps that most of us are not even aware of. The petitioners in the presented plea have prayed that the smartphone companies must disclose all the information related to the pre-installed mobile applications in the outer packaging so that a customer gets clued up with the fact that what all information he must be handing out to that smartphone company and whether the provided information would be kept secured or not.

One of the major concerns with reference to this plea is that most of the smartphone manufacturing companies are carried out by Chinese people and as it is as clear as day that India is not on good terms with China right now and Chinese government administering the huge smartphone companies is a kind of weapon in their hands that they can use against Indians in time of war. So, it creates a dubiety that whether the provided information is safe and as plea reads, “That the petitioner is concerned about the privacy and data theft of Indian smartphone users which is being done by Chinese smartphone companies. The present petition is necessitated in view of various researches having been conducted on the issue of data theft and compromise of privacy of a smartphone user through pre-installed applications in an android smartphone.” Therefore, it’s been argued that pre-installed applications make the provided information of the user unfortified and is against the rights of the user as guaranteed in the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 like right to be informed, right to privacy, right to consumer education and awareness.

Hence, it should be made obligatory for all the smartphone companies that they should disclose all the information related to the pre-installed applications and how actually they will work like how the provided information will be used, where it will get stored and who all can access to that information. Government also must step into this and should take an initiative in finding out that how this information is been collected and used by the smartphone companies as time has now changed and every single piece information about a person can be accessed to by the smartphone companies by the data provided to them by the user. So, government should take care of this and should use its arbitrary powers on the smartphone companies and should ask them to educate the consumers about the pre-installed apps by mentioning it in their manual or on the outer packaging of the box.

By-

Divyanshu Kaushal

Student Reporter, INBA