A plea has been filed in the Delhi High Court challenging the installation of 1.5 lakh Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) cameras inside classrooms of government schools and live-streaming of such video footage to other unauthorized persons. The Delhi HC has issued a notice to the government regarding the same. The petition has been filed by the Delhi Parents Association and the Government School Teachers’ Association, Delhi.
As per the notice, the petition highlighted three fundamental violations of privacy. It said that the installation of CCTV cameras inside the government school classrooms, without seeking authorisation from students, parents and teachers is a direct violation of the Fundamental Right to Privacy as held in the 9-Judge Constitutional Bench decision of the Supreme Court. It further added that such content must be done with parental authorisation.
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Further, the act of live-streaming footage without specific consent is a violation of the Fundamental Right to Privacy, it added. The act of obtaining and storing data about children on private computer servers is also a violation of the Fundamental Right to Privacy. It is being done in the complete absence of a data protection regime or any other statutory or regulatory framework to protect citizens’ data, the plea said.
The plea further stated that the petitioners are concerned with the storage of the video footage of their wards. There is no secure infrastructure and the parents said they are opposed to the idea of cross-sharing classroom footage with other parents and other unauthorized third persons.
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The petition challenges the cabinet decision of the Delhi government for allegedly violating Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India. The petitioners were represented by counsel Jai Anant Dehadrai, Sidharth Arora, Jaskaran Singh Chawla, and Soujanya Ketharaj.
On Tuesday, the division bench of Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued a notice against the Delhi government and four other respondents which also includes a private firm — Technosys Security System Private Limited, and listed the matter for hearing on March 30.
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