21 Indian News Publishers Challenge Privacy Law in Supreme Court, Saying Lack of Journalist Exemption Threatens Reporting and Sources
Twenty-one Indian news publishers have challenged the country's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act in the Supreme Court, arguing that the law contains no exemption for journalism and would trample investigative work and let New Delhi identify journalists' sources, Reuters reported on October 26. The plaintiffs include Network18, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, NDTV, owned by Gautam Adani, The Indian Express and Times Internet. Their industry body, the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), filed a 698-page petition on October 6; the case is due to be heard on Tuesday, October 27.
The publishers argue that requiring journalists to obtain consent from a person they want to investigate could allow evidence to be destroyed or witnesses intimidated; that rights to withdraw consent and seek erasure of personal data, if applied to news reports already in the public domain, could force outlets to remove or substantially alter factual reporting; and that the law's powers to demand information could expose reporters' sources. They are demanding that most of the law's contentious provisions, which take effect from May 2027, be quashed. The filing notes that comparable laws in the European Union, Singapore and Britain contain journalist or public-interest carve-outs, and that while government officials assured media companies in August that press freedom would be protected, no written exemption followed.
The lawsuit is the most high-profile challenge yet to the privacy law; until now only free-speech activists and a group of smaller outlets had contested it. Neither DNPA nor India's information technology ministry responded to Reuters' requests for comment.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于新德里的印度最高法院。照片：Pinakpani，CC BY-SA 4.0，经维基共享资源。 / The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. Photo: Pinakpani, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
