Govt will think twice before embarking on such ‘insidious’ ways to infringe on people’s privacy: Mahua Moitra on social media hub

The Centre’s withdrawal of the Social Media Hub project is a victory for the people. And, the government will think twice before embarking on such ‘insidious’ ways to infringe on people’s privacy, TMC legislator Mahua Moitra, who challenged the notification issued by the NDA government on this, told ET.

On Friday, the central government, told the Supreme Court that the notification proposing a social media hub was withdrawn.

Moitra was the first politician to point out how the notification was allegedly infringing on people's privacy. Accordingly, she submitted a writ petition before the Supreme Court, in her individual capacity.


The court took a strong note of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s decision to set up a social media hub for monitoring online data and observed that it would be like ‘creating a surveillance state’. Response from the government was sought.

Following the government’s submission, Moitra said, “It was a very important observation by the Court. Now the Government will think twice before taking up such insidious projects to infringe on people’s privacy. This is not my victory, this is the victory for people of the country.”

According to the petition filed by the Trinamool Congress legislator, she had sought an "appropriate writ, order or direction to quash" the Request for Proposal (the impunged RFP) bearing RFP ref no: BECIL/Social Media/MIB/02/2018-19 dated 24.04.2018 as modified/ revised/ amended vide addendum/ corrigendum dated 28.04.2018, 16.05.2018, 23.05.2018 as well as 30,05.2018 as being violative of articles 14, 19 (1) (a) and 21 of the Constitution. The impunged RFP is purportedly for “SITC of Software and Service and Support for function, operations and maintenance of Social Media communication Hub, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.”

TMC’s national spokesperson and leader of the Parliamentary party in Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien called it as a ‘big win’ for right to privacy and for Moitra. Before this Moitra had also filed a writ petition in the SC against the directive issued by the banks to all account holders making Aadhaar submission mandatory by December 31, 2017, failing which the accounts would be frozen.