Today marks the second year anniversary of a momentous day in constitutional history in the digital day and age. On August 24, 2017, the Right to Privacy was identified as a fundamental right under the Constitution of India by a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court. The declaration of privacy as a right has had manifold impact not only affecting direct issues of data protection but even larger areas of mass surveillance and personal aspect such as the right to one's own sexuality.

The Right to Privacy is very close to our hearts, it has been one of IFF's core issues and we have consistently been working to ensure the same for citizens of India. Our fight for privacy has persisted since the introduction of the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 with submissions to public consultations, RTIs requesting transparency and disclosure, advocating for privacy through intrusive government schemes such as CCTVs and facial recognition systems and most recently, the tabling of the Personal Data and Information Privacy Code, 2019 in the Lok Sabha aided by the wonderful Dr. Ravi Kumar (Lok Sabha, MP from Tamil Nadu). This is only the beginning.

We will work with all institutions of governance and also continue to challenge them to do better, to continue to work towards ensuring an individual's right to privacy is put first and foremost.

In light of this journey as country, IFF due to the partnership and support of Mozilla will celebrate today with an event that will feature talks and a conversation with Justice B.N. Srikrishna. This will be to the benefit to a cross section of stakeholders and we hope bring varied perspectives such as on gender and criminal justice that are an integral parcel of privacy right. Since seating and space has been limited we are video recording this event and will post it online soon.

We are also encouraging a wider community today to mark, celebrate on what privacy means to them by posting on social media. If you feel like it please do consider tagging it with #PrivacySupreme.

Thank you!

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