Plea in Supreme Court to ban Microsoft products for violation of privacy of users

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking ban on Microsoft products in India until it is satisfied that there is no violation of the fundamental right of privacy of the users..The petition filed by Vinit Goenka through advocates Khushbu Jain and Sriram P seeks prevention of unauthorised collection and use of petitioner’s data by entities like Microsoft. The petition states that this violates the petitioner’s fundamental right to privacy as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India..The facts of the case are as follows. The petitioner had purchased software from Microsoft. Subsequently, employees in petitioner’s company started receiving emails and phone calls from a number of entities, either representing or on directions of Microsoft..These emails allegedly contained private details like phone numbers of the recipients and were marked to multiple people from different organisations. The petitioner claims that use and dissemination of this kind of private data was unauthorised and breached the right to privacy of petitioner’s employees..According to the submission made by the petitioner, the contentious emails received were either sent by individuals working for Bertelsmann Marketing Services (BMSI), a representative of Microsoft, or by individuals employed by auditing firms like KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), both of which were engaged by Microsoft as its third-party reviewers at various points in time..The petitioner claims that while some of these emails contained threatening subject matter, some were apology emails for the bad conduct on the part of the sender of these emails. Different individuals from petitioner’s company received various such emails over a period of three years..Relief sought.Concerned about the breach of data security of his employees, the petitioner has filed this petition seeking action against non-state entities like Microsoft who are allegedly storing and disseminating data collected through unauthorised means. The petitioner has moved the Supreme Court seeking measures to prevent entities like Microsoft from breaching data privacy of the petitioner and his employees..Additionally, the petitioner has also specifically prayed for a declaration to prevent non-state entities like Microsoft from using data of Indian citizens considering such data is often stored in foreign locations..Importantly, the petitioner is also seeking a prohibition on Microsoft products in India till the violation of users’ right to privacy is stopped. Addressing the larger problem of data mining, another relief sought by the petitioner is for the Central government to regulate Microsoft’s activities so far as data collection is concerned and for a redressal machinery to be set up..The petitioner has placed extensive reliance on the Constitution Bench judgment the Supreme Court in K Puttuswamy in which the Court had held that Right to Privacy is a Fundamental Right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.