A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking comprehensive guidelines to regulate how criminal investigation agencies collect and access personal and digital data, with a focus on safeguarding citizens’ fundamental right to privacy.

The petition seeks constitutionally compliant safeguards governing requests for digital information, including movement records, timestamps and metadata of online posts. It argues that investigative agencies should be required to specify the purpose of a data request, the categories of information sought, the relevant time period and its connection to the alleged offence.

The petitioner has urged that data collection be limited to what is strictly necessary and proportionate to the investigation, warning that indiscriminate access to an individual’s entire digital history could lead to an unjustified intrusion into private life.

Citing Supreme Court judgments, the PIL argues that access to personal digital data should not be permitted routinely when adequate privacy safeguards are absent and investigators have not demonstrated that less intrusive alternatives would be inadequate.

The petition seeks safeguards to protect the fundamental rights to privacy, dignity, freedom of speech and expression, and personal liberty under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

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