EPIC Gives International Privacy Award to Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) and Shyam Divan

EPIC presented the 2021 International Privacy Champion Awards this week to Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, retired Justice of the Kamataka High Court and lead plaintiff in the case that established the constitutional right to privacy in India and challenged the country’s mandatory biometric data collection program Aadhaar, and Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, who was the lead attorney on the case. EPIC Interim Executive Director Alan Butler emphasized the significance of the Puttaswamy case, noting that it “was groundbreaking in ways that will reverberate for decades to come.” The decision supports the recognition of privacy as a fundamental human right, and the case forced limits on the collection of biometric data in the world’s second largest country. The ceremony took place online at the annual conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection.