Plea in Kerala HC Against Collection of Call Detail Records Of Covid Patients By Kerala Govt.

Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala has moved the High Court. The writ petition filed in the Kerala High Court seeking to restrain the Police from collecting the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of COVID-19 patients/ suspects. The petition challenges a circular dated August 11, 2020, issued by the Kerala State Police Chief, which enables the department to collect CDRs of Covid patients, from BSNL and Vodafone, for contact tracing. Further the Petitioner apprehends “misuse” of the personal data so collected, as the same is allegedly being stored by an unknown agency, that too without anonymizing CDRs, against the guidelines issued by Govt. of India and the Courts. He has averred that the Circular, which is an executive order, cannot be used to infract the fundamental right to privacy recognized by the Supreme Court in Justice Puttuswamy (Retd.) & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors., 2017 (10) SCC 1, or to modify the enactments of the Legislature.