KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has directed the state government that the Call Details Records (CDRs) of COVID-19 patients collected by the Kerala police should not be used for any other purpose.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly issued the order while closing the petition filed by Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala seeking to quash the order of state police chief to collect Call Detail Records of COVID-19 patients.
"Respondents (the state government and state police chief) are directed to ensure strict confidentiality of the CDR details collected and also to ensure that no third party has access, as affirmed before this Court," held the Bench.
Intrusion on privacy
T Asaf Ali, counsel for the petitioner contended that the collection of CDRs of COVID-19 positive patients would be a breach of privacy which mounts to surveillance. He added that it was not at all necessary for tracing the location of COVID-19 positive patients as contended by the police in a press release issued as a rejoinder to the widespread public protest emanated against the circular.
The CDR collection was started by the police and the nature of the use of tens of thousands of COVID-19 positive patients' CDR has been kept in dark.
According to the petitioner, the state police have no right to collect CDRs of COVID-19 patients in such an arbitrary manner which would amount to an intrusion of their privacy -- thereby making it illegal.
KK Ravindranath, Additional Advocate General, submitted that CDR details contain the mobile tower location and the contacts of the COVID-19 patients.
Segregating tower location alone is not possible. CDR details are collected only for a limited purpose of locating COVID-19 patients and their contacts.
They are kept only by the police and destroyed after 14 days. The CDR details obtained are stored by the police, who will then take all measures necessary to ensure that the CDR is not accessed by any third party.
Though the counsel for the petitioner sought time to implead the service providers to adjudicate as to whether the details provided by the service providers can be segregated only to the extent of a tower location, the Bench declined it.
The counsel for the petitioner sought a directive to issue a new circular stating that CDR details of COVID-19 positive patients are collected only for the purpose of finding the tower location.
The court replied that it was open to the state government to consider the same.