We live in the Era of internet, consumption of internet is increasing rapidly especially in India. Well, we Indians do make a lot of use of internet but do we really know the threats which come with its usage. Often, people put a lot of private information on the internet, especially on social media platforms. Even they’ll put their current locations like where they are travelling or in which restaurants they are eating. So many times people also put their personal data on their social media platforms like Instagram, twitter etc. Do you ever realize that all these personal stuff and the sharing of locations could be traced by many IT companies and their employees? The government monitors every move you make to predict your behaviour and control it. And these intelligent criminals known as cybercriminals leave no stone unturned to steal all your personal data for the fulfilment of their purposes. Instant connectivity has definitely made our lives better but this luxury has a huge price to pay and it is “Your Privacy” This makes it more important to consciously put forth information on the internet for protection of your internet privacy and personal information. Now the question arises what is internet privacy?

Internet privacy refers to personal privacy that you're entitled to when you display, store or provides information regarding yourself on the internet. Without internet privacy, all your activities are subject to being collected and analysed by interested parties. Does the next question arise what is a violation of privacy? Violation of privacy may be a company collection a person’s private information without notifying him or an individual or group of individual publishing private pictures of the person without notifying him or her. The law dealing with violation of privacy is defined in IT amended Act 2008 sec 66E  which clearly states that transmission of personal image is punishable by imprisonment. Provision of this section specifically deals with the 'privacy of a person.’ It need not to be confused with sec 67 of the IT Act that is law related to cyber pornography. The provision of sec 66E applies if someone captured, publishers all transmit images of the private area of a person without his or her consent under this circumstance violating his or her privacy. Any person doing so will be punished with imprisonment. Privacy, Crime and safety of women are indirectly linked. Privacy becomes an essential part of the security of the citizens.

If any legal system does not protect the privacy there will always be a sense of insecurity among the citizens. With the recent ongoing debates on women’s safety, several important steps have been taken by the government in respect to a violation of privacy such as the criminalisation of stalking which is a huge boost for privacy rights of citizens in India. The only way to prevent these crimes is by using one’s legal right and awareness.