Make law to protect citizens’ privacy: roundtable

Staff Correspondent

Speakers at a roundtable called for enacting a rights law to protect the citizens’ privacy. They said that neither the government nor private companies had the right to infringe on individuals’ privacy on the pretext of security or economic reasons.
   They said that these days the government as well as private companies demand too many information of citizens for providing passports, cell phone connections, voter ID. They also opposed phone tapping.
   They said that the citizens in Bangladesh were often deprived of using new technologies, like facebook.
   In recent years, they said, mobile phone tapping and internet surveillance deprived the citizens’ privacy.
   They said that service providers often infringe into citizens’ privacy by demanding their voter ID cards, which contain too many of their details.
   They said that Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission was not at all an independent body as it is controlled by telecommunications ministry on the pretext of national security.

   Voice and Privacy International jointly hosted the roundtable, ‘privacy rights and citizens’ concerns’ at a city auditorium.
   Voice executive director Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, who chaired the session said that by mobile telephoning and stopping facebook access the authorities denied freedom of expression to citizens.
   He said that citizen’s personal information could be leaked by private mobile phone companies, who compel clients to provide too many personal information for re-registration mobile SIM cards.
   Journalist Saleem Samad described Bangladesh as among the countries with highest incidence of phone tapping in the world.
   He said that such violation of citizens’ privacy caused extra mental pressure.
   He said that the citizens should sue those who leaked their privacy.
   Other speakers called for making a law to protect citizens’ privacy, freedom of speech and expression.

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/aug/27/nat.html