It also introduced Section 69, which gave authorities the power of "interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource".
He was supported by D. Bandyopadhyay, Gyan Prakash Pilania, Basavaraj Patil Sedam, Narendra Kumar Kashyap, Rama Chandra Khuntia and Baishnab Charan Parida.
[31] Rajeev Chandrasekhar suggested that 66A should only apply to person-to-person communication pointing to a similar section under the Indian Post Office Act, 1898.
[31] In November 2012, IPS officer Amitabh Thakur and his wife, social activist Nutan Thakur, filed a petition in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court claiming that Section 66A violated the freedom of speech guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.
[32] In November 2012, a Delhi-based law student, Shreya Singhal, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India.
[36] The court said that Section 66A of IT Act 2000 "arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech" provided under Article 19(1) of the Constitution of India.
But the Court turned down a plea to strike down sections 69A and 79 of the Act, which deal with the procedure and safeguards for blocking certain websites.
[37][38] Despite this, as per a research paper by Abhinav Sekhri and Apar Gupta, Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000 continues to be used by police departments across India in prosecutions.
[4] On 20 December 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs cited Section 69 in the issue of an order authorising ten central agencies to intercept, monitor, and decrypt “any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer.” [41] While some claim this to be a violation of the fundamental right to privacy, the Ministry of Home Affairs has claimed its validity on the grounds of national security.
[46] On 2 April 2015, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis revealed to the state assembly that a new law was being framed to replace the repealed Section 66A.
[48][49] Former Minister of State with the Ministry of Information Technology, Milind Deora has supported a new "unambiguous section to replace 66A".
Data protection is legal safeguard to prevent misuse of information about individual person on a medium including computers.