Karnataka: Video activism in public offices in conflict with privacy claims

The Karnataka government may have followed up its move to prohibit photography and videography in government offices with a rushed U-turn, but activists who forced the controversial initial move see the development potential for increased accountability in public offices.

As calls rise for the state to acknowledge video activism as a new reality, experts who track the impact of technology on society feel that the intended larger public good could still be in conflict with privacy rights.

Members of the Karnataka Rashtra Samithi (KRS), which has led citizens’ audits by conducting visits to government offices, said reportage on the government’s turnaround had made large sections of the public aware of the possibilities of exposes on corruption in making government offices function better.

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“The most significant takeaway from the development is this — that citizens could bring accountability even in facilities like taluk offices or police stations where the standard excuse for the lack of transparency is that the CCTV is not working,” Manjunatha S, president of the Bengaluru unit of KRS, told DH.

The government had ordered the ban in response to concerns raised by the Karnataka State Government Employees Association regarding inconveniences caused by visitors shooting videos in government offices.

The KRS questioned official resistance against videography in government offices considering that video evidence was crucial in initiating investigation in corruption cases.

How private is public?

The big narrative on corruption and corrective action, however, is not always in line with the employees’ right to privacy.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had stated that some of the concerns raised by the employees were valid.

Shweta Mohandas, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society, said the acceptance of photography and videography as effective tools of citizen action should also be viewed against the backdrop of the rights of individuals in their workplace and the visitors who are caught on camera.

“Getting the public to know (the workings of government offices) is important but we also need to look at how it could go wrong. A clip from a video footage taken out of context and publicised, for example, amounts to disinformation,” she said.

Srikanth Narasimhan, founder and general secretary of the Bengaluru Navanirmana Party (BNP), said while he did not agree with methods adopted in these video exposes, there was no valid claim to privacy in spaces with public access.

“The government could intervene and make the whole system official; it could install CCTVs across these offices and make the recordings available in public domain,” he said.