Privacy of citizens being compromised, says Kerala HC; directs Centre to make Data Protection Board functional in eight weeks

The Kerala High Court has directed the Union government to make the Data Protection Board, constituted under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, functional within eight weeks.The Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice V.M. Syam Kumar issued the directive while disposing of a public interest litigation which sought to ensure that collection, storage, processing and transmission of sensitive personal data of passengers at airports across India is conducted in strict compliance with the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025.The court observed that the petitioner’s concerns could not be ignored as it was found that the privacy of citizens was being compromised. The court had earlier directed that Digi Yatra, a portal that collects personal data at airports for identity verification, could not insist on Aadhar details to establish identity of traveller. In this regard, the Digi Yatra Foundation informed the court that along with the Aadhar card, driving license was also accepted as proof of identity. In future, the court expected that the authorities may also consider Voter ID as valid proof, according to the bench.The petition had also sought to prohibit all existing commercial licensees, concessionaires, service providers and intermediaries operating at airports from onward sharing, commercial exploitation or unauthorised disclosure of passengers’ personal data to third parties. Published - October 11, 2026 05:25 pm IST