Sharing Google Pin Location Cannot Be Condition For Bail: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Monday stated that the court cannot ask the accused to share his location via Google pin as a condition for granting bail. The ruling came while setting aside a bail condition that demanded the accused to share their Google Maps location with the police.
The apex court said that there cannot be a bail condition that enables the police to constantly track the movements of the accused and intrude into the privacy of the accused. The verdict was delivered by Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan.
The bench said that such bail conditions violate the right to privacy and added that no court can force conditions that counter the purpose of granting bail itself.
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“We have said in the judgment that here can’t be a bail condition that defeats the purpose of the bail itself… although it was told to us that Google pin is innocuous, we have said that no condition can be imposed that can virtually peep into the private life of accused,” the Hindustan Times quotes, as Justice Oka is reading out the judgement.
The detailed judgement will be out later today.
This recent ruling marks significant shift as various courts earlier, including different benches of the Supreme Court, imposed sharing of Google Maps pins as a condition of bail.
Even during the prior hearing of the matter in April, the court had objected of this practice. The bench said that the function of a location pin is navigation or location identification,
which may not effectually monitor compliance with bail terms and it could be wrongly used.
“Ultimately, it’s technology. We don’t know how it will be used. But this condition should not be imposed. It (Google Maps pin) can’t be a condition of bail,” the Hindustan Times quoted as the Bench is saying.
The order came from a petition challenging bail conditions put forward by the Delhi High Court in a ruling which granted interim bail to Frank Vitus, a Nigerian national accused in a drugs case.
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The Delhi High Court placed two conditions for bail: it instructed the accused to place Google Maps pin to ensure that their location was visible to the police, and urged to obtain an assurance from Nigerian high commission that he will not leave India.
In July 2023, the top court expressed concerns that sharing Google Maps pin would disturb the privacy of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution. After granting bail with reasonable conditions, monitoring accused’s movements could diminish their right to privacy.
Following, in August 2023, the top court directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to submit an affidavit detailing the technical aspects and repercussions of using a Google Maps pin. Meanwhile, Ministry in its report stated that Google India would be better equipped to give these details. Then the court asked the Google India to submit an affidavit explaining the technology behind Google Maps pins and the scope of surveillance it enables.
Google India’s submissions stated that a location pin is “innocuous” and primarily a tool for navigation, further supporting the argument against its use for monitoring bail conditions, the Hindustan Times reports.
