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Communications surveillance and violation ofprivacy rights are said to be increasing in Nepal.This perspective is corroborated by a recent incidenton 18 April 2014, when Vinaya Kasaju, formerchief commissioner of the National InformationCommission (NIC), updated his Facebook status:Dear FB friends, I cannot write this message inNepali, because police personnel from AparadhAnusandhan Mahasakha, 19 Hanumandhoka,have taken away my desktop computer. Theycame at about 3:30 p.m. They showed me theiridentity card. I asked for letter. They said wehave come with an order of boss. If you don’tcome with us, we must force you. I followedthem to their van. On half way they talked withtheir chief and stopped the van. Waited forabout half an hour in front of Radiant Academy,Sanepa, then they brought me back home. Theyalso got a written receipt from us that Ganga,my wife, received. They took our photos. Gangatook photos of them and of their receipt. Theymentioned that they have taken my computer.But we do not have hard copy of receipt, onlyphoto which I’m trying to put here. Don’t I haveright to know why I was arrested, even for anhour? I am deprived of my communication tool.Who will save our RTI?The next day Vinaya posted the following:In all this Vinaya concludes that the cyber crimeauthorities in Nepal took action against him wrongly,which was the result of the lack of capacity of theauthorities in tracking or locating the actual culprit.He concluded, “The capacity of the authorities todeal with and investigate cyber crimes is lackingin Nepal. Their capacity needs to be built to handlecyber crime issues, so that the real criminals arecaught and innocent people are left alone.” 21The ordeal Vinaya went through was a gross violationof his privacy rights. The authorities, withoutany warrant and on the basis of an informal complaintto a senior police authority by a powerfulmedia mogul, violated his privacy rights.It is not that the authorities or any other citizenin Nepal do not have rights to information. Asestablished by the Right to Information Act, an institutionor an individual is entitled to have accessor the right to information, but by following a properprocedure. The NIC, formed under the Act, managesright-to-information cases. After receiving a requestfor information and verifying the authenticity, theNIC decides on the ensuing action. And this is applicableto government authorities, such as policedepartments, too.The issue is the juxtaposition and limitation ofthe right to privacy, right to information and communicationssurveillance. As the legality principleof the IPAHRCS states:make them not feel that “somebody’s watching me”when communicating privately, socially, professionallyor officially.Conclusions and action stepsThe conclusions that can be drawn from the Nepalexperience so far are two-fold. On the one hand itcan be asked, how is the right to privacy going tobe protected by the authorities in a changed communicationlandscape? On the other hand, giventhe imperative of communications surveillance fornational security and crime control, how is it not goingto be intrusive?These juxtaposed perspectives urgently call forthe authorities to revisit the issues of the right toprivacy and the imperative of communications surveillanceand find a balanced middle path that canuphold both. In this context, the following actionsteps can be suggested.• The authorities need to revisit the policies orlaws related to the right to privacy and reformulatethem in the changed context of the wayspeople communicate or access information orprocess and maintain personal data.• Regarding the laws or policies for communicationssurveillance, the authorities shouldformulate regulations which distinctly addressthe issues of internet censorship and communicationssurveillance.• Communications surveillance, whether masscommunications surveillance or specific communicationssurveillance, needs to be distinguishedby law or policy and regulated accordingly, followinga standard legal procedure.• Civil society, especially rights-based organisations,should be more engaged in Nepalon lobbying the authorities to recognise andprotect the right to privacy and the right to communication,without being under surveillance.• International rights organisations and donorsworking on the right to privacy related tocommunications surveillance should providetechnical assistance to the government andcivil society (including the media) in developingcountries like Nepal, in order to build their capacityfor addressing and managing the issuesof privacy and communications surveillance inline with international principles or conventions.Hegemony of some big media house is increasingin our country too. Dil Sobha was reportedas criminal running sex trade. Yesterday one bigmedia covered Kanak Dixit as if he has done abig scandal. They don’t wait for investigationreport or court decision. I came to know unofficially,that a big media boss complained againstmy website www.cmr.org.np charging that heis losing the money from Google Ads. What ashame. There is no ad in my website. It is notdifficult to find where Google Ads money is going.Has the media boss ever paid tax of thatincome to the government? I want my computerback as soon as possible safely, without lossor manipulation or theft of any data/file. Asthe former chief information commissioner, asa media consultant and as an author there arefiles of national importance and my resourcesfor study and writing. There are many such filesabout which I can tell only to concerned authority.I hope and request to return my computersafely. 20Any limitation to the right to privacy must beprescribed by law. The State must not adopt orimplement a measure that interferes with theright to privacy in the absence of an existingpublicly available legislative act, which meansa standard of clarity and precision that is sufficientto ensure that individuals have advancenotice of and can foresee its application. Giventhe rate of technology changes, laws that limitthe right of privacy should be subject to periodicreview by means of a participatory legislative orregulatory process. 22Given the rapid changes in the communicationslandscape, it is about time that the authorities inNepal revisit the current right-to-privacy legal provisions,those that deal with the right to information,as well as mass communications surveillance policiesand practices. The authorities should be ableto reassure citizens and netizens alike that their privacyis not intruded on when communicating, and19 In English, Crime Investigation Department.20 https://www.facebook.com/vinaya.kasajoo?fref=ts21 Personal conversation with Vinaya Kasaju.22 International Principles on the Application of HumanRights to Communications Surveillance. https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text176 / Global Information Society Watch nepal / 177