The Digital Panopticon: The Right to Be Forgotten Under India’s DPDP Act, 2023

Abstract

In the contemporary digital ecosystem, the commercialization of personal information by unregulated data brokers has fundamentally dismantled the traditional boundary between public and private domains. This paper presents a comparative socio-legal critique of Section 12 of India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, alongside landmark domestic precedents like Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), exploring how the lack of a comprehensive, free-standing de-indexing framework creates an inescapable digital panopticon. Moving beyond theoretical abstractions, this study investigates two distinct modern vectors of harm caused by digital permanence: the weaponization of personal data through cyber-harassment (specifically doxxing and public shaming) and the economic exclusion driven by automated, algorithmic corporate hiring systems. By evaluating how third-party data brokers commodify historically irrelevant or non-consensual personal data, this paper argues that current statutory loopholes compromise personal security and perpetuate systemic employment discrimination. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach bridging constitutional jurisprudence, digital sociology, and labor economics, this study conceptualizes the doctrine of Algorithmic Ostracism, demonstrating how the inability to erase one’s digital past paralyzes individual mobility. The paper concludes with a comprehensive policy blueprint urging the Data Protection Board of India to implement proactive data-deprecation mandates, bridge enforcement gaps against cross-border data syndicates, and reconcile the tension between public information access and individual bodily and economic autonomy.
1Marathwada