What is the Significance of Online Privacy Policies on the Contract Law?

Leezer Kaur
May 2, 2023
3 min read

"Written by Leezer Kaur, a student".

Introduction

A privacy policy could be considered as a legal statement or notice that provides details as to how the personal information provided by their customers while using their website or app would be used or processed by the website. These mainly provide for the data which is to be used by the server to facilitate easy and better access to their services. It is sometimes referred to as a ‘Privacy statement’, ‘Privacy page’, ‘Privacy notice’, etc.

It is itself a type of contract between the website or app that a person uses and its users that provides and decides the terms of data collection, storage, processing, ownership, and selling rights with respect to that information.

Particulars to be mentioned

A privacy policy is supposed to provide for the following particulars:

What information about the user will be collected by the website or the application?
How that data will be processed.
How the information is stored.
What are the purposes for which the information will be used by the processors of the information?
Contact details of the processors of the information.
Details related to cookies, tracking, and log file maintenance.
How can a person choose not to provide or disclose such information with that website or application?
Reasonable security practices and procedures.

The Information Technology(Amendment) Act, 2008

Section 43A of the act provides that where a body corporate is negligent in implementing and maintaining security practices and procedures, then it is liable to compensate those who suffer because of this. Also, some rules related to Information Technology that provided provisions related to privacy policies were laid down in 2011. Such a privacy policy is supposed to be published on the website of the corporate body and should be available to all those who have provided their personal information to the website or the application.

Privacy Policy and The Contract Law

The provisions under the contract laws consider it a type of contract between the user and the website or the application. By agreeing with such policy, the user agrees to provide the information like name, address, location, nationality, etc., and all other such information being sought by the website or the application owners, or the processors. Not only this, but the user also permits the website or the application to use this information for the purposes specified for it, which may be for a survey.

Significance of a Privacy Policy

It is important to create a privacy policy to fulfill the following requirements:

Legal Obligation- It is a legal obligation of the website or application creator to make its users aware of the particulars which would be used by them to facilitate easy and effective functioning of the functions involved therein.
Third-Party Obligations- There are many privacy policies attached to the privacy policy. For example, in case a blog contains an ad from Google, then the privacy policy of Google is also supposed to be complied with.
Creates Trustful Relationships- It creates build of the trust of the customers with the app or website used by them and promotes transparency.

How to Create a Privacy Policy?

A person can create a privacy policy on their own by writing a document along with reviewing the legislation and the policies of the company. The other and the most used method is to consult a lawyer who has the requisite skills and knowledge to create such policies that would be in consonance with the company’s policy.

After creating the privacy policy, there is a need to enforce such a policy. On websites, notifications pop up regarding the privacy policy of the website or the application, and in most cases, we can see that the user has to agree to such policies in order to have access to the content available on such a website or the application.

Conclusion

A privacy policy is a legal statement that explains and provides how that web source is going to handle the information of the users and also provides what all data can be processed and used by the website or the application. On agreeing to such a policy, there is a creation of the contract between the user and the website or the application owner or processor, and the user cannot question why such information was taken later on.