Supreme Court Directs Google to Clarify PIN Location-Sharing Feature in Response to Bail Condition

The Supreme Court on Monday, April 8, asked search engine giant Google to clarify how its PIN location-sharing features work on Google Maps. The top court directed the tech company to inform it, and it would examine later whether sharing location as a precondition of bail for an accused person would violate the right to his privacy when he is made to share such details.

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A bench of two judges, led by Justice Abhay S Oka and comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, was hearing the matter. The top court bench said this while hearing an appeal filed by the Prosecution against an order of bail granted by the Delhi High Court to a Nigerian national in a case registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

#SupremeCourtOfIndia has asked #Google LLC to explain how its PIN location-sharing feature works.

Court has sought for a response while seeking to examine if sharing location as a bail condition would violate the right to privacy. pic.twitter.com/QP7lzZpC5T

— LawBeat (@LawBeatInd) April 8, 2024

"We need to examine whether if an accused (on the court's orders) has to provide the investigators with his detailed information about their whereabouts, then will it likely infringe the individual’s right to privacy or not," the bench observed. 

In its earlier order on February 23, the apex court asked Google India to file a detailed affidavit explaining the technical aspects of dropping a PIN in the context of putting it as a condition of granting bail to an accused person.