PRIVACY VS. TRANSPARENCY : EXAMINING THE DPDP ACT & RTI CONFLICT IN INDIA

This Article, examines the constitutional and legal friction between individual data privacy rights and administrative transparency in India. The central theme focuses on the clash between the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 and the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. By amending Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act via Section 44 of the DPDP Act, the statutory "public interest" override is effectively removed. This establishes a blanket ban shielding personal data held by public authorities, which risks concealing critical public spending records, official appointments, corruption investigations, and welfare beneficiary lists from citizen audit. Beyond state transparency, the paper also evaluates corporate data harvesting by Big Tech platforms (such as Meta and Google), AI model training, and dark consent patterns, while outlining actionable governance measures under the DPDP Act—including the Data Protection Board of India (DPBI), Data Protection Officers (DPOs), and enhanced consent frameworks.