Mandatory Voice Samples does not violate Privacy

In the case of Ritesh Sinha v/s state of Uttar Pradesh and others, the Supreme Court has ruled that compelling for a voice sample was not a violation of his fundamental right to privacy.

Observations made by the Supreme Court

• A judicial magistrate is empowered to order a person to give a sample of his voice for the purpose of investigation.
• The fundamental right to privacy cannot be construed as absolute and must bow down to compelling public interest.
• Giving voice sample to an investigating agency was not a violation of the fundamental right against self-incrimination provided under Article 20 (3) of the Constitution which states that “no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself”.
• The Supreme Court held that a voice sample by itself is not incriminating evidence and giving voice sample by a person did not amount to furnishing of evidence against oneself because voice sample was given for the reason of comparison with other voices in order to see if they matched and were of the same person.
• The Supreme Court compared a voice sample with other impressions like specimen handwriting, or impressions of his fingers, palm or foot collected by police during the investigation and held that by themselves, these impressions or the handwriting do not incriminate the accused person, or even tend to do so.

The Law Commission in its 87th Report in 1980 described voice print as a visual recording of voice and had held that Voiceprints resemble fingerprints, in that each person has a distinctive voice with characteristic features dictated by vocal cavities and articulates.