July 2018 Newsletter

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights

• Paul Kurien and Akriti Bopanna carried out an analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes by taking a close look at their mailing lists.
• CIS-A2K organized 6 events: partnership discussions with Misimi Telugu monthly magazine; partnership activity in Annamayya Library, Guntur, a workshop in Tumakur University; a workshop of river activists for building Jal Bodh; a workshop of publishers and writers on unicode, open source and wikimedia projects; and a Telugu literary conference.
• CIS had worked with the Research and Advisory Group (RAG) of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC). The work looked at the negotiation processes and strategies that various players may adopt as they drive the cyber norms agenda. In continuation CIS has brought out a report which focuses more extensively on the substantive law and principles at play and looks closely at what the global state of the debate means for India.
• The debate surrounding privacy has in recent times gained momentum due to the Aadhaar judgement and the growing concerns around the use of personal data by corporations and governments. In this light CIS has made comments and recommendations to the India Privacy Code, 2018.
• CIS drafted a response to a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) issued by the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on "International Internet Policy Priorities." CIS commented on the free flow of information and jurisdiction, mult-stakeholder approach to internet governance, privacy and security.
• Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah compiled the AI Task Force Report, India's first step towards an AI framework. The Task Force on Artificial Intelligence was established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to leverage AI for economic benefits, and provide policy recommendations on the deployment of AI for India.
• Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna carried out an analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes by taking a close look at their mailing lists.

Articles

• Digital Native: The bigger picture (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 1, 2018).
• The Problems That Should Occupy Our Electioneers (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 6, 2018).
• Digital Native: How smart cities can make criminals out of denizens (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 15, 2018).
• Anti-trafficking Bill may lead to censorship (Swaraj Barooah and Gurshabad Grover; Livemint; July 24, 2018).
• Digital Native: Hashtag Along With Me (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 29, 2018).
• Lining up the data on the Srikrishna Privacy Draft Bill (Sunil Abraham; Economic Times; July 30, 2018).
• Spreading unhappiness equally around (Business Standard; July 31, 2018).

CIS in the News

• Smartphone rumours spark series of mob killings in India (Samanth Subramanian; The National; July 2, 2018).
• Government Gives Nod To Bill For Building DNA Databases In India, For 'Criminal Investigation And Justice Delivery' (Huffington Post; July 5, 2018).
• 'Hope for such swift crackdowns for everyone' (Times of India; July 6, 2018).
• Child-lifting rumours caused 69 mob attacks, 33 deaths in last 18 months (Business Standard; July 9, 2018).
• Death by Social Media (Pretika Khanna, Abhiram Ghadyalpatil and Shaswati Das; Livemint; July 9, 2018).
• India's Latest Data Leak: People's Aadhaar Number And Bank Account Are Just One Google Search Away (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 12, 2018).
• People Should Have Right To Their Data, Not Companies, Says TRAI (Bloomberg Quint; July 16, 2018).
• After Securing Net Neutrality In India, TRAI Goes To Bat For Data Privacy (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 16, 2018).
• TRAI recommendations on data privacy raises eyebrows (Surabhi Agarwal and Gulveen Aulakh; Economic Times; July 18, 2018).
• Srikrishna panel upset at timing of Trai suggestions (Megha Mandavia; Economic Times; July 19, 2018).
• Firms find wealth in your data (Rajitha Menon; Deccan Herald; July 20, 2018).
• WhatsApp races against time to fix fake news mess ahead of 2019 general elections (Venkat Ananth; Economic Times; July 24, 2018).
• The crown of thorns that awaits Facebook’s India MD hire (Sunny Sen and Jayadevan PK; Factory Daily; July 25, 2018).
• Bit by byte protecting her privacy (Mihir Dalal and Anirban Sen; Livemint; July 26, 2018).
• Govt asks CBI to probe Cambridge Analytica in data breach case (Komal Gupta; Livemint; July 27, 2018).
• Data localisation may pinch startups, payments firms (Mugdha Variyar and Pratik Bhakta; Economic Times; July 28, 2018).

Access to Knowledge

Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Wikipedia

Blog Entries

• ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ತರಬೇತಿ ೨೦೧೮ @ ರಾಂಚಿ (Vikas Hegde; July 4, 2018).
• How to write differently for different Telugu digital platforms - awareness session to Indu Gnana Vedika (Pavan Santosh; July 19, 2018).
• వాట్సాప్ సాహిత్య వేదిక నుంచి వికీసోర్సుకు (Pavan Santosh; July 31, 2018).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Privacy

Submissions

• Response to a Notice of Enquiry by the US Government on International Internet Policy Priorities (Swagam Dasgupta; July 18, 2018).
• The Centre for Internet and Society’s Comments and Recommendations to the: Indian Privacy Code, 2018 (Shweta Mohandas, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Shruti Trikanand; July 20, 2018).

Blog Entry

• The AI Task Force Report - The first steps towards India’s AI framework (Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah; June 27, 2018). The blog post was edited by Swagam Dasgupta.

Cyberspace and Cyber Security

Analysis

• The Potential for the Normative Regulation of Cyberspace: Implications for India (Arindrajit Basu; July 30, 2018). The report was edited by Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Udbhav Tiwari with research assistance from Tejas Bharadwaj.

Participation in Event

• IEEE-SA InDITA Conference 2018 (Organized by IEEE Standards Association; IIIT-Bangalore; July 10 - 11, 2018). Gurshabad Grover gave a brief presentation on how we could apply or reject 'Trust Through Technology' principles in the design of public biometric authentication.

Free Speech & Expression

Blog Entries

• ICANN Diversity Analysis (Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna; July 16, 2018).
• DIDP #31 Diversity of employees at ICANN (Akash Sriram; July 19, 2018).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

• The Problems That Should Occupy Our Electioneers (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 5, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; July 6, 2018).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

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