The Centre for Internet and Society
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India's HIV-positive trans people find 'new strength' in technology
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/reuters-annie-banerji-october-17-2019-indias-hiv-positive-trans-people-find-new-strength-in-technology
<b>Shoved, cursed and ridiculed, Nisha's hospital visits were always stressful as a transgender woman and got worse after she was diagnosed as HIV-positive.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Annie Banerji was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2019/10/16/indias-hiv-positive-trans-people-find-new-strength-in-technology.html">published in Reuters</a> on October 17, 2019 and mirrored in the Jakarta Post as well. Ambika Tandon was quoted. It was mirrored in <a class="external-link" href="https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/health-it/indias-hiv-positive-trans-people-find-new-strength-in-technology/71599241">ET Healthworld.com</a> as well.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">But a new app introduced as part of a drive to end an HIV epidemic in India by 2030 is providing her and the transgender community better access to doctors, lifesaving drugs - and hope - although it has raised concerns about digital privacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has the world's third largest population living with HIV - 2.1 million people - according to UNAIDS, with recognition that help is needed in the transgender community where the prevalence is 3.1% compared to 0.26% among all adults.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nisha tested HIV positive last year after earning a living as a sex worker in New Delhi. On the job, she said, condoms would often break or she would not use one for more money.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"That was a bad idea. I ended up with HIV. I felt suicidal after I found out," Nisha, 29, a trans woman who goes by one name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It didn't help that going to the hospital was torturous. People made faces, passed lewd comments ... a doctor even kicked me out."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Despite the Supreme Court recognizing India's 2 million transgender people as a third gender with equal rights in 2014, they are often kicked out by their families and denied jobs, education and healthcare, leading them to begging or sex work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Trans women like Nisha say they face "double discrimination" and the risk of being shunned and abused - first because of their gender identity and then because of their HIV status.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But a counselling program along with a new app is helping health workers track down HIV-positive transgender people, monitor their treatment and link them to doctors and antiretroviral therapy (ART) to suppress the AIDS virus.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I have found new strength. I don't feel depressed or nervous anymore," said Nisha, who now begs at traffic lights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The app helps keep me physically healthy and she ensures I'm mentally and emotionally (healthy)," she said, pointing to her outreach worker Samyra, an HIV-positive trans woman.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The eMpower app - developed by IBM in partnership with India HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - monitored more than 1.2 million people between January 2018 and March 2019.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>'Half the battle won'</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With mobile tablets in hand, HIV-positive transgender outreach workers keep a tab on others in their community living with HIV and counsel them and accompany them to see doctors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I tell them 'I'm like you. I'm HIV-positive and I'm taking medicines too. You're not alone'," said Samyra, who works with Vihaan, a national initiative to expand counselling, outreach and follow-up programs to people living with HIV.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"That makes a huge difference because it's coming from one of your own. Half of the HIV battle is won when you have someone to hold your hand along the way."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Health experts said transgender focused initiatives like this and the launch in March of India's first HIV treatment clinic in Mumbai city run for and by LGBT+ people were pushing the country towards its target to end the epidemic by 2030.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But to achieve this target they said it was critical for patients to stick with ART. Sometimes stigma and side effects can cause them to drop out of the treatment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That is why health workers follow up with clients every few months and record information on the eMpower app, including their weight, viral load and CD4 - white blood cells that fight HIV - and advise them on everything from their diet to safe sex.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They also note whether a client has faced discrimination, and arrange for partners and family members to get tested.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sonal Mehta, head of India HIV/AIDS Alliance, said the app has helped boost Vihaan's outreach numbers as well as the confidence of trans clients and workers, who often come from poor, semi-literate backgrounds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The trans clients definitely feel much more secure ... but the outreach workers themselves also feel very empowered. They are professional officers working on the field, talking to doctors, government officers, engaging with various organisations," she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Double-edged sword</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While such technological advances are seen as key in the HIV/AIDS fight, health and software experts warn they can come at the cost of privacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The eMpower app creates a profile for each client with personal information including name, biometric ID number, occupation and monthly income, and a map pinning their location.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Without proper safeguards, such an app runs the risk of data breach and sharing information with third-parties, which can further ostracize an already marginalized community, said Ambika Tandon, a cyber security expert.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The potential to monetize is definitely a risk factor," said Tandon, policy officer in gender-based research at the Banaglore-based Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Another is informational privacy ... (clients) may not necessarily know where their information is being stored, who will have access to it ... There could be multiple points at which their data could be vulnerable."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Saravanan RM, a senior technical officer at India HIV/AIDS Alliance, said the eMpower app a "fool-proof system".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He said all sensitive data was stored on the organisation's server, which could only be accessed by specific workers through a password-protected system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">None of the information can be seen by any partners - not IBM, state or federal governments. It is further beefed up by a mobile device management (MDM), he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"For example, if any device is lost or has gone into someone else's hands, what we can do through MDM is clean out the entire tablet and the data will not be acquired," he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. V Sam Prasad, India program manager of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said the app should not be dismissed because there was a privacy risk as it came with major benefits.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Several HIV-positive transgender people like Swati, a trans woman who contracted HIV after injecting drugs, felt the same.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Even if it (personal data) is leaked, what's the worst that could happen? I've faced unimaginable things. Nothing scares me, at least not such things," said Swati, 25, after a follow-up meeting with her outreach worker at her one-room home.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It is (eMpower) saving me. It is not an enemy."</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/reuters-annie-banerji-october-17-2019-indias-hiv-positive-trans-people-find-new-strength-in-technology'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/reuters-annie-banerji-october-17-2019-indias-hiv-positive-trans-people-find-new-strength-in-technology</a>
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No publisherAnnie BanerjiInternet Governance2019-10-18T15:28:18ZNews ItemPanelist at launch of Google-UNESCAP AI Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/panelist-at-launch-of-google-unescap-ai-report
<b>Arindrajit Basu was a speaker at the panel launching the Google-UNESCAP AI Report at the GovInsider Forum held at the United Nations Convention Centre in Bangkok on October 16, 2019. </b>
<p>Click to <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/launch-the-ai-report">view the agenda</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/panelist-at-launch-of-google-unescap-ai-report'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/panelist-at-launch-of-google-unescap-ai-report</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2019-11-02T06:48:25ZNews ItemFarming the Future: Deployment of Artificial Intelligence in the agricultural sector in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-in-the-delivery-of-public-services-elonnai-hickok-pranav-bidare-arindrajit-basu-siddharth-october-16-2019-farming-the-future
<b>This case study was published as a chapter in the joint UNESCAP-Google publication titled Artificial Intelligence in Public Service Delivery. The chapter in its final form would not have been possible without the efforts and very useful interventions by our colleagues at Digital Asia Hub,Google, and UNESCAP.</b>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Findings.jpg" alt="Findings" class="image-inline" title="Findings" /></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although agriculture is a critical sector for India’s economic development, it continues to face many challenges including a lack of <span>modernization of agricultural methods, fragmented landholdings, erratic rainfalls, overuse of groundwater and a lack of access to </span><span>information on weather, markets and pricing. As state governments create policies and frameworks to mitigate these challenges, the </span><span>role of technology has often come up as a potential driver of positive change.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Farmers in the southern Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are facing significant challenges. For hundreds of years,these farmers have relied on traditional agricultural methods to make sowing and harvesting decisions, but now volatile weather patterns and shifting monsoon seasons are making such ancient wisdom obsolete. Farmers are unable to predict weather patterns or crop yields accurately, making it difficult for them to make informed financial and operational decisions associated with planting and harvesting. Erratic weather patterns particularly affect those farmers who reside in remote areas, cut off from meaningful accessto infrastructure and information. In addition to a lack of vital weather information, farmers may lack information about market conditions and may then sell their crops to intermediaries at below-market prices.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Against this backdrop, the state governments and local partners in southern India teamed up with Microsoft to develop predictive AI services to help smallholder farmers to improve their crop yields and give them greater price control. Since 2016 three applications have been developed and applied for use in these communities, two of which are discussed in this case study: the AI-sowing app and the price forecasting model.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/publications/AI%20Report.pdf">Click to read</a> the report here.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-in-the-delivery-of-public-services-elonnai-hickok-pranav-bidare-arindrajit-basu-siddharth-october-16-2019-farming-the-future'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-in-the-delivery-of-public-services-elonnai-hickok-pranav-bidare-arindrajit-basu-siddharth-october-16-2019-farming-the-future</a>
</p>
No publisherElonnai Hickok, Arindrajit Basu, Siddharth Sonkar and Pranav M BInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2019-10-16T13:41:02ZBlog EntryAI Opera- AI as a total work of art
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ai-opera-ai-as-a-total-work-of-art
<b>On October 11, 2019, Shweta Mohandas and Mira were invited as panelists for the 'AI Opera- AI as a total work of art' event organized by Goethe as part of the India Week Hamburg 2019 held in Bangalore. CIS was an event partner. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The panel had to present different perspectives and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The discussion was facilitated by German artist, performer and filmmaker Christoph Faulhaber. For more info, <a class="external-link" href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/in/en/sta/ban/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=21670394">click here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ai-opera-ai-as-a-total-work-of-art'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ai-opera-ai-as-a-total-work-of-art</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2019-10-14T14:30:56ZNews ItemWe need a better AI vision
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/fountain-ink-october-12-2019-arindrajit-basu-we-need-a-better-ai-vision
<b>Artificial intelligence conjures up a wondrous world of autonomous processes but dystopia is inevitable unless rights and privacy are protected.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post by Arindrajit Basu was published by<a class="external-link" href="https://fountainink.in/essay/we-need-a-better-ai-vision-"> Fountainink</a> on October 12, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">he dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has policy-makers across the globe excited. In India, it is seen as a tool to overleap structural hurdles and better understand a range of organisational and management processes while improving the implementation of several government tasks. Notwithstanding the apparent enthusiasm in the government and private sectors, an adequate technological, infrastructural, and financial capacity to develop these models at scale is still in the works.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A number of policy documents with direct or indirect references to India’s AI future—to be powered by vast troves of data—have been released in the past year and a half. These include the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (which I will refer to as National Strategy) authored by NITI Aayog, the AI Taskforce Report, Chapter 4 of the Economic Survey, the Draft e-Commerce Bill and the Srikrishna Committee Report.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While they extol the virtues of data-driven analytics, references to the preservation or augmentation of India’s constitutional ethos through AI has been limited though it is crucial for safeguarding the rights and liberties of citizens while paving the way for the alleviation of societal oppression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this essay, I outline the variety of AI use cases that are in the works. I then highlight India’s AI vision by culling the relevant aspects of policy instruments that impact the AI ecosystem and identify lacunae that can be rectified. Finally, I attempt to “constitutionalise AI policy” by grounding it in a framework of constitutional rights that guarantee protection to the most vulnerable sections of society.</p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">In the manufacturing industry, AI adoption is not uniform across all sectors. But there has been a notable transformation in electronics, heavy electricals and automobiles.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is crucial to note that these cases, still emerging in India, have been implemented at scale in other countries such as the United Kingdom, United States and China. Projects were rolled out to the detriment of ethical and legal considerations. Hindsight should make the Indian policy ecosystem much wiser. By closely studying the research produced in these diverse contexts, Indian policy-makers should try to find ways around the ethical and legal challenges that cropped up elsewhere and devise policy solutions that mitigate the concerns raised.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">B<span>efore anything else we need to define AI—an endeavour fraught with multiple contestations. My colleagues and I at the Centre for Internet & Society ducked this hurdle when conducting our research by adopting a function-based approach. An AI system (as opposed to one that automates routine, cognitive or non-cognitive tasks) is a dynamic learning system that allows for the delegation of some level of human decision-making to the system. This definition allows us to capture some of the unique challenges and prospects that stem from the use of AI.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The research I contributed to at CIS identified key trends in the use of AI across India. In healthcare, it is used for descriptive and predictive purposes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For example, the Manipal Group of Hospitals tied up with IBM’s Watson for Oncology to aid doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of seven types of cancer. It is also being used for analytical or diagnostic services. Niramai Health Analytix uses AI to detect early stage breast cancer and Adveniot Tecnosys detects tuberculosis through chest X-rays and acute infections using ultrasound images. In the manufacturing industry, AI adoption is not uniform across all sectors. But there has been a notable transformation in the electronics, heavy electricals and automobiles sector gradually adopting and integrating AI solutions into their products and processes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is also used in the burgeoning online lending segment in order to source credit score data. As many Indians have no credit scores, AI is used to aggregate data and generate scores for more than 80 per cent of the population who have no credit scores. This includes Credit Vidya, a Hyderabad-based data underwriting start-up that provides a credit score to first time loan-seekers and feeds this information to big players such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, among others. It is also used by players such as Mastercard for fraud detection and risk management. In the finance world, companies such as Trade Rays are being used to provide user-friendly algorithmic trading services.</p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">AI is also being increasingly used in the education sector for providing services to students such as decision-making assistance and also for student-progress monitoring.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The next big development is in law enforcement. Predictive policing is making great strides in various states, including Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. A brainchild of the Los Angeles Police Department, predictive policing is the use of analytical techniques such as Machine Learning to identify probable targets for intervention to prevent crime or to solve past crime through statistical predictions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Conventional approaches to predictive policing start with the mapping of locations where crimes are concentrated (hot spots) by using algorithms to analyse aggregated data sets. Police in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have partnered with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a Memorandum of Understanding to allow ISRO’s Advanced Data Processing Research Institute to map, visualise and compile reports about crime-related incidents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are aggressive developments also on the facial recognition front. Punjab Police, in association with Gurugram-based start-up Staqu has started implementing the Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS) which uses digitised criminal records and automated facial recognition to retrieve information on the suspected criminal. At the national level, on June 28, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) called for tenders to implement a centralised Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS), defining the scope of work in broad terms as the “supply, installation and commissioning of hardware and software at NCRB.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">AI is also being increasingly used in the education sector for providing services to students such as decision-making assistance and also for student-progress monitoring. The Andhra Pradesh government had started collecting information from a range of databases and processes the information through Microsoft’s Machine Learning Platform to monitor children and devote student focussed attention on identifying and curbing school drop-outs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In Andhra Pradesh, Microsoft collaborated with the International Crop Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to develop an AI Sowing App powered by Microsoft’s Cortana Intelligence Suite. It aggregated data using Machine Learning and sent advisories to farmers regarding optimal dates to sow. This was done via text messages on feature phones after ground research revealed that not many farmers owned or were able to use smart phones. The NITI Aayog AI Strategy specifically cited this use case and reported that this resulted in a 10-30 per cent increase in crop yield. The government of Karnataka has entered into a similar arrangement with Microsoft.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, in the defence sector, our research found enthusiasm for AI in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) functions, cyber defence, robot soldiers, risk terrain analysis and moving towards autonomous weapons systems. These projects are being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation but the level of trust and support in AI-driven processes reposed by the wings of the armed forces is yet to be publicly clarified. India also had the privilege of leading the global debate on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) with Amandeep Singh Gill chairing the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UN-GGE) on the issue. However, ‘lethal’ autonomous weapons systems at this stage appear to be a speck in the distant horizon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A<span>long with the range of use cases described above, a patchwork of policy imperatives is emerging to support this ecosystem. The umbrella document is the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence published by the NITI Aayog in June 2018. Despite certain lacunae in its scope, the existence of a cohesive and robust document that lends a semblance of certainty and predictability to a rapidly emerging sphere is in itself a boon. The document focuses on how India can leverage AI for both economic growth and social inclusion. The contents of the document can be divided into a few themes, many of which have also found their way into multiple other instruments.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">NITI Aayog provides over 30 policy recommendations on investment in scientific research, reskilling, training and enabling the speedy adoption of AI across value chains. The flagship research initiative is a two-tiered endeavour to boost AI research in India. First, new centres of research excellence (COREs) will develop fundamental research. The COREs will act as feeders for international centres for transformational AI which will focus on creating AI-based applications across sectors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/AIinCountries.jpg/@@images/16b4af34-cb6d-423c-be35-e45a60d501cf.jpeg" alt="AI in Countries" class="image-inline" title="AI in Countries" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is an impressive theoretical objective but questions surrounding implementation and structures of operation remain to be answered. China has not only conceptualised an ecosystem but through the Three Year Action Plan to Promote the Development of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Industry, it has also taken a whole-of-government approach to propelling the private sector to an e-leadership position. It has partnered with national tech companies and set clear goals for funding, such as the $2.1 billion technology park for AI research in Beijing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The contents of the NITI document can be divided into a few themes, many of which have also found their way into multiple other instruments. First, it proposes an “AI+X” approach that captures the long-term vision for AI in India. Instead of replacing the processes in their entirety, AI is understood as an enabler of efficiency in processes that already exist. NITI Aayog therefore looks at the process of deploying AI-driven technologies as taking an existing process (X) and adding AI to them (AI+X). This is a crucial recommendation all AI projects should heed. Instead of waving AI as an all-encompassing magic wand across sectors, it is necessary to identify specific gaps AI can seek to remedy and then devise the process underpinning this implementation.</p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">A cacophony of policy instruments by multiple government departments seeks to reconceptualise data to construct a theoretical framework that allows for its exploitation for AI-driven analytics.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The AI-driven intervention to develop sowing apps for farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are examples of effective implementation of this approach. Instead of other knee-jerk reactions to agrarian woes such as a hasty raising of Minimum Support Price, effective research was done in this use-case to identify a lack of predictability in weather patterns as a key factor in productive crop yields. They realised that aggregation of data through AI could provide farmers with better information on weather patterns. As internet penetration was relatively low in rural Karnataka, text messages to feature phones that had a far wider presence was indispensable to the end game.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">T<span>his is in contrast to the ill-conceived path adopted by the Union ministry of electronics and information technology in guidelines for regulating social media platforms that host content (“intermediaries”). Rule 3(9) of the Draft of the Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018 mandates intermediaries to use “automated tools or appropriate mechanisms, with appropriate controls, for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content”.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Proposed in light of the fake news menace and the unbridled spread of “extremist” content online, the use of the phrase “automated tools or appropriate mechanisms” is reflective of an attitude that fails to consider ground realities that confront companies and users alike. They ignore, for instance, the cost of automated tools: whether automated content moderation techniques developed in the West can be applied to Indic languages or grievance redress mechanisms users can avail of if their online speech is unduly restricted. This is thus a clear case of the “AI” mantra being drawn out of a hat without studying the “X” it is supposed to remedy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second focus of the National Strategy that has since morphed into a technology policy mainstay across instruments is on data governance, access and utilisation. The document says the major hurdle to the large scale adoption of AI in India is the difficulty in accessing structured data. It recommends developing big annotated data sets to “democratise data and multi-stakeholder marketplaces across the AI value chain”. It argues that at present only one per cent of data can be analysed as it exists in various unconnected silos. Through the creation of a formal market for data, aggregators such as diagnostic centres in the healthcare sector would curate datasets and place them in the market, with appropriate permissions and safeguards. AI firms could use available datasets rather than wasting effort sourcing and curating the sets themselves.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A cacophony of policy instruments by multiple government departments seeks to reconceptualise data to construct a theoretical framework that allows for its exploitation for AI-driven analytics.The first is “community data” and appears both in the Srikrishna Report that accompanied the draft Data Protection Bill in 2018 and the draft e-commerce policy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But there appears to be some conflict between its usage in the two. Srikrishna endorses a collective protection of privacy by protecting an identifiable community that has contributed to community data. This requires the fulfilment of three key conditions: <i>first,</i> the data belong to an identifiable community; <i>second, </i>individuals in the community consent to being a part of it, and <i>third</i>, the community as a whole consents to its data being treated as community data. On the other hand, the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s (DPIIT) draft e-commerce policy looks at community data as “societal commons” or a “national resource” that gives the community the right to access it but government has ultimate and overriding control of the data. This configuration of community data brings into question the consent framework in the Srikrishna Bill.</p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">The government’s attempt to harness data as a national resource for the development of AI-based solutions may be well-intentioned but is fraught with core problems in implementation.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The matter is further confused by treating “data as a public good”. This is projected in Chapter 4 of the 2019 Economic Survey published by the Ministry of Finance. It explicitly states that any configuration needs to be deferential to privacy norms and the upcoming privacy law. The “personal data” of an individual in the custody of a government is also a “public good” once the datasets are anonymised. At the same time, it pushes for the creation of a government database that links several individual databases, which leads to the “triangulation” problem, where matching different datasets together allows for individuals to be identified despite their anonymisation in seemingly disparate databases.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Building an AI ecosystem” was also one of the ostensible reasons for data localisation—the government’s gambit to mandate that foreign companies store the data of Indian citizens within national borders. In addition to a few other policy instruments with similar mandates, Section 40 of the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill mandates that all “critical data” (this is to be notified by the government) be stored exclusively in India. All other data should have a live, serving copy stored in India even if transfer abroad is allowed. This was an attempt to ensure foreign data processors are not the sole beneficiaries of AI-driven insights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government’s attempt to harness data as a national resource for the development of AI-based solutions may be well intentioned but is fraught with core problems in implementation. First, the notion of data as a national resource or as a public good walks a tightrope with constitutionally guaranteed protections around privacy, which will be codified in the upcoming Personal Data Protection Bill. My concerns are not quite so grave in the case of genuine “public data” like traffic signal data or pollution data. However, the Economic Survey manages to crudely amalgamate personal data into the mix.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It also states that personal data in the custody of a government is a public good once the datasets are anonymised. This includes transactions data in the User Payments Interface (UPI), administrative data including birth and death records, and institutional data including data in public hospitals or schools on pupils or patients. At the same time, it pushes for a government database that will lead to the triangulation problem outlined above. The chapter also suggests that said data may be sold to private firms (unclear if this includes foreign or domestic firms). This not only contradicts the notion of public good but is also a serious threat to the confidentiality and security of personal data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">T<span>herefore, along with the concerted endeavour to create data marketplaces, it is crucial for policy-makers to differentiate between public data and personal data individuals may consent to be made public. The parameters for clearly defining free and informed consent, as codified in the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill need to be strictly followed as there is a risk of de-anonymisation of data once it finds its way into the marketplace. Second, it is crucial for policy-makers to define clearly a community and parameters for what constitutes individual consent to be part of a community. Finally, along with technical work on setting up a national data marketplace, there must be protracted efforts to guarantee greater security and standards of anonymisation.</span></p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">The National Strategy mentions that India should position itself as a “garage” for AI in emerging economies. This could mean Indian citizens are used as guinea pigs for AI-driven solutions at the cost of their rights.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Assuming that a constitutionally valid paradigm may be created, the excessive focus on data access by tech players dodges the question of the capabilities of analytic firms to process this data and derive meaningful insights from the information. Scholars on China, arguably the poster-child of data-driven economic growth, have sent mixed messages. Ding argues that despite having half the technical capabilities of the US, easy access to data gives China a competitive edge in global AI competition. On the contrary, Andrew Ng has argued that operationalising a sufficient number of relevant datasets still remains a challenge. Ng’s views are backed up by insiders at Chinese tech giant Tencent who say the company still finds it difficult to integrate data streams due to technical hurdles. NITI Aayog’s idea of a multi-stream data marketplace may theoretically be a solution to these potential hurdles but requires sustained funding and research innovation to be converted into reality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The National Strategy suggests that government should create a multi-disciplinary committee to set up this marketplace and explore levers for its implementation. This is certainly the need of the hour. It also rightly highlights the importance of research partnerships between academia and the private sector, and the need to support start-ups. There is therefore an urgent need for innovative allied policy instruments that support the burgeoning start-up sector. Proposals such as data localisation may hurt smaller players as they will have to bear the increased fixed costs of setting up or renting data centres.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The National Strategy also incongruously mentions that India should position itself as a “garage” for the use of AI in emerging economies. This could mean Indian citizens are used as guinea pigs for AI-driven solutions at the cost of their fundamental rights. It could also imply that India should occupy a leadership position and work with other emerging economies to frame the global rights based discourse to seek equitable solutions for the application of AI that works to improve the plight of the most vulnerable in society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">O<span>ur constitutional ethos places us in a unique position to develop a framework that enables the actualisation of this equitable vision—a goal the policy instruments put out thus far appear to have missed. While the National Strategy includes a section on privacy, security and ethical implications of AI, it stops short of rooting it in fundamental rights and constitutional principles. As a centralised policy instrument, the National Strategy deserves praise for identifying key levers in the future of India’s AI ecosystem and, with the exception of the concerns I outlined above, it is at par with the policy-making thought process in any other nation.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When we start the process of using constitutional principles for AI governance, we must remember that as per Article 12, an individual can file a writ against the state for violation of a fundamental right if the action is taken under the aegis of a “public function”. To combat discrimination by private actors, the state can enact legislation compelling private actors to comply with constitutional mandates. In July, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, a Rajya Sabha MP, suggested a law to combat algorithmic discrimination along the lines of the Algorithmic Accountability Bill proposed in the US Senate. There are three core constitutional questions along the lines of the “golden triangle” of the Indian Constitution any such legislation will need to answer—those of accountability and transparency, algorithmic discrimination and the guarantee of freedom of expression and individual privacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Algorithms are developed by human beings who have their own cognitive biases. This means ostensibly neutral algorithms can have an unintentional disparate impact on certain, often traditionally disenfranchised groups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the <i>MIT Technology Review</i>, Karen Hao explains three stages at which bias might creep in. The first stage is the framing of the problem itself. As soon as computer scientists create a deep-learning model, they decide what they want the model to finally achieve. However, frequently desired outcomes such as “profitability”, “creditworthiness” or “recruitability” are subjective and imprecise concepts subject to human cognitive bias. This makes it difficult to devise screening algorithms that fairly portray society and the complex medley of identities, attributes and structures of power that define it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second stage Hao mentions is the data collection phase. Training data could lead to bias if it is unrepresentative of reality or represents entrenched prejudice or structural inequality. For example, most Natural Language Processing systems used for Parts of Speech (POS) tagging in the US are trained on the readily available data sets from the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>. Accuracy would naturally decrease when the algorithm is applied to individuals—largely ethnic minorities—who do not mimic the speech of the <i>Journal</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Hao, the final stage for algorithmic bias is data preparation, which involves selecting parameters the developer wants the algorithm to consider. For example, when determining the “risk-profile” of car owners seeking insurance premiums, geographical location could be one parameter. This could be justified by the ostensibly neutral argument that those residing in inner-city areas with narrower roads are more likely to have scratches on their vehicles. But as inner cities in the US have a disproportionately high number of ethnic minorities or other vulnerable socio-economic groups, “pin code” becomes a facially neutral proxy for race or class-based discrimination.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">T<span>he right to equality has been carved into multiple international human rights instruments and into the Equality Code in Articles 14-18 of the Indian Constitution. The dominant approach to interpreting the right to equality by the Supreme Court has been to focus on “grounds” of discrimination under Article 15(1), thus resulting in a lack of recognition of unintentional discrimination and disparate impact.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A notable exception, as constitutional scholar Gautam Bhatia points out, is the case of <i>N.M. Thomas </i>which pertained to reservation in promotions. Justice Mathew argued that the test for inequality in Article 16(4) is an effects-oriented test independent of the formal motivation underlying a specific act. Justice Krishna Iyer and Mathew also articulated a grander vision wherein they saw the Equality Code as transcending the embedded individual disabilities in class driven social hierarchies. This understanding is crucial for governing data driven decision-making that impacts vulnerable communities. Any law or policy on AI-related discrimination must also include disparate impact within its definition of “discrimination” to ensure that developers think about the adverse consequences even of well-intentioned decisions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">AI driven assessments have been challenged on grounds of constitutional violations in other jurisdictions. In 2016, the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered the legality of using risk assessment tools such as COMPAS for sentencing criminals. It affirmed the trial court’s findings and held that using COMPAS did not violate constitutional due process standards. Eric Loomis had argued that using COMPAS infringed both his right to an individualised sentence and to accurate information as COMPAS provided data for specific groups and kept the methodology used to prepare the report a trade secret. He additionally argued that the court used unconstitutional gendered assessments as the tool used gender as one of the parameters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wisconsin Supreme Court disagreed with Loomis arguing that COMPAS only used publicly available data and data provided by the defendant, which apparently meant Loomis could have verified any information contained in the report. On the question of individualisation, the court argued that COMPAS provided only aggregate data for groups similarly placed to the offender. However, it went on to argue as the report was not the sole basis for a decision by the judge, a COMPAS assessment would be sufficiently individualised as courts retained the discretion and information necessary to disagree.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">By assuming that Loomis could have genuinely verified all the data collected about similarly placed groups and that judges would exercise discretion to prevent the entrenchment of inequalities through COMPAS’s decision-making patterns, the judges ignored social realities. Algorithmic decision-making systems are an extension of unequal decision-making that re-entrenches prevailing societal perceptions around identity and behaviour. An instance of discrimination cannot be looked at as a single instance but as one in a menagerie of production systems that define, modulate and regulate social existence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The policy-making ecosystem needs, therefore, to galvanise the “transformative” vision of India’s democratic fibre and study existing systems and power structures AI could re-entrench or mitigate. For example, in the matter of bank loans there is a presumption against the credit-worthiness of those working in the informal sector. The use of aggregated decision-making may lead to more equitable outcomes given that there is concrete thought on the organisational structures making these decisions and the constitutional safeguards provided.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most case studies on algorithmic discrimination in Virgina Eubanks’ <i>Automating Inequality </i>or Safiya Noble’s <i>Algorithms of Oppression</i> are based on western contexts. There is an urgent need for publicly available empirical studies on pilot cases in India to understand the contours of discrimination. Primary research questions should explore three related subjects. Are specified ostensibly neutral variables being used to exclude certain communities from accessing opportunities and resources or having a disproportionate impact on their civil liberties? Is there diversity in the identities of the coders themselves? Are the training data sets used representative and diverse and, finally, what role does data driven decision-making play in furthering the battle against embedded structural hierarchies?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">***</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A key feature of AI-driven solutions is the “black box” that processes inputs and generates actionable outputs behind a veil of opacity to the human operator. Essentially, the black box denotes that aspect of the human neural decision-making function that has been delegated to the machine. A lack of transparency or understanding could lead to what Frank Pasquale terms a “Black Box Society” where algorithms define the trajectories of daily existence unless “the values and prerogatives of the encoded rules hidden within black boxes” are challenged.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ex-<i>post facto</i> assessment is often insufficient for arriving at genuine accountability. For example, the success of predictive policing in the US was drawn from the fact that police have indeed found more crimes in areas deemed “high risk”. But this assessment does not account for the fact that this is a product of a vicious cycle through which more crime is detected in an area simply because more policemen are deployed. Here, the National Strategy rightly identifies that simply opening up code may not deconstruct the black box as not all stakeholders impacted by AI solutions may understand the code. The constant aim should be explicability which means the human developer should be able to explain how certain factors may be used to arrive at a certain cluster of outcomes in a given set of situations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The requirement of accountability stems from the Right to Life provision under Article 21. As stated in the seven-judge bench in <i>Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India</i>, any procedure established by law must be seen to be “fair, just and reasonable” and not “fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Right to Privacy was recognised as a fundamental right by the nine-judge bench in <i>K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs. Union of India</i>. Mass surveillance can lead to the alteration of behavioural patterns which may in turn be used for the suppression of dissent by the State. Pulling vast tracts of data on all suspected criminals—as in facial recognition systems like PAIS—create a “presumption of criminality” that can have a chilling effect on democratic values.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Therefore, any use, particularly by law enforcement would need to satisfy the requirements for infringing on the right to privacy: the existence of a law, necessity—a clearly defined state objective—and proportionality between the state object and the means used restricting fundamental rights the least. Along with centralised policy instruments such as the National Strategy, all initiatives taken in pursuance of India’s AI agenda must pay heed to the democratic virtues of privacy and free speech and their interlinkages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India needs a law to regulate the impact of Artificial Intelligence and enable its development without restricting fundamental rights. However, regulation should not adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach that views all uses with the same level of rigidity. Regulatory intervention should be based on questions around power asymmetries and the likelihood of the use case adversely affronting human dignity captured by India’s constitutional ethos.</p>
<blockquote class="synopsis" style="text-align: justify; ">As an aspiring leader in global discourse, India can lay the rules of the road for other emerging economies not only by incubating, innovating and implementing AI powered technologies but by grounding it in a lattice of rich constitutional jurisprudence that empowers the individual.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The High Level Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) set up by the European Commission in June 2018 published a report on “Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy AI” earlier this year. They feature seven core requirements which include human agency and oversight; technical robustness and safety; privacy and data governance; transparency; diversity, non-discrimination and fairness; societal and environmental well-being; and accountability. While the principles are comprehensive, this document stops short of referencing any domestic or international constitutional law that helps cement these values. The Indian Constitution can help define and concretise each of these principles and could be used as a vehicle to foster genuine social inclusion and mitigation of structural injustice through AI.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the centre of the vision must be the inherent rights of the individual. The constitutional moment for data driven decision-making emerges therefore when we conceptualise a way through which AI can be utilised to preserve and improve the enforcement of rights while also ensuring that data does not become a further avenue for exploitation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">National vision transcends the boundaries of policy and to misuse Peter Drucker, “eats strategy for breakfast”. As an aspiring leader in global discourse, India can lay the rules of the road for other emerging economies not only by incubating, innovating and implementing AI powered technologies but by grounding it in a lattice of rich constitutional jurisprudence that empowers the individual, particularly the vulnerable in society. While the multiple policy instruments and the National Strategy are important cogs in the wheel, the long-term vision can only be framed by how the plethora of actors, interest groups and stakeholders engage with the notion of an AI-powered Indian society.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/fountain-ink-october-12-2019-arindrajit-basu-we-need-a-better-ai-vision'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/fountain-ink-october-12-2019-arindrajit-basu-we-need-a-better-ai-vision</a>
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No publisherbasuInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2019-10-14T13:55:59ZBlog EntryWhy conviction rate for cyber crime cases in Karnataka is abysmally low
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newsminute-october-1-2019-theja-ram-why-conviction-rate-for-cyber-crime-cases-in-karnataka-is-abysmally-low
<b>Police say a third of the cases involving economic offences in Karnataka are related to job scams, a third related to OTP and UPI fraud, and the remaining are lottery related scams.</b>
<p>The blog post by Theja Ram published by the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/why-conviction-rate-cyber-crime-cases-karnataka-abysmally-low-109803">News Minute</a> on October 1, 2019 quotes Karan Saini.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Just like thousands of engineering graduates in pursuit of a job, 22-year-old Samhita RH had been trying to find one since she graduated from AMC Engineering College in Bengaluru. Samhita’s parents, who live in Hassan district’s Sakleshpur, were counting on their daughter to help clear loans they had taken for her education. A year after graduating, Samhita was desperate. She had uploaded her resume on several job portals and hoped she would get an interview call.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the afternoon of December 21 last year, Samhita received an email from an id that read: hr.monster13@india.com. Samhita had signed up for job alerts on employment portal Monster and was thrilled when she finally received a call for an interview, over a year after graduating.</p>
<p class="_yeti_done" style="text-align: justify; ">“I did not suspect that this was a fake account. Soon after I received the email, I also got a call on my mobile number and a man named Abhishek Acharya said he was from Monster and that there was an interview call for a position at HCL. He said I have to pay Rs 1,200 as registration fee and that I would be able to go for the interview then. A few hours later, he asked me to pay Rs 18,000. The next day I had to pay Rs 13,000 and later the same day another Rs 15,000,” Samhita says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The next day, she received a fake offer letter from HCL after a telephonic conversation and this time another man named Amit Singh, who claimed to be an employee in HCL’s HR department, allegedly told Samhita that she had to pay Rs 29,000 for a certification programme that would be conducted as part of her induction programme. Samhita paid Amit Singh too and when she asked him the date of joining, Amit allegedly informed her that he would be in touch.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">By the first week of January 2019, Samhita was worried that she may have been duped. She got in touch with HCL in Bengaluru and enquired about the job offer she had received. She even sent them a copy of the “offer letter” she had received. To her dismay, HCL informed her that the letter was forged and that no one from the company had reached out to her.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When she contacted the mobile number of the alleged Amit Singh and demanded her money back, he allegedly hung up and could never be reached again. “I lost around Rs 76,000 in a few days’ time. My parents were struggling for money. They had taken loans to pay for the job and it turned out to be a sham. When I got that email, I should have been more alert. But hope and relief of finally getting a job had clouded my judgement. I filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station in Bengaluru on January 19 this year, but there has been no progress in my case,” Samhita says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In Samhita’s case, police say that the phones used to contact her were last used in Madhya Pradesh and the IP address from which the email was sent was from Nigeria. “How can we track down some online identity that we don’t know. If it’s a robbery or a murder, its jurisdictional. When it comes to people morphing pictures and extortion rackets on online dating platforms, it is easier to track down the people as there is an ID of the person. But economic offences are the hardest to crack,” says Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Crime, Bengaluru.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Just like Samhita, thousands of people have fallen victim to job scams on the internet and the Bengaluru Cyber Crime Police say that a third of the cases involving economic offences in Karnataka are related to job scams, a third of them are related to OTP and UPI fraud, and the remaining are lottery related scams. And the police say that investigating cyber crimes related to economic offenses are very difficult.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">UPI, lottery fraud on the rise</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ever since demonetisation led people to switch to online money transfer, police say that Unique Identification Pin (UPI) related cyber crimes are on the rise. According to the Cyber Crime Police Station in Bengaluru, of the 12,754 cyber crime cases reported in the city between January 2018 and August 2019, 38% of them were related to UPI.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Before demonetisation, a lot of people were not using Google Pay, PayTM, BHIM and other UPI apps for money transfer. With more users, the pool of potential victims for those committing cyber crimes has increased,” Sandeep Patil says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In July this year, a Madhusudhan, businessman from Bengaluru, filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station that a person posing to be a representative of an e-commerce company had looted Rs 1.6 lakh from three of his bank accounts via his BHIM app. Madhusudhan’s wife Lekha had ordered material for a dress from an e-commerce website. After it was delivered, she wanted to return it, and found a customer service number when she searched on Google. She asked Madhusudhan to help her get the money back.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Madhusudhan spoke to the representative, who informed him that the product could not be returned but that he could initiate a refund. “The product quality was bad and so we wanted to return it. The representative said he would refund the money and told me that he would send me a message, I had to click the link in the message and fill in a form for the refund to be processed. I never thought that this could be a scam. Within minutes, Madhusudhan received a message with a message ID that read: HDFC-UPI. Assuming it was legitimate, I clicked the link, which led me to a portal. But there was no form,” Madhusudhan says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Madhusudhan tried calling the customer care number once more but there was no response. About three or four minutes later he received a message from his bank that Rs 90,000 was transferred to an unknown account via BHIM. Seconds later, he received another message that Rs 70,000 was transferred to another bank account via the same app. Madhusudhan immediately called his bank and asked them to stop any fund transfer from his account.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I have three bank accounts linked to BHIM and money was wiped out from two accounts. I was able to save Rs 40,000 only after I called the bank,” he says. When Madhusudhan approached the police, Cyber Crime sleuths informed him that it was a phishing scam. “That message that I clicked, that was where it started,” Madhusudhan adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Karan Saini, Programme Officer with the Centre for Internet and Society, most UPI-related crimes are phishing operations and in rare cases involve spyware. Karan says that SMS gateways are the easiest means to con people into believing that a message is from a legitimate source.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Businesses have the ability to send messages to people from SMS gateways provided by telecom companies. Consider the messages we get from e-commerce sites, banks, etc. While most businesses send messages to customers who have wilfully provided their details, bulk contact information can still be procured quite easily, and the cost barrier for sending bulk SMSes is also quite low. Most SMS providers charge customers around Rs. 300 for sending 1000 messages. Further, businesses have the ability to specify a custom sender ID (i.e., the name that appears on the message), which TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) mandates to be 6 characters long (e.g., AXISBK), however, fraudsters can easily subvert the custom Sender ID feature to push their phishing campaigns. Most of the reported UPI scams seem to have succeeded because people were conned by the name of the sender. While several SMS providers maintain ‘blacklists’ that let them protect the Sender IDs of prominent customers, fraudsters can still trivially bypass these blacklists, by alternating characters within the Sender ID (e.g., changing AXISBK to AXISBA or even BKAXIS), or by simply moving to another SMS provider.,” Karan says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In December 2017, Venkateshulu S, a jewellery store owner in Bengaluru, received an SMS allegedly from an e-commerce website stating that he had won Rs 1,00,00,000 in a lucky draw. The message stated that Venkateshulu, who had recently purchased a TV from the website, had won the lucky draw from a pool of customers chosen for it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Venkateshulu, who was initially sceptical, had ignored the SMS. A day later, he received another SMS from the same sender ID, which claimed that he had to claim the prize within the next 24 hours or the offer would expire. He also received a call from a person posing as a customer care executive and informed him that he had to pay Rs 1 lakh to claim the prize and that the money would be refunded to him once the winnings were deposited into his account.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within a few minutes, he transferred the money to an account number given by the conman. It was only after two days that Venkateshulu realised he had been swindled.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I was waiting for the money to get deposited into my account. When I contacted that man again, his phone was switched off. Then I filed a complaint with the cyber crime police but they haven’t caught the culprit even now,” Venkateshulu says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Speaking to The News Minute, Director General of Police, CID, Praveen Sood, said that just like Venkateshulu, thousands of people get conned in lottery scams. “When someone is asking you to pay money to collect alleged winnings, that must be the trigger. People get conned a lot by lotteries because the amount of money is too huge for them to pass up,” he says.</p>
<h3 id="_mcePaste">Thousands of cases, negligible convictions</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From just 1,045 cases registered in 2014 to 8,495 cases between January and August 2019, the number of cyber crime cases being reported in Karnataka are on the rise. Between January 2014 and August 2019, 20,920 cases were registered across 30 Cyber Crime police stations in Karnataka and a whopping 85% of them have been registered in the lone Cyber Crime Police Station in Bengaluru City.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of the 8,495 cases registered between January and August 2019, 7,516 of them were in Bengaluru. Another alarming reality is the low rate of conviction. There have been only 36 convictions in cyber crime cases in Karnataka in the last six years and out of them only 5 convictions have occurred in cases registered in Bengaluru. Of these convictions, four of them occurred in 2014 and one in 2018. There were zero convictions in the years in between.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The shockingly low rate of conviction, Cyber Crime sleuths say, is because 95% of the cases registered go unresolved for various reasons. Of the total number of cases registered in the last six years, arrests have been made in only 6.2% of the cases and the number of cases in which chargesheets have been filed is even lower.</p>
<p>Between 2014 and August 2019, chargesheets were filed only in 736 cases in Karnataka, of which 46.86% were from Bengaluru.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/all/var/www/images/Cybercrime_karnataka.jpg" /></p>
<p><img src="https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/all/var/www/images/Cybercrime_bengaluru.jpg" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">DGP Sood says that one of the primary reasons for the low conviction rate in cyber crime cases, not only in Karnataka but across the country, is the lack of geographical boundaries in cyber crime cases.</p>
<p>“In most cases across the country, the crime is perpetrated by people from other countries,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Senior police officials who have worked on numerous cyber crime cases in Karnataka say that another reason for low conviction rates in these crimes is that the cost of investigating cyber crime cases, especially economic offences, exceeds the actual loss suffered by victims.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“In many cases that I have worked on, the IP addresses or phone numbers are from Nigeria, Trinidad, Congo or an eastern European country. How do we track down and arrest these people? After five to six days of investigating, we reach a dead end. Between the amount that individual victims lose and the amount that needs to be spent on investigating that case, there is a huge difference. Lakhs have to be spent on one investigation. The economics do not add up and the physical international boundaries are major hurdles,” a senior police officer says.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Limited knowledge about advanced technology</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Senior officials with the Cyber Crime unit in the Criminal Investigation department say that apart from a severe staff crunch in Cyber Crime stations, most police officers, public prosecutors and magistrates have limited knowledge about cyber crimes, the technology used, the methods of perpetrating such crimes and, most importantly, the technological jargon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Initially, we had only 10 police officials working in one police station in Bengaluru and they were handling thousands of cases. It was only in 2018 that the number of personnel were increased to 40. Even now, these officers are handling thousands of cases and it’s an overload,” JCP Sandeep Patil says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to DGP Praveen Sood, even in cases where arrests are made and chargesheets filed, overburdened sessions courts with limited magistrates who understand the nuances of cyber crime cases contribute to low rates of conviction.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Senior police officials who work with the Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation and Training Centre say that prosecutors and lawyers fail to put forth a strong case due to lack of knowledge about these crimes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Understanding the methods used by perpetrators of cyber crimes and most importantly the jargon is difficult for prosecutors and magistrates. Even officers working in Cyber Crime stations keep learning new things every day. Magistrate courts are overloaded and to find judges who can understand the nuances of the case and prosecutors who can put forth a good case is difficult,” the official explains.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In February this year, the Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation and Training Centre was inaugurated in Bengaluru in order to train police officers, prosecutors and magistrates on the nuances of cyber crime. DGP Praveen Sood says that with more police officers being trained, it is a first step towards ensuring that more cases are detected and disposed of quickly.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Since cyber crime has no boundaries, the best way is to prevent it. More awareness is required. People must not use the same email ID for personal and financial transactions. Separate email IDs must be used for social media accounts because many people get conned on social media. There are many cases where social media accounts are hacked and pictures of women are morphed. It’s always better to change passwords frequently and not share it with anyone. Do not believe people who say they are bank officials asking for OTP and PINs. Never buy into lottery scams where they ask you to pay money in order to get your winnings,” Praveen Sood adds.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newsminute-october-1-2019-theja-ram-why-conviction-rate-for-cyber-crime-cases-in-karnataka-is-abysmally-low'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newsminute-october-1-2019-theja-ram-why-conviction-rate-for-cyber-crime-cases-in-karnataka-is-abysmally-low</a>
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No publisherTheja RamInternet Governance2019-10-13T06:07:23ZNews ItemAI for Good
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ai-for-good-event-report-on-workshop-conducted-at-unbox-festival
<b>CIS organised a workshop titled ‘AI for Good’ at the Unbox Festival in Bangalore from 15th to 17th February, 2019. The workshop was led by Shweta Mohandas and Saumyaa Naidu. In the hour long workshop, the participants were asked to imagine an AI based product to bring forward the idea of ‘AI for social good’.</b>
<p>The report was edited by Elonnai Hickok.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop was aimed at examining the current narratives around AI and imagining how these may transform with time. It raised questions about how we can build an AI for the future, and traced the implications relating to social impact, policy, gender, design, and privacy.</p>
<h3>Methodology</h3>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">The rationale for conducting this workshop in a design festival was to ensure a diverse mix of participants. The participants in the workshop came from varied educational and professional backgrounds who had different levels of understanding of technology. The workshop began with a discussion on the existing applications of artificial intelligence, and how people interact and engage with it on a daily basis. This was followed by an activity where the participants were provided with a form and were asked to conceptualise their own AI application which could be used for social good. The participants were asked to think about a problem that they wanted the AI application to address and think of ways in which it would solve the problem. They were also asked to mention who will use the application. It prompted participants to provide details of the AI application in terms of the form, colour, gender, visual design, and medium of interaction (voice/ text). This was intended to nudge the participants into thinking about the characteristics of the application, and how it will lend to the overall purpose. The form was structured and designed to enable participants to both describe and draw their ideas. The next section of the form gave them multiple pairs of principles. They were asked to choose one principle from each pair. These were conflicting options such as ‘Openness’ or ‘Proprietary’, and ‘Free Speech’ or ‘Moderated Speech’. The objective of this section was to illustrate how a perceived ideal AI that satisfies all stakeholders can be difficult to achieve, and that the AI developers at times may be faced with a decision between profitability and user rights.</p>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were asked to keep their responses anonymous. These responses were then collected and discussed with the group. The activity led to the participants engaging in a discussion on the principles mentioned in the form. Questions around where the input data to train the AI would come from, or what type of data the application will collect were discussed. The responses were used to derive implications on gender, privacy, design, and accessibility.</p>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/ConceptualiseAI.jpg" alt="Conceptualise AI" class="image-inline" title="Conceptualise AI" /></p>
<h3 class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">Responses</h3>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Responses.jpg" alt="" class="image-inline" title="" /></p>
<h3 class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">Analysis</h3>
<p>Even as the responses were varied, they had a few key similarities and observations.</p>
<h3>Participants’ Familiarity with AI</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The participants’ understanding of AI was based on what they read and heard from various sources. While discussing the examples of AI, the participants were familiar with not just the physical manifestation of AI such as robots, but also AI software. However when asked to define an AI the most common explanations were, bots, software, and the use of algorithms to make decisions using large amounts of data. The participants were optimistic of the way AI could be used for social good. However, some of them showed concern about the implications on privacy.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Perception of AI Among Participants</h3>
<p class="Normal1">With the workshop, our aim was to have the participants reflect on their perception of AI based on their exposure to the narratives around AI by companies and the government.</p>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">The participants were given the brief to imagine an AI that could solve a problem or be used for social good. Most participants considered AI to be a positive tool for social impact. It was seen as a problem solver. The ideas conceptualised by the participants varied from countering fake news, wildlife conservation, resource distribution, and mental health. This brought to focus the range of areas that were seen as pertinent for an AI intervention. Most of the responses dealt with concerns that affect humans directly, the one aimed at wildlife conservation being the only exception.</p>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; "><span>On being asked, who will use the AI application, it was interesting to note that all the responses considered different stakeholders such as individuals, non profits, governments and private companies to be the end user. However, it was interesting that through the discussion the harms that might be caused by the use of AI by these stakeholders were not brought up. For example, the use of AI for resource distribution did not take into consideration the fact that the government could provide unequal distribution based on the existing biased datasets.</span> <a name="fr1"></a> <span>Several of the AI applications were conceptualised to work without any human intervention. For example, one of the ideas proposed was to use AI as a mental health counsellor which was conceptualised as a chatbot that would learn more about human psychology with each interaction. It was assumed that such a service would be better than a human psychologist who can be emotionally biased. Similarly, while discussing the idea behind the use of AI for preventing the spread of fake news, the participant believed that the indication coming from an AI would have greater impact than one coming from a human. They believed that the AI could provide the correct information and prevent the spread of fake news. </span><span>By discussing these cases we were able to highlight that the complete reliance on technology could have severe consequences.</span><a name="fr2"></a></p>
<h3 class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">Form and Visual Design of the AI Concepts</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In most cases, the participants decided the form and visual design of their AI concepts keeping in mind its purpose. For instance, the therapy providing AI mentioned earlier, was envisioned as a textual platform, while a ‘clippy type’ add on AI tool was thought of for detecting fake news. Most participants imagined the AI application to have a software form, while the legal aid AI application was conceptualised to have a human form. This revealed that the participants perceived AI to be both a software and a physical device such as a robot.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Accessibility of the Interfaces</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The purpose of including the type of interface (voice or text) while conceptualising the AI application was to push the participants towards thinking about accessibility features. We aimed to have the participants think about the default use of the interface, both in terms of language and accessibility. The participants though cognizant of the need to have a large number of users, preferred to have only textual input into the interface, not anticipating the accessibility concerns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The choices between access vs cost, and accessibility vs scalability were also questioned by the participants during the workshop. They enquired about the meaning of the terms as well as discussed the difficulty in having an all inclusive interface. Some of the responses consisted only of text inputs, especially for sensitive issues involving interactions, such as for therapy or helplines. This exercise made the participants think about the end user as well as the ‘AI for all’ narrative. We decided to add these questions that made the participants think about how the default ability, language, and technological capability of the user is taken for granted, and how simple features could help more people interact with the application. This discussion led to the inference that there is a need to think about accessibility by design during the creation of the application and not as an afterthought.<a name="fr3"></a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Biases Based on Gender</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We intended for the participants to think about the inherent biases that creep into creating an AI concept. These biases were evident from deciding identifiably male names, to deciding a male voice when the application needed to be assertive, or a female voice and name for when it was dealing with school children. Most of the other participants either did not mention the gender or they said that the AI could be gender neutral or changeable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These observations are also revealing of the existing narrative around AI. The popular AI interfaces have been noted to exemplify existing gender stereotypes. For example, the virtual assistants were given female identifiable names and default female voices such as Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. The more advanced AI were given male identifiable names and default male voices such as Watson, Holmes etc.<a name="fr4"></a> <span>Although these concerns have been pointed out by several researchers, there needs to be a visible shift towards moving away from existing gender biases.</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Concerns around Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Though the participants were aware of the privacy implications of data driven technologies, they were unsure of how their own AI concept could deal with questions of privacy. The participants voiced concerns about how they would procure the data to train the AI but were uncertain about their data processing practices. This included how they would store the data, anonymise the data, or prevent third parties from accessing it. For example, during the activity, it was pointed out to the participants that there would be sensitive data collected in applications such as therapy provision, legal aid for victims of abuse, and assistance for people with social anxiety. In these cases, the participants stated that they would ensure that the data was shared responsibly, but did not consider the potential uses or misuses of this shared data.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Choices between Principles</h3>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">This part of the exercise was intended to familiarise the participants with certain ethical and policy questions about AI, as well as to look at the possible choices that AI developers have to make. Along with discussing the broader questions around the form and interface of AI, we wanted the participants to also look at making decisions about the way the AI would function. The intent behind this component of the exercise was to encourage the participants to question the practices of AI companies, as well as understand the implications of choices while creating an AI. As the language in this section was based on law and policy, we spent some time describing the terms to the participants. Even as some of the options presented by us were not exhaustive or absolute extremes, we placed this section to demonstrate the complexity in creating an AI that is beneficial for all. We intended for the participants to understand that an AI that is profitable to the company, free for people, accessible, privacy respecting, and open source, though desirable may be in competition with other interests such as profitability and scalability.</p>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">The participants were urged to think about how decisions regarding who can use the service, how much transparency and privacy the company will provide, are also part of building an AI. Taking an example from the responses, we talked about how having a closed proprietary software in case of AI applications such as providing legal aid to victims of abuse would deter the creation of similar applications. However, after the terms were explained, the participants mostly chose openness over proprietary software, and access over paid services.</p>
<h3 class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">Conclusion</h3>
<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; ">The aim of this exercise was to understand the popular perception of AI. The participants had varied understanding of AI, but were familiar with the term. They also knew of the popular products that claim to use AI. Since the exercise was designed for people as an introduction to AI policy, we intended to keep questions around data practices out of the concept form. Eventually, with this exercise, we, along with the participants, were able to look at how popular media sells AI as an effective and cheaper solution to social issues. The exercise also allowed the participants to understand certain biases with gender, language, and ability. It also shed light on how questions of access and user rights should be placed before the creation of a technological solution. New technologies such as AI are being featured as problem solvers by companies, the media and governments. However, there is a need to also think about how these technologies can be exclusionary, misused, or how they amplify existing socio economic inequities.</p>
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<p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; "><span>[1]. </span><a class="external-link" href="https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/08/26/maximizing-the-potential-of-ai-starts-with-trust.html">https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/08/26/maximizing-the-potential-of-ai-starts-with-trust.html</a></p>
<p>[2]. <a class="external-link" href="https://qz.com/1023448/if-youre-not-a-white-male-artificial-intelligences-use-in-healthcare-could-be-dangerous/">https://qz.com/1023448/if-youre-not-a-white-male-artificial-intelligences-use-in-healthcare-could-be-dangerous/</a></p>
<p>[3]. <a class="external-link" href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/29/18118469/instagram-accessibility-automatic-alt-text-object-recognition">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/29/18118469/instagram-accessibility-automatic-alt-text-object-recognition</a></p>
<p>[4]. <a class="external-link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/pwc-partner-zone/2019/mar/26/why-are-virtual-assistants-always-female-gender-bias-in-ai-must-be-remedied">https://www.theguardian.com/pwc-partner-zone/2019/mar/26/why-are-virtual-assistants-always-female-gender-bias-in-ai-must-be-remedied</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ai-for-good-event-report-on-workshop-conducted-at-unbox-festival'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ai-for-good-event-report-on-workshop-conducted-at-unbox-festival</a>
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No publisherShweta Mohandas and Saumyaa NaiduInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2019-10-13T05:32:28ZBlog EntryDesigning a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN’s Policy Development Processes
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/designing-a-human-rights-impact-assessment-for-icann2019s-policy-development-processes
<b>As co-chairs of Cross Community Working Party on Human Rights (CCWP-HR) at International Corporation of Names and Numbers (ICANN), Akriti Bopanna and Collin Kurre executed a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN's processes. It was the first time such an experiment was conducted, and unique because of being a multi-stakeholder attempt. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This report outlines the iterative research-and-design process carried out between November 2017 and July 2019, focusing on successes and lessons learned in anticipation of the ICANN Board’s long-awaited approval of the Work Stream 2 recommendations on Accountability. The process, findings, and recommendations will be presented by Akriti and Austin at CCWP-HR’s joint session with the Government Advisory Council at ICANN66 in Montreal during 2nd-8th November.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to download the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/designing-a-human-rights-impact-assessment-for-icann2019s-policy-development-processes">full research paper here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/designing-a-human-rights-impact-assessment-for-icann2019s-policy-development-processes'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/designing-a-human-rights-impact-assessment-for-icann2019s-policy-development-processes</a>
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No publisherCollin Kure, Akriti Bopanna and Austin RuckstuhlFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2019-10-03T14:43:28ZBlog EntryAI: Full Spectrum Regulatory Challenge Launch Workshop [Reference Files]
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-launch-workshop-reference-files
<b>These are the files released at the AI Full Spectrum Regulatory Challenge Launch Event, organised by CIS, and CCG-NLUD on September 27 2019. At the event, Sunil Abraham discussed the draft policy brief linked below, which is an output of the Regulatory Practices Lab at CIS.</b>
<p>The Event poster can be found <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-reg-paper-event-files/ai-rpl-poster-06" class="internal-link" title="AI RPL Poster">here</a>.</p>
<p>The Infographic in the Policy brief can be found <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-reg-paper-event-files/ai-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-twitter" class="internal-link" title="AI Full Spectrum Regulatory Challenge Infographic">here</a>.</p>
<p>The working draft that was released at the workshop can be found <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft-pdf" class="internal-link" title="Artificial Intelligence: A Full-Spectrum Regulatory Challenge (Working Draft) PDF">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-launch-workshop-reference-files'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-launch-workshop-reference-files</a>
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No publisherpranavRegulatory Practices LabInternet Governance2020-08-04T06:08:48ZBlog EntryArtificial Intelligence: a Full-Spectrum Regulatory Challenge [Working Draft]
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft
<b></b>
<p>Today, there are certain misconceptions regarding the regulation of AI. Some corporations would like us to believe that AI is being developed and used in a regulatory vacuum. Others in civil society organisations believe that AI is a regulatory circumvention strategy deployed by corporations. As a result, these organisations call for onerous regulations targeting corporations. However, some uses of AI by corporations can be completely benign and some uses AI by the state can result in the most egregious human rights violations. Therefore policy makers need to throw every regulatory tool from their arsenal to unlock the benefits of AI and mitigate its harms.</p>
<p>This policy brief proposes a granular, full spectrum approach to the regulation of AI depending on who is using AI, who is impacted by that use and what human rights are impacted. Everything from deregulation, to forbearance, to updated regulations, to absolute and blanket prohibitions needs to be considered depending on the specifics. This approach stands in contrast to approaches of ethics, omnibus law, homogeneous principles, and human rights, which will result in inappropriate under-regulation or over-regulation of the sector.</p>
<p>Find a copy of the working draft <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft-pdf" class="internal-link" title="Artificial Intelligence: A Full-Spectrum Regulatory Challenge (Working Draft) PDF">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft</a>
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No publishersunilRegulatory Practices LabInternet GovernanceArtificial Intelligence2020-08-04T06:10:13ZBlog EntrySetting International Norms of Cyber Conflict is Hard, But that Doesn't Mean that We Should Stop Trying
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/modern-war-institute-september-30-2019-arindrajit-basu-and-karan-saini-setting-international-norms-cyber-conflict-hard-doesnt-mean-stop-trying
<b>Last month, cyber-defense analyst and geostrategist Pukhraj Singh penned a stinging epitaph, published by MWI, for global norms-formulation processes that are attempting to foster cyber stability and regulate cyber conflict—specifically, the Tallinn Manual.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Arindrajit Basu and Karan Saini was published by <a class="external-link" href="https://mwi.usma.edu/setting-international-norms-cyber-conflict-hard-doesnt-mean-stop-trying/">Modern War Institute</a> on September 30, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">His words are important, and should be taken seriously by the legal and technical communities that are attempting to feed into the present global governance ecosystem. However, many of his arguments seem to suffer from an unjustified and dismissive skepticism of any form of global regulation in this space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He believes that the unique features of cyberspace render governance through the application of international law close to impossible. Given the range of developments that are in the pipeline in the global cyber norms proliferation process, this is an excessively defeatist attitude toward modern international relations. It also unwittingly encourages the continued weaponization of cyberspace by fomenting a “no holds barred” battlespace, to the detriment of the trust that individuals can place in the security and stability of the ecosystem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>“The Fundamentals of Computer Science”</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Singh argues that the “fundamentals of computer science” render rules of international humanitarian law (IHL)—which serve as the governing framework during armed conflict in other domains—inapplicable, and that lawyers and policymakers have gotten cyber horribly wrong. Singh theorizes that in the case of the United States having pre-positioned espionage malware in Russian military networks, that malware could have been “repurposed or even reinterpreted as an act of aggression.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The possibility of a fabricated act of espionage being used as justification for an escalated response exists within the realm of analogous espionage, too. A reconnaissance operation that has been compromised can also be repurposed midway into a full-blown armed attack, or could be reinterpreted as justification for an escalatory response. However, <a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e401">i</a><a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e401">nternational </a><a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e401">l</a><a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e401">aw states</a> that self-defense can only be exercised when the “necessity of self-defense is instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.” In order to legitimize any action taken under the guise of self-defense, the threat would have to be imminent and the response both necessary and proportionate. There is nothing inherently unique in the nature of cyber conflict that would render the traditional law of self-defense moot.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further, the presumption that cyber operations are ambiguous and often uncontrollable, as Singh suggests, is flawed. An exploit that is considered “deployment-ready” is the result of an attacker’s attempts at fine-tuning variables—until it is determined that the particular vulnerability can be exploited in a manner that is considered to be reasonably reliable. An exploit may have to be worked upon for quite some time for it to behave exactly how the attacker intends it to. While it is true that there still may be unidentified factors that can potentially alter the behavior of a well-developed exploit, a skilled operator or malware author would nonetheless have a reasonable amount of certainty that an exploit code’s execution will result in the realization of only a certain possible set of predefined outcomes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is true that a number of remote exploits that target systems and networks <a href="https://media.blackhat.com/bh-us-10/whitepapers/Meer/BlackHat-USA-2010-Meer-History-of-Memory-Corruption-Attacks-wp.pdf">may make use of</a> unreliable vulnerabilities, where outcomes <a href="https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-good-memory-corruption.html">may not be fully apparent</a> prior to execution—and sometimes even afterward. However, for most deployment-ready exploits, this would simply not be the case. In fact, the example of the infamous Stuxnet malware, which Singh uses in his article, helps buttress our point.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Singh questions whether India should have interpreted the <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/stuxnet-cyber-war-critical-infrastructure-of-india-ntro-115273-2012-09-05">widespread infection of systems</a> within the region—which also happened to affect certain critical infrastructure—as an armed attack. This question can cursorily be dismissed since we now know that Stuxnet did not cause any deliberate damage to Indian computing infrastructure. A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyberweapons-specialreport/special-report-u-s-cyberwar-strategy-stokes-fear-of-blowback-idUSBRE9490EL20130510">2013 report by journalist Joseph Menn</a> correctly states that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">“the only place deliberately affected [by Stuxnet] was an Iranian nuclear facility.</span>” Therefore, for India to claim mere infection of systems located within the bounds of its territory as having been an armed attack, it would have to concretely demonstrate that the operators of Stuxnet caused “grave harm”—as described in IHL—purely by way of having infected those machines, through execution of malicious instructions programmed in the malware’s payload.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the same time, it should not be dismissed that the act of the Stuxnet malware infecting a machine could very well be interpreted by a state as constituting an armed attack. However, given the current state of advancement in malware decompilation and reverse-engineering studies, the process of deducing instructions that a particular malicious program seeks to execute can in most cases be performed in a reasonably reliable manner. Thus, for a state to make such a claim, it would have to prove that the malware did indeed cause grave harm, that which meets the criteria of the “scale and effects” threshold laid down in <em>Nicaragua v. United States</em>—whether it was caused due to operator interaction or preprogrammed instructions—along with sufficient reasoning and evidence for attributing it to a state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An analysis of the Stuxnet code made it apparent that operators were seeking out machines that had the Siemens STEP 7 or SIMATIC WinCC software installed. The authors of the malware quite clearly had prior knowledge that the nuclear centrifuges that they intended to target made use of a particular type of programmable logic controllers, which the STEP 7 and WinCC software interacted with. On the basis of this prior knowledge, the authors of Stuxnet <a href="https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf">made design choices</a> by which, upon infection, target machines would communicate to the Stuxnet command-and-control server—including identifiers such as operating system version, IP address, workstation name, and domain name—whether or not the infected system had the STEP 7 or WinCC software installed. This allowed the operators of Stuxnet to easily identify and distinguish machines that they would ultimately attack for fulfilling their objectives. In effect, this gave them some amount of control over the scale of damage they would deliberately cause.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It has been <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/stuxnet-delivered-to-iranian-nuclear-plant-on-thumb-drive/">theorized</a> that the malware reached the nuclear facility in Iran through a flash drive. It may be true that widespread and unnecessary propagation of the worm—which could be described as it “going out of control”—was not something the operators had intended (as it would attract unwanted attention and raise alarm bells across the board). It has nonetheless been several years since Stuxnet was in action, and there have been no documented cases of Stuxnet having caused <em>grave harm</em> to Indian (or other) computers. For all purposes, it could be said that the risk of collateral damage was minimized as the control operators were able to direct the execution of damaging components of the malware, to a degree that could be interpreted as having complied with IHL—thereby making it a <em>calculated</em> cyberattack, with <em>controllable</em> effects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, if the adverse effects of the operation were to be indiscriminate (i.e., machines were tangibly damaged immediately upon being infected), and could not be controlled by the operator within reasonable bounds, then the rules of IHL would render the operation illegal—a red line that, among other declarations, the <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/66194/frances-major-statement-on-international-law-and-cyber-an-assessment/">recent French statement</a> on the application of international law to cyberspace recognizes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>“Bizarre and Regressive”: The Westphalian Precept of Territoriality</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Singh’s next grievance is with the precept of territoriality and sovereignty in cyberspace. However, the reasoning he provides decrying this concept is unclear at best. The International Group of Experts authoring the Tallinn Manual argued that “cyber activities occur on territory and involve objects, or are conducted by persons or entities, over which States may exercise their sovereign prerogatives.” They continued to note that even though cyber operations can transcend territorial domains, they are conducted by “individuals and entities subject to the jurisdiction of one or more state.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Contrary to Singh’s assertions, our reasoning is entirely in line with the “defend forward” and “persistent engagement” strategies adopted by the United States defense experts. In fact, Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of US Cyber Command—<a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/gen_nakasone_on.html">whose interview</a> Singh cites to explain these strategies—explicitly states in that interview that “we must ‘defend forward’ in cyberspace as we do in the physical domains. . . . [Naval and air forces] patrol the seas and skies to ensure that they are positioned to defend our country before our borders are crossed. The same logic applies in cyberspace.” This is a recognition of the Westphalian precept of territoriality in cyberspace—which includes the right to take pre-emptive measures against adversaries before the people and objects within a nation’s sovereign borders are negatively impacted.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Below-the-Threshold Operations</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Singh also argues that most cyber operations would not reach the threshold armed attack to invoke IHL. He concludes, therefore, that applying the rules of IHL “bestows another garb of impunity upon rogue cyber attacks.” However, as discussed above, the application of IHL does not require a certain threshold of intensity, but the mere application of armed force that is attributable to a state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Therefore, laying down “red lines” by, for example, applying the <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule1">principle of distinction</a>, which seeks to minimize damage to civilian life and property, actually works toward setting legal rules that seek to prevent the negative civilian fallout of cyber conflict. There appears to be no reason why any cyberattack by a state should harm civilians without the state using all means possible to avoid this harm. If there is an ongoing armed conflict, this entails compliance with the IHL principles of <a href="https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/international-legal-frameworks-for-humanitarian-action/concepts/overview-of-international-humanitarian-law/">necessity and proportionality</a>, ensuring that any collateral damage ensuing as a result of an operation is proportionate to the military advantage being sought.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moreover, we agree that certain information operations may not cause any damage in terms of injury to human life or property. But IHL is not the only framework for governing cyber conflict. Ongoing cyber norms proliferation efforts are attempting to move beyond the rigid application of international law to account for the unique challenges of cyberspace. Despite the flaws in the process thus far, individuals from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines must engage meaningfully and shape effective regulation in this space. Singh’s “garb of impunity” exists when there are a lack of restrictions on collateral damage caused by cyber operations, to the detriment of civilian life and property alike.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Obstacles in Developing Customary International Law</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">His third argument is on the fetters limiting the development of customary international law in the cyber domain. This is a valid concern. Until recently, most states involved in cyber operations have adopted a stance of silence and ambiguity with regard to their legal position on the applicability of international law in cyberspace or their position on the Tallinn Manual.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is due to<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/rule-book-on-the-shelf-tallinn-manual-20-on-cyberoperations-and-subsequent-state-practice/54FBA2B30081B53353B5D2F06F778C14"> multiple reasons</a>: First, states are not certain if the rules of the Tallinn Manual protect their long-term interests of gaining covert operational advantages in the cyber domain, which acts as a disincentive for strongly endorsing the rules laid out therein. Second, even those states keen on applying and adhering to the manual may not be able to do so in the absence of technical and effective processes that censure other states that do not comply. Given this ambiguity, states have demonstrated a preference to engage in cyber operations and counteroperations that are below the threshold—in other words, those that do not bring IHL into play. However,<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/rule-book-on-the-shelf-tallinn-manual-20-on-cyberoperations-and-subsequent-state-practice/54FBA2B30081B53353B5D2F06F778C14"> as </a><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/rule-book-on-the-shelf-tallinn-manual-20-on-cyberoperations-and-subsequent-state-practice/54FBA2B30081B53353B5D2F06F778C14">others have convincingly argued</a>, it is incorrect to assume that the current trend of silence and ambiguity will continue.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recent developments indicate that the variety of normative processes and actors alike may render the Tallinn Manual more relevant as a focal point in the discussions. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/cyber-and-international-law-in-the-21st-century">The </a><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/cyber-and-international-law-in-the-21st-century">UK</a>, <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/frances-cyberdefense-strategic-review-and-international-law">France,</a> <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/germanys-position-international-law-cyberspace">Germany</a>, <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/64490/estonia-speaks-out-on-key-rules-for-cyberspace/">Estonia</a>, <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cuban-Expert-Declaration.pdf">Cuba</a> (backed by China and Russia), and the <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Brian-J.-Egan-International-Law-and-Stability-in-Cyberspace-Berkeley-Nov-2016.pdf">United States</a> have all engaged in public posturing in advocacy of their respective positions regarding the applicability of international law in cyberspace, in varying degrees of detail—which is essentially customary international law in the making. The statements made by a number of delegations at the recently concluded<a href="https://twitter.com/RungRage/status/1176732729615908864"> first substantive session</a> of the United Nations’ Open-Ended Working Group covered a broad range of issues, from capacity building to the application of international law, which is the first step towards fostering consensus among the variety of global actors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Positive Conflict and the Future of Cyber Norms</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The final argument—a theme that runs from the beginning of Singh’s article—is a stark criticism of Western-centric cyber policy processes. Despite attempts to foster inclusivity, efforts like those that produced the Tallinn Manual are still driven largely from and by the United States in an attempt to, as Singh describes it, keep “cyber offense fully potentiated.” This is an unfortunate reality, but one that is not limited solely to the cyber domain. For example, in an <a href="https://people.duke.edu/~pfeaver/dunlap.pdf">excellent paper</a> written in 2001, retired US Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap explained “that ‘lawfare,’ that is, the use of law as a weapon of war, is the newest feature of 21st century combat.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are presented therefore with two options: either sit back and witness the hegemonization of policy discourse by a limited number of powerful states, or actively seek to contest these assumptions by undertaking adversarial work across standards-setting bodies, multilateral and multi-stakeholder norms-setting forums, as well as academic and strategic settings. In <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2916171">a recent paper</a>, international law scholar Monica Hakimi argues that international law can serve as a fulcrum for facilitating positive conflict in the short run between a variety of actors across industry, civil society, and military and civilian government entities, which can lead to the projection of shared governance endeavors in the long run. Despite its several flaws, the Tallinn Manual can serve as a this type of fulcrum for facilitating this conflict.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In writing a premature eulogy of efforts to bring to realization a set of norms in cyberspace, Singh dismisses that historically, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/gcsc-research-advisory-group.pdf">global governance regimes</a> have taken considerable time and effort to come into being and emerge after an arduous process of continuous prodding and probing. This process necessitates that any existing assumptions—and the bases on which they are constructed—are challenged regularly, so that we can enumerate and ultimately arrive at an agreeable definition for what works and what does not. Rejecting these processes in their entirety foments a global theater of uncertainty, with no benchmarks for cooperation that stakeholders in this domain can reasonably rely on.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/modern-war-institute-september-30-2019-arindrajit-basu-and-karan-saini-setting-international-norms-cyber-conflict-hard-doesnt-mean-stop-trying'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/modern-war-institute-september-30-2019-arindrajit-basu-and-karan-saini-setting-international-norms-cyber-conflict-hard-doesnt-mean-stop-trying</a>
</p>
No publisherArindrajit Basu and Karan SainiInternet Governance2019-10-14T15:04:03ZBlog EntrySC directs govt to further regulate social media: Is it necessary? Experts weigh in
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-news-minute-geetika-mantri-september-28-2019-sc-directs-govt-to-further-regulate-social-media
<b>With the SC's directive to the Indian government for further regulation of social media, TNM asked experts what were the challenges associated with the same.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Geetika Mantri was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/sc-directs-govt-further-regulate-social-media-it-necessary-experts-weigh-109662">News Minute</a> on September 28, 2019. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Supreme Court recently <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/strike-a-balance-says-supreme-court-to-centre-seeks-status-report-in-3-weeks-on-framing-of-social-media-regulations/story-djEnQ62Uue407iCMPZcagK.html" target="_blank">expressed</a> the need to regulate social media to curb fake news, defamation and trolling. It also asked the Union government to come up with guidelines to prevent misuse of social media while protecting users’ privacy in three weeks’ time.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The apex court made these statements while hearing a transfer petition by Facebook which has asked for petitions on regulation of social media filed in Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh High Courts on similar issues to be transferred to the SC so that the scope can be expanded.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, social media platforms already come under the purview of the Information Technology (IT) Act, the ‘intermediaries guidelines’ that were notified under the IT Act in 2011 and the Indian Penal Code.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With the SC's directive to the Indian government for further regulation of social media, TNM asked experts what were the challenges associated with the same.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Existing regulations and misuse</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (which is also an intervenor in the above case in SC) and lawyer Apar Gupta points out that under existing laws, social media channels are already required to take down content if they are directed to do so by a court or law enforcement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are also reporting mechanisms on these platforms, where they exercise discretion to ascertain whether a reported post is violating community guidelines and needs to be taken down. These, however, have been reported to be arbitrary – many posts on body positivity and menstruation, for instance, have been taken down in the past while other explicit imagery continues to be allowed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“But it’s necessary to have minimum legal standards that need to be fulfilled to compel such take-downs on social media. If platforms had to take down posts based on individual complaints, it could result in many frivolous take-downs. Free speech should be the norm, and removal of content, the exception,” Apar argues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IT consultant Kiran Chandra says that many of the existing regulations themselves are “dangerously close to censorship and may have a chilling effect on freedom of speech, which is why cases are being fought on those in courts.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even under existing regulations, there is scope for misuse - which has also been <a href="https://www.scoopwhoop.com/jailed-for-40-days-the-story-of-up-teen-who-was-booked-for-sedition-for-his-social-media-posts/" target="_blank">documented</a> in the past - to curb dissent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“One of the key problems of a lot of regulatory measures is the vagueness of language which is exploited by state agencies to behave in a repressive way,” Kiran says. “Any regulation has to be clear and concrete so that there is no scope for overreach."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Much of fake news is driven by politics</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Fake news isn't exactly new, but its proliferation and extent have expanded manifold with social media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Srinivas Kodali, an independent security researcher, says that it is not as though governments do not know where a good portion of fake news is coming from. “Most political parties have IT cells that dedicatedly work on creating and spreading fake news. But what is the Election Commission or anyone else doing to stop that?” he questions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kiran points out that this machinery exists with a view to gain electoral dividends. “There can be no countering fake news without taking on these structures and the political forces behind them,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He adds that social media giants also need to take responsibility. “Currently, considering the role social media companies play in the society, they are doing almost nothing [about fake news]. In fact, virality - and a lot of fake news tends to be viral - is the basis of the business model of many social media companies, including Facebook, and WhatsApp, which it owns. At the very least, these companies need to dedicate far more resources, and must provide more transparency into their functioning if any dent has to be made in countering fake news.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kiran also says that there is a need to support websites that bust fake news, and make people more aware of the need to verify news.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Defamation and online harassment</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Experts say that when it comes to the SC’s observation that there should be redressal mechanisms for someone who has been ‘defamed’ on social media, the recourse is pretty clear-cut.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, says, “If it concerns defamation, it is very likely that the victim knows where the defamatory post has come from. Even if it is not an original message, the defamation law does not require you to find out the origin of such a message. Anyone who has put it, forwarded it, is liable.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That being said, it is the social media giants that need to pick up the slack when it comes to dealing with targeted harassment and online bullying.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It has been reported <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/fb-does-little-curb-hate-speech-against-muslims-dalits-minorities-study-103475" target="_blank">earlier </a>that Facebook, due to its lack of understanding of the Indian context as well as diversity, often fails in effectively removing hate speech from the platform in India. Facebook's community guidelines are unavailable in several Indian languages too.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kiran says that while there already exist legal provisions for dealing with offensive speech, the problem is that they are either misused or underused. “Critics of the government get hit with these cases unreasonably while many who engage in hate speech and abuse are followed by the most powerful people in the country. Here again, social media firms need to massively increase the resources they spend on weeding out such content.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Privacy and surveillance concerns</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Any conversation on additional regulation of social media brings up concerns about privacy and surveillance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apar says if regulators want easy access to user information for curbing misuse, spread of fake news and the like, it would require online platforms to modify their products to increase surveillance - to have exact details about who said what, when and about whom. “This is why it’s important for legal standards and conditions for accessing user information to be followed. Government also needs to become more accountable on what information on users they are demanding from social media companies.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kiran cautions that “any bid at regulating expression online has to be proportional and concrete with adequate redressal mechanisms and without any blanket provisions.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We need strong data protection and privacy laws which restrict the scope of these companies and reduce their footprint online,” he adds, referring, for instance to Facebook's monopoly - the company also owns Instagram. “Similarly, the role they play in elections and political processes as a whole, needs to be checked.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Srinivas points out that ultimately, social media is a reflection of what is happening in the society: “If there is no rule of law offline, it won’t be there online.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-news-minute-geetika-mantri-september-28-2019-sc-directs-govt-to-further-regulate-social-media'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-news-minute-geetika-mantri-september-28-2019-sc-directs-govt-to-further-regulate-social-media</a>
</p>
No publisherGeetika MantriInternet Governance2019-09-30T14:28:10ZNews ItemComparison of the Manila Principles to Draft of The Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines(Amendment) Rules], 2018
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gayathri-puthran-comparison-of-manila-principles-to-draft-it-intermediary-guidelines-rules
<b>This paper looks at the Manila Principles intermediary liability framework in comparison to the amended draft Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment)] Rules, 2018 introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in December, 2018. </b>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In December 2018, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) introduced amendments to the draft Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment)] Rules, 2018 [“the 2018 Rules”]. The proposed changes ranged from asking intermediaries to proactively filter content using automated technology to prohibiting promotion of substances such as cigarettes and alcohol. In <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/Intermediary Liability Rules 2018.pdf">CIS's submission</a> to the Government, we highlighted our various concerns with the proposed rules. Building on the same, this paper aims to assess how the new draft rules measure up to the best practices on Intermediary Liability as prescribed in the Manila Principles. These principles were formulated in 2015 by a coalition of civil society groups and experts, including CIS, in order to establish best practice to guide policies pertaining to intermediary liability.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Depending on their function, intermediaries have a varying hand in hosting activism and discourse that are integral to a citizen’s right to freedom of speech and expression. The Manila Principles are an attempt at articulating best practices that lead to the development of intermediary liability regimes which respect human rights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Consequently, the paper examines the draft rules to assess their compatibility with the Manila Principles. It provides recommendations such that, where needed, the rules are aligned with the aforementioned principles. The assessment is done based on the insight into the rationale of the Manila Principles provided in its Background Paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Disclosure</strong>: CIS is a recipient of research grants from Facebook India. </p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Click to <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/draft-rules-and-manila-principles-1">download</a> the research paper which was edited by Elonnai Hickok and reviewed by Torsha Sarkar.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gayathri-puthran-comparison-of-manila-principles-to-draft-it-intermediary-guidelines-rules'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gayathri-puthran-comparison-of-manila-principles-to-draft-it-intermediary-guidelines-rules</a>
</p>
No publisherAkriti Bopanna and Gayatri PuthranFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2020-06-01T07:48:17ZBlog EntrySeptember 2019 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2019-newsletter
<b>The newsletter for the month of September 2019.</b>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Highlights for September 2019</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Centre for Internet & Society's <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cis-joins-the-christchurch-call-advisory-network">application for membership of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network</a> has been accepted! As a part of this network, we, along with other civil society groups based out of various jurisdictions, would be providing inputs on making the Call a robust, human rights-centred initiative.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A book by Amber Sinha titled '<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/rupa-publications-amber-sinha-the-networked-public">The Networked Public: How Social Media is Changing Democracy</a>' was published by Rupa Publications. The book looks at how networks exert unchecked power in subverting political discourse and polarizing the public in India. Towards that, it investigates the history of misinformation and the biases that make the public susceptible to it, how digital platforms and their governance impacts the public’s behaviour in them, as well as the changing face of political targeting in a data-driven ecosystem.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Akriti Bopanna and Gayatri Puthran co-authored <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gayathri-puthran-comparison-of-manila-principles-to-draft-it-intermediary-guidelines-rules">a research paper</a> which compares the Manila Principles to Draft of The Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines(Amendment) Rules], 2018, introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in December, 2018.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gurshabad Grover and Torsha Sarkar along with Rajashri Seal and Neil Trivedi <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/nlud-journal-of-legal-studies-september-27-2019-gurshabad-grover-torsha-sarkar-rajashri-seal-neil-trivedi-examining-the-constitutionality-of-ban-on-broadcast-of-news-by-private-fm-and-community-radio-stations">co-authored a paper</a> that examines the constitutionality of the government prohibition on the broadcast of news against private and community FM channels. The authors also mapped chronologically the history of the development of community and private radio channels in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/development-informatics-paper-number-81-aayush-rathi-and-ambika-tandon-capturing-gender-and-class-inequities">generated empirical evidence about the CCTV programme well underway in Delhi</a>. The case study was published by Centre for Development Informatics, Global Development Institute, SEED, in the Development Informatics working paper series housed at the University of Manchester.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Shruti Trikanand and Amber Sinha published a blog post titled <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/digital-identity/shruti-trikanand-and-amber-sinha-september-13-2019-core-concepts-processes">Core Concepts and Processes</a> by which the authors hope to arrive at a shared vocabulary to discuss and critically analyse digital identity systems, both within our team and in engagements with other stakeholders. Pooja Saxena and Akash Sheshadri contributed to the project.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace released a public consultation process that sought to solicit comments and obtain feedback on the definition of “Stability of Cyberspace”, as developed by the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC). <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/arindrajit-basu-and-elonnai-hickok-september-9-2019-submission-to-global-commission-on-stability-of-cyberspace">CIS gave detailed commentary on the definitions and suggested a new definition of cyber stability</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">CIS is <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement">undertaking a study on digital mediation of domestic and care work in India</a>, as part of and supported by the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The study is exploring the ways in which structural inequalities, such as those of gender and class, are being reproduced or challenged by digital platforms. The project sites are Delhi and Bangalore, where we are conducting interviews with workers, companies, and unions. In Bangalore, we are collaborating with Stree Jagruti Samiti to collect qualitative data from different stakeholders. The outputs of the research will include a report, policy brief, and other communication materials in English, Hindi, and Kannada. This study is being led by Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi, along with Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">CIS-A2K has put up a call for <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/call-for-joining-the-free-knowledge-movement-wikipedia-wikimedia">joining the Free Knowledge movement #Wikipedia #Wikimedia</a>. Are you an individual or do you represent any organisation, institution, groups or enterprises? You can actually help the ‘Free Knowledge’ movement by donating photos, media, content or archives.</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following articles and research papers were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ambika-tandon-and-aayush-rathi-gender-it-september-1-2019-doing-standpoint-theory">Doing Standpoint Theory</a> (Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi; Gender IT.org; September 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-4-2019-shyam-ponappa-traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments">Traffic Rules, Mindset and On-Time Payments</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-september-15-2019-kashmirs-digital-blackout-marks-a-period-darker-than-the-dark-side-of-the-moon">Kashmir’s digital blackout marks a period darker than the dark side of the moon</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 15, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/rupa-publications-amber-sinha-the-networked-public">The Networked Public: How Social Media Changed Democracy</a> (Amber Sinha; Rupa Publications; September 19, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/development-informatics-paper-number-81-aayush-rathi-and-ambika-tandon-capturing-gender-and-class-inequities">Capturing Gender and Class Inequities: The CCTVisation of Delhi</a> (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Centre for Development Informatics, Global Development Institute; September 27, 2019).</li></ul>
<h3>CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-news-minute-september-3-2019-manasa-rao-why-having-more-cctv-cameras-does-not-translate-to-crime-prevention">Why having more CCTV cameras does not translate to crime prevention </a>(Manasa Rao; The News Minute; September 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-roshan-nair-september-4-2019-android-10-out-big-on-privacy">Android 10 out, big on ‘privacy’</a> (Roshan H. Nair; Deccan Herald; September 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/l-actualite-magazine-isabelle-gregoire-september-11-2019-internet-pour-toutes">Internet pour toutes</a> (Isabelle Grégoire; L'Actualite; September 11, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/vivek-narayanan-and-r-sivaraman-the-hindu-september-18-2019-chennai-residents-rue-fuzzy-cctv-surveillance">Chennai residents rue fuzzy CCTV surveillance</a> (Vivek Narayanan and R. Srinivasan; The Hindu; September 18, 2019).</li></ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-business-line-varun-aggarwal-september-27-2019-millions-of-kids-in-india-access-the-net-on-their-parents-devices-says-study">Millions of kids in India access the Net on their parents’ devices, says study</a> (Varun Aggarwal; Hindu Businessline; September 27, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-news-minute-geetika-mantri-september-28-2019-sc-directs-govt-to-further-regulate-social-media">SC directs govt to further regulate social media: Is it necessary? Experts weigh in</a> (Geetika Mantri; The News Minute; September 28, 2019).</li></ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia</h3>
<p>Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project <span style="text-align: justify;">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.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>News</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/bhuvana-meenakshi-elected-mozilla-rep-for-july-2019-1">Bhuvana Meenakshi elected Mozilla Rep for July 2019</a> (Bhuvana Meenakshi was selected as a Rep of the Month (July 2019) by Mozilla for her active contributions).</li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Openness</h3>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/fosscon-india-2019-1">FOSSCON India 2019</a> (Organized by KLS Gogte Institute of Technology; Belgaum; August 29 - 31, 2019). Bhuvana Meenakshi gave a talk on "The revolution of WebXR".</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/devfest19">DevFest'19</a> (Organized by Google Developers Groups; Coimbatore; September 14, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/react-india-2019">React India 2019</a> (Organized by React India; Goa; September 26 - 28, 2019). Bhuvana Meenakshi was a speaker.</li></ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.</p>
<h3>Freedom of Speech & Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Research Papers</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/nlud-journal-of-legal-studies-september-27-2019-gurshabad-grover-torsha-sarkar-rajashri-seal-neil-trivedi-examining-the-constitutionality-of-ban-on-broadcast-of-news-by-private-fm-and-community-radio-stations">Examining the Constitutionality of the Ban on Broadcast of News by Private FM and Community Radio Stations</a> (Gurshabad Grover, Torsha Sarkar, Rajashri Seal and Neil Trivedi; September 27, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gayathri-puthran-comparison-of-manila-principles-to-draft-it-intermediary-guidelines-rules">Comparison of the Manila Principles to Draft of The Information Technology</a> [Intermediary Guidelines(Amendment) Rules], 2018 (Akriti Bopanna and Gayatri Puthran; September 30, 2019).</li></ul>
<p><strong>News</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/guardian-september-3-2019-turning-off-the-internet">Turning off the internet: Chips with Everything podcast</a> (Gurshabad Grover and Ambika Tandon recorded an episode with the Guardian's podcast on digital culture, called Chips with Everything).</li></ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/arindrajit-basu-and-elonnai-hickok-september-9-2019-submission-to-global-commission-on-stability-of-cyberspace">Submission to Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace on the definition of Cyber Stability</a> (Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; September 11, 2019). </li></ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/policy-design-jam">Policy Design Jam </a>(Organized by Whatsapp and ISPP; Qutub Institutional Area, New Delhi; September 16, 2019). Pallavi Bedi, Akash Sheshadri and Anubha Sinha attended the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/talks-at-national-university-of-juridical-sciences-today">Conceptualising India's Digital Policy Vision</a> (Organized by National University of Juridical Sciences; National University of Juridical Sciences; Kolkata; September 18, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://www.partnershiponai.org/apm/">All Partners Meeting</a> (Organized by Partnership on AI; London; September 26 - 27, 2019). Elonnai Hickok reprsented CIS as the co-chair for the Labour and Economy Expert Group.</li></ul>
<h3>Digital Identity</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Omidyar Network is investing in establishment of a three-region research alliance — to be co-led by the Institute for Technology & Society (ITS), Brazil, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) , Kenya, and CIS. As part of this Alliance, CIS is examining the policy objectives of digital identity projects, how technological policy choices can be thought through to meet the objectives, and how legitimate uses of a digital identity framework may be evaluated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Featured Research</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/digital-identity/shruti-trikanand-and-amber-sinha-september-13-2019-core-concepts-processes">Core Concepts and Processes</a> (Shruti Trikanand and Amber Sinha; September 13, 2019). <em>Research by Shruti Trikanad and Amber Sinha. Conceptualization by Pooja Saxena and Amber Sinha. Illustrations by Akash Sheshadri and Pooja Saxena</em>.</li></ul>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:</p>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ai-in-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a> (Organized by Center for Information Technology and Public Policy and International Institute of Information Technology; Bangalore). Radhika Radhakrishnan gave a talk.</div>
</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/responsible-ai-workshop">Responsible AI Workshop</a> (Organized by Facebook; September 17, 2019; New Delhi). Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/talks-at-national-university-of-juridical-sciences-today">Constitutionalizing Artificial Intelligence</a> (Organized by <span style="text-align: justify;">Constitutional Law Society; National University of Juridical Sciences; Kolkata). Arindrajit Basu delivered a lecture.</span></li></ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers@Work</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Announcement</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement">Digital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project Announcement</a> (Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi; October 1, 2019).</li></ul>
<p><strong>Essays on #List — Selected Abstracts</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">In response to a recent call for essays that social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the #List, we received 11 abstracts. Out of these, <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/essays-on-list-selected-abstracts">we have selected 4 pieces to be published</a> as part of a series titled #List on the r@w blog.</li></ul>
<p><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/hookingup-bbd0f06a8851">#HookingUp</a> (Akhil Kang, Christina Thomas Dhanraj, Dhrubo Jyoti, and Gowthaman Ranganathan; August 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/dtil-2019-call">Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!</a> (P.P. Sneha; August 7, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/simiran-lalvani-worker-kinship-food-delivery-mumbai">Simiran Lalvani - Workers’ fictive kinship relations in Mumbai app-based food delivery</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; August 16, 2019).</li></ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Monthly Blog</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-4-2019-shyam-ponappa-traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments">Traffic Rules, Mindset and On-Time Payments</a> (Shyam Ponappa; September 4, 2019).</li></ul>
<hr />
<h3><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Follow CIS on:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org</li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org</li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li></ul>
<p><strong>Support CIS:</strong></p>
<p>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p><strong>Collaborate with CIS:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</em>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2019-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2019-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-12-06T04:53:12ZPageMillions of kids in India access the Net on their parents’ devices, says study
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-business-line-varun-aggarwal-september-27-2019-millions-of-kids-in-india-access-the-net-on-their-parents-devices-says-study
<b>Experts raise concern over exposing kids to predators, phishing and bullying.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Varun Aggarwal published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/variety/millions-of-kids-in-india-access-the-neton-their-parents-devices-says-study/article29530768.ece">Hindu Businessline</a> quotes Sunil Abraham.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Youtube’s recent fine of $170 million in the US for illegally collecting personal information of children without parental consent should ring alarm bells back in India. Similar violations may be going unnoticed here as millions of kids use Internet on their parents’ devices.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A new study conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) states 66 million Internet users in the country are in the age bracket of 5 to 11 years and they are viewing it on the devices of family members.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In today's age when adults are finding it hard to understand the extent of physical, mental, financial risk they are exposing themselves to, kids need special treatment as they are more vulnerable and not capable of making decisions for themselves.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This could be exposing young children to predators, bullying, phishing, or even malware attacks, experts feel.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“India does not have clear laws equivalent to COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) but adhoc executive rulings, court cases and discussions. We don't have formal ways of ensuring responsible behaviour,” said Mishi Choudhary, technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social networks Tiktok was recently pulled up by the Indian government for allowing ‘inappropriate content’ being available on the platform. A <em>BusinessLine</em> investigation later revealed that Tiktok was not alone. Many other social media platforms had similar, if not more inappropriate, content easily accessible without any restrictions or age verification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moreover, no serious efforts have been taken by either the government or the social media platforms to ensure that kids are not exposed to ‘inappropriate content’ or if they are collecting any private information about the kids.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Several apps have children-directed content, targeted ads are regularly served on these platforms to kids younger than 13 years of age. There needs to be clear requirement for verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information and clear information about parental control,” Choudhary said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Parents and kids are equally required to be reminded that online actions have consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Internet today is a dangerous place for children. Parents should ensure that all access is supervised till the child in well into their teens and demonstrate safe practices online,” said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director at the Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-business-line-varun-aggarwal-september-27-2019-millions-of-kids-in-india-access-the-net-on-their-parents-devices-says-study'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-business-line-varun-aggarwal-september-27-2019-millions-of-kids-in-india-access-the-net-on-their-parents-devices-says-study</a>
</p>
No publisherVarun AggarwalInternet Governance2019-09-28T10:01:04ZNews Item