-
List of Recommendations on the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 - Letter Submitted to the Members of Parliament
-
by
Amber Sinha, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Vanya Rakesh
—
published
Mar 16, 2016
—
last modified
Mar 21, 2016 08:50 AM
—
filed under:
UID,
Big Data,
Privacy,
Internet Governance,
Featured,
Digital India,
Aadhaar,
Biometrics,
Homepage
On Friday, March 11, the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. The Bill was introduced as a money bill and there was no public consultation to evaluate the provisions therein even though there are very serious ramifications for the Right to Privacy and the Right to Association and
Assembly. Based on these concerns, and numerous others, we submitted an initial list of recommendations to the Members of Parliaments to highlight the aspects of the Bill that require immediate attention.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
Flaws in the UIDAI Process
-
by
Hans Varghese Mathews
—
published
Mar 06, 2016
—
last modified
Mar 06, 2016 10:40 AM
—
filed under:
UID,
Privacy,
Internet Governance,
Featured,
Aadhaar,
Homepage
The accuracy of biometric identification depends on the chance of a false positive: the probability that the identifiers of two persons will match. Individuals whose identifiers match might be termed duplicands. When very many people are to be identified success can be measured by the (low) proportion of duplicands. The Government of India is engaged upon biometrically identifying the entire population of India. An experiment performed at an early stage of the programme has allowed us to estimate the chance of a false positive: and from that to estimate the proportion of duplicands. For the current population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicands is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
Comments by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Report of the Committee on Medium Term Path on Financial Inclusion
-
by
Vipul Kharbanda
—
published
Feb 27, 2016
—
last modified
Mar 01, 2016 01:53 PM
—
filed under:
Privacy,
Internet Governance,
Featured,
Financial Inclusion,
Aadhaar,
Homepage
Apart from item-specific suggestions, CIS would like to make one broad comment with regard to the suggestions dealing with linking of Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts. Aadhaar is increasingly being used by the government in various departments as a means to prevent fraud, however there is a serious dearth of evidence to suggest that Aadhaar linkage actually prevents leakages in government schemes. The same argument would be applicable when Aadhaar numbers are sought to be utilized to prevent leakages in the banking sector.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
Facebook Shares 10 Key Facts about Free Basics. Here's What's Wrong with All 10 of Them.
-
by
Sunil Abraham
—
published
Dec 25, 2015
—
last modified
Dec 25, 2015 02:59 PM
—
filed under:
Net Neutrality,
Featured,
Facebook,
Internet Governance,
Homepage
Shweta Sengar of Catch News spoke to Sunil Abraham about the recent advertisement by Facebook titled "What Net Neutrality Activists won't Tell You or, the Top 10 Facts about Free Basics". Sunil argued against the validity of all the 'top 10 facts'.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
News & Media
-
Smart Cities in India: An Overview
-
by
Vanya Rakesh
—
published
Dec 21, 2015
—
last modified
Jan 11, 2016 01:30 AM
—
filed under:
Featured,
Homepage,
Internet Governance
The Government of India is in the process of developing 100 smart cities in India which it sees as the key to the country's economic and social growth. This blog post gives an overview of the Smart Cities project currently underway in India. The smart cities mission in India is at a nascent stage and an evolving area for research. The Centre for Internet and Society will continue work in this area.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
CIS's Position on Net Neutrality
-
by
Sunil Abraham
—
published
Dec 04, 2015
—
last modified
Dec 09, 2015 01:06 PM
—
filed under:
Featured,
Homepage,
Net Neutrality,
Internet Governance
As researchers committed to the principle of pluralism we rarely produce institutional positions. This is also because we tend to update our positions based on research outputs. But the lack of clarity around our position on network neutrality has led some stakeholders to believe that we are advocating for forbearance. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Please see below for the current articulation of our common institutional position.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
Crowdsourcing Incidents of Communication Privacy Violation in India
-
by
Sumandro Chattapadhyay
—
published
Oct 16, 2015
—
last modified
Oct 16, 2015 10:49 AM
—
filed under:
Featured,
Homepage,
Privacy
In the context of several ongoing threads of debates and policy discussions, we are initiating this effort to crowdsource incidents of violation of digital/online/telephonic privacy of persons and organisations in India. The full list of submitted incidents is publicly shared, under Creative Commons Attributions-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Please contribute and share with your friends and colleagues.
Located in
Internet Governance
-
Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September, 2015
-
by
Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari
—
published
Sep 23, 2015
—
last modified
Sep 25, 2015 06:43 AM
—
filed under:
Access to Knowledge,
Intellectual Property Rights,
Accessibility,
Featured,
Homepage
This is an open letter by CIS to the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi in light of his impending visit to the USA. This letter asks the Prime Minister to urge the USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty; and asks that India not be a party to TPP negotiations, in light of recent reports on a study encouraging India to join the TPP.
Located in
Access to Knowledge
/
Blogs
-
Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology
-
by
Sunil Abraham
—
published
Aug 19, 2015
—
last modified
Sep 15, 2015 10:53 AM
—
filed under:
Big Data,
Privacy,
Internet Governance,
Featured,
Homepage
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has been involved in privacy and data protection research for the last five years. It has participated as a member of the Justice A.P. Shah Committee, which has influenced the draft Privacy Bill being authored by the Department of Personnel and Training. It has organised 11 multistakeholder roundtables across India over the last two years to discuss a shadow Privacy Bill drafted by CIS with the participation of privacy commissioners and data protection authorities from Europe and Canada.
Located in
Internet Governance
/
Blog
-
Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation
-
by
Subhashish Panigrahi
—
published
Jul 18, 2015
—
last modified
Jun 18, 2016 06:15 PM
—
filed under:
Creative Commons,
Access to Knowledge,
Wikimedia,
Wikipedia,
Featured,
Konkani Wikipedia,
Homepage
Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.
Located in
Openness
/
Blog