Centre for Internet and Society

DIPP Response Improper Payment

praskrishna — 2015-04-14T17:09:50Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dipp-response-improper-payment.pdf

CIS Request to DIPP (3)

praskrishna — 2015-04-14T17:05:32Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-request-to-dipp-3.pdf

CIS Request to DIPP (2)

praskrishna — 2015-04-14T16:49:08Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-request-to-dipp-2.pdf

CIS Request to DIPP (1)

praskrishna — 2015-04-14T16:24:33Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-request-to-dipp-1.pdf

Fifty Companies

praskrishna — 2015-04-14T02:21:13Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fifty-companies.pdf

People voice their support for net neutrality, say Internet a utility not a luxury

praskrishna — 2015-05-08T01:56:28Z

As the campaign and support for net neutrality is picking up, Politicians, celebrities and a cross section of people are voicing their support for it. Net neutrality means all data and sites are treated and charged equally be it mobile app or any other app.

The blog post was published in IBN Live on April 13, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

According to AIB whose video on net neutrality has gone viral, more than one lakh emails have been sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) through the website savetheinternet.in. This is in response to the regulator's call for public consultation.

MK Stalin, DMK treasurer: The Internet is changing India. For the first time there is a platform that gives equal opportunity for everyone to gain knowledge and reap economic benefits. TRAI, the government telecom regulatory body is proposing to change this by allowing telecom companies to allow preferential access to websites. If this is allowed, companies will be allowed to charge extra for commonly used services like Whatsapp, YouTube, web based voice calling and many more. This will also allow telcos to allow preferential treatment of websites, allowing the big companies to destroy start-ups and internet based small business by blocking or slowing them down. This goes against the very concept of the Internet where every legal website or service is considered equal. This attempt to increase the profits of the telecom companies by surrendering social gains should be condemned. I request the TRAI to dismiss this proposal and let the Internet continue to be a neutral medium which serves our country and community instead of a select few companies.

Tathagata Satpathy, Dhenkanal MP: My concern was that why should TRAI get involved with private profit making companies and give them the facility to become a profiteering company. While saying this we must remember that Internet is not free anywhere in the world. That is accepted. My issue is with TRAI which has not even bothered to reply to my letter, I do not know why TRAI is getting involved and it has put itself in a situation where its interntions are suspect.

Nikhil Pahwa, Editor and publisher of Medianama: Startups may have to get license to provide services in India. Another outcome is communications firms will buy license. Third outcome is TRAI will allow ISP's to make some sites slow.

Pranesh Prakash, cyber security expert: So what the TRAI is proposing is something that should have every single Internet user very worried. There is some truth at least to what companies like Airtel etc. are saying which is that there is a difference in the regular trade standard for the Internet services and the telecom operators. But the correct solution for that is not to increase and sort a new license raj for Internet services but rather to decrease those over onerous burdens.

Riteish Deshmukh, actor: Net neutrality is as important as Freedom of Speech. Our Basic Right

Siddharth Malhotra, actor: Save The Internet push for net neutrality, Internet is a utility not a luxury.

Parineeti Chopra, actress: Save the Internet! Net neutrality is crucial! Proud of you boyses!

Shekhar Ravjiani, singer: Time to stand up and take a stand. Time to fight for what's right. Head to savetheinternet.in to make a difference.

Raghu Ram, Ex Roadies judge: PEOPLE!! Your internet and freedom are under attack in India! Listen to the AIB boys and join the fight.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ibn-live-april-13-2015-people-voice-their-support-for-net-neutrality-say-internet-a-utility-not-a-luxury

Surveillance rises, privacy retreats

praskrishna — 2015-05-02T06:43:33Z

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have, at considerable personal cost, revealed how surveillance has eroded the private space in a world driven by digital technology.

The article was published in the Business Standard on April 12, 2015. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In India, the extent of surveillance became evident after Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani walked into the trial room of a FabIndia outlet in Goa last week, only to discover closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras pointed towards the trial room. The country woke up to the porous divide between privacy and surveillance.

Now, senior officials of FabIndia find themselves embroiled in a case of voyeurism and seven of them have taken interim anticipatory bail from a district court. They claim the CCTV cameras were in the retail area, not the trial room.

The FabIndia incident might have blown the lid on how flimsily our privacy is protected but there is no doubt that India is slowly but surely moving towards a surveillance regime, both in the private and the public spheres.

“After the Snowden episode, there are only two kinds of nations: Ones that know they are being watched, and others that don’t,” said Pavan Duggal, an advocate at the Supreme Court of India.

Despite the surge in surveillance, there are hardly any specific laws governing this.

A few laws
In 2000, India enacted the Information Technology Act, primarily to bring e-commerce under legal framework. After the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008, the Act was amended, to give the government sweeping powers for mass surveillance.

In the context of private surveillance, the 2008 amendment added two definitions: (a) communication device; (b) intermediary.

A communication device, according to the law, means cell phones, personal digital assistance, or a combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text, video, audio, or image. An intermediary was defined as any person who, on behalf of another person, stores or transmits message or provides any service with respect to that message.

Rules regarding CCTV surveillance are governed by the IT Act, 2008, as CCTVs are considered to be communication devices, with computerised memory. However, the laws in relation to a communication device and intermediary deal mostly with third-party data sharing.

“Article 21 of the Constitution guards the right to privacy as a Fundamental Right. We do not have an explicit Act in this regard, but Section 43A of the IT Act, 2000, along with the IT Rules, 2011, protects data privacy in India,” said Prashant Mali, a cyber law and cyber security lawyer.

There were no amendments of the laws governing CCTVs.

However, Section 66E of the IT Act, states: “Whoever, intentionally or knowingly, captures, publishes or transmits, the image of a private area of any person, without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment, which may extend to three years, or with a fine not exceeding Rs 2 lakh, or both, with explanation.”

“The IT Act is not a privacy enabling law. Hence, the challenges to privacy in surveillance are not fully addressed in it,” said Duggal.

Internationally, there are more stringent laws governing CCTV cameras. For example, in the UK, there is a prescribed code. A person filmed by a surveillance camera can seek the footage. In the US, too, there are state-specific laws which prohibit the unauthorised installation or use of cameras in private places, like restrooms and trial rooms.

“Privacy laws must be compliant with international practices. Laws governing CCTVs should be more comprehensive. It should not be specific to voyeurism,” said Sunil Abraham, the executive director of Bengaluru-based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

The government has been working on a Privacy (Protection) Bill, which provides safeguards on personal data of individuals and sets conditions under which surveillance is allowed. It is expected that the Bill will lead to the creation of the offices of privacy commissioner and data protection commissioner. However, it is mostly silent on laws governing CCTV usage.

“In India, the concern over enacting privacy laws, implementing them and our understanding of privacy are low, compared to the global context. The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 is pending before Parliament. When this gets enacted, our laws would be at par with those in the West,” said Mali. “But doubts remain about their implementation.”

Government surveillance
Amendments to the IT Act in 2008 gave the government wide powers of interception, encryption and blocking. The amendment introduced Section 66A, which made sending “offensive” messages through a computer or any other communication device, such as a cell phone or a tablet, a punishable offense.

The Supreme Court recently struck down the provision as infringing the constitutional right of freedom of speech.

“Every nation is under the classical dilemma to balance national security with privacy and freedom of expression. Always, when there is a conflict between the two, national security wins hands down. However, apart from international consensus, we need customise national solutions,” said Duggal.

Today, some of the biggest government projects based on the powers vested to it under the IT Act. It has enabled the progression of surveillance procedures like the Central Monitoring System (CMS) and National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid), enabled through information on Aadhar card or unique identification number.

The CMS gives the government access to records of any mobile to landline calls, to read private emails, texts, and even browsing history through telecom operators. Natgrid could make the information available to nearly 11 central agencies.

“It is reported that the CMS can monitor close to 900 million people at one go. There is neither confirmation nor denial from the government,” said Duggal. However, compared to the US and China, that practice blanket surveillance, India is still considered a low-surveillance category nation.

“India is still low on surveillance. In India, we have targeted surveillance. At any given point in time, less than 200,000 phone calls are being intercepted. Not more than a couple of lakh of surveillance orders are given by both state and central governments,” said Abraham.

Surely, with so many surveillance devices around, it is a closely watched world like never before.

SALIENT FEATURES ON PRIVACY IN THE IT ACT, 2008

Communication Device: Cell phones, personal digital assistance, or combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text, video, audio, or image
Intermediary: Any person, who on behalf of another person, stores or transmits messages or provides any service
Sections 66A to 66F: Added to Section 66, prescribing punishment for offences such as sending obscene messages, identity theft, cheating by impersonation using computer resources, violation of privacy and cyber terrorism
Section 69: Amended to give power to the state to issue directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource
Sections 69A and B: These grant power to the state to issue directions for blocking public access of any information through any computer resource and to authorise to monitor and collect traffic data or information through any computer resource for cyber security.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-namrata-acharya-april-12-2015-surveillance-rises-privacy-retreats

Freedom of Expression in Digital Age

praskrishna — 2015-04-12T03:51:00Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression-in-digital-age.pdf

One reason startups are moving out of India

praskrishna — 2015-05-08T01:46:01Z

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says Make in India. But anyone who wants to, finds that their intellectual property is valued much more if the patent is filed in the US, or anywhere else, but India.

The article by Evelyn Fok and Varun Aggarwal was published in the Times of India on April 10, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Take the case of BITS Pilani graduate Sriram Kanuni, for instance, who decided to come back to India after spending 12 years with SAP in Germany. His family thought he was out of his mind, but he wanted to work for India and primarily serve Indian clients.

His core vision hasn't wavered five years down the line, but he has been forced to move a large part of his company's intellectual property (IP) to the US, just to get a better valuation for his next round of funding. And his is not an isolated case.

"Global investors seem to value companies with patents in the US much higher. Therefore, it makes more sense to shift patents out of India, in case you're looking to raise money or exit the company," Kanuni, who is the CEO and co-founder of Arteria Technologies, said.

Major Indian startups such as Flipkart, Myntra and ZipDial, which have either raised over a billion dollars or exited, already have their IPs outside the country. Experts say that is one of the reasons that attracted investors.

"If a company with its IP in India is acquired by an international firm, and post acquisition the buyer wishes to transfer the IP to a different jurisdiction, such transfer would need to be at a fair value decided by the government and the company is taxed at the rate of 34% on that," one of the bankers who was part of a large exit told ET.

"For tech-centric companies where the value of IP would comprise over 70-80% of their value, such high taxes can possibly make them unattractive for potential investors," they added.

With better valuation and exits in mind, startups are moving out their innovation to countries such as Singapore and the US, leaving behind very little intellectual property that the country can proudly call its own.

"You would want to incorporate somewhere with a respected reputation for maintaining legal protection when it comes to copyright and trademarks, especially with global licensees or partners," said Sharad Devarajan, co-founder and CEO of character entertainment company Graphic India, which is incorporated in Singapore.

"Incorporation in a country like the US where potential for M&A is higher, especially for core technology startups, will generally make it more attractive to potential buyers as it avoids a lot of legal and financial paperwork," said Brij Bhasin, India investment lead of Japanese venture capital firm Rebright Partners.

Investor concerns over IP are well founded. "Indian courts aren't uniform when it comes to developing jurisprudence around copyright and patent infringement," explained Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society.

"There is a high chance that a judge who doesn't understand the details would give an injunction. Then the loss of six months, etc, can be quite expensive, because in six months' time your competitor might eat into all of your market," he said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-april-10-2015-evelyn-fok-and-varun-aggarwal-one-reason-startups-are-moving-out-of-india

Standards Setting Organisations (SSOs) and FRAND

praskrishna — 2015-04-10T14:57:20Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ssos-and-frand.pdf

March NVDA ESpeak Report

praskrishna — 2015-04-10T02:44:35Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/march-nvda-e-speak-report.pdf

Smriti Irani brings back focus on voyeurism prevailing in our country

praskrishna — 2015-05-08T00:59:30Z

The case of Union minister Smriti Irani finding a CCTV camera at Goa's Fab India has again brought back the focus on digital voyeurism and how a critical issue like surveillance can be exploited. Irani's case comes days after a woman found a mobile phone strapped to a changing room door of a Van Heusen store in Lajpat Nagar's Central market, a popular shopping hub.

The article by Amrita Madhukalya was published in DNA on April 6, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

Bangalore girl Sumitra (name changed) remembers the day in 2009 she saw a camera when trying on a skirt at Palika Bazaar. "I looked around the tiny changing room and saw a camera with a dipping red light. I quickly rushed out and accused the shopkeeper. But, Palika is not a place of great repute, and my friend who was accompanying me asked me to forget the matter," she says, and that's what she did. She was a degree student at Delhi University, and being relatively unaware of the city, decided to keep mum. "But look at what has happened: if they can film a Union minister at a Fab India store, they will film anyone. We need stringent action."

One of the first cases of digital voyeurism was reported in Pune in 2003 when a peon in an establishment at Sahakar Nagar installed a web camera in a changing room. In 2005, landowner Mohan Kulkarni from Navi Peth was arrested for filming women tenants. In 2007, two MMS clips from the changing rooms of a renowned departmental store in Kolkata started making the rounds. In one, a girl was shown changing clothes while in the other a couple was shown having sex. Then a year later, shop assistant Sunil Kumar Jha was found filming women in a clothes store from below the trial room door in Kolkata.

Debarati Halder, advocate and founder of the Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling, feels that had it not been a politician like Irani, the case would not have been highlighted at all. "People would have brushed off the incident had it been another woman. It is hard to escape the amount of negative publicity a case like this garners," she says. This is reflected in the case of a woman who was filmed in a leading store in Mumbai and was scared to approach the police, as she and her father did not want to go through the "legal hassles" of the case. The woman spoke of her story to a journalist of a leading daily and the ensuing report eventually led to the arrest of the shop assistant.

Cyber security expert Pranesh Prakash says that digital voyeurism is a huge problem in India and elsewhere. "There is a mismatch between privacy protection provided in the IT Act against non-consensual sharing of certain forms of sexual images, and the utter disregard for privacy in other parts of the law. Given that cybercafes have often been places where users are secretly filmed, the law should seek to crack down on such invasions of privacy. Instead, the law doesn't prohibit that, and in fact the Cybercafe Rules, encourage cybercafe owners to photograph all users, including minors. The rules say that untrustworthy cybercafe owners keep these records for a minimum period of one year, but there is no maximum period," says Prakash.

Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000, amended in 2008, deals with digital voyeurism. And section 354 (C) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deals with voyeurism in general.

But, there are many loopholes. "When the footage is shot by a government-run establishment, then the clause of surveillance is a cover, like in an MMS of Delhi Metro (where a couple was shown making out)."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dna-april-6-2015-amrita-madhukalya-smriti-irani-brings-back-focus-on-voyeurism-prevailing-in-the-country

Odia waits for Google Translate debut - Nine Indian languages available

praskrishna — 2015-05-08T01:27:21Z

Odia getting the "classical" status last year was certainly a proud moment for the people of the state, but, it is yet to feature among the languages available in Google's popular translation service.

The article by Anwesha Ambaly was published in the Telegraph on April 6, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.

Over 90 languages, including nine from India (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu) are part of the service.

Odia, which is spoken by over 45 million people globally, is yet to debut here.

Techies working in the field attribute the reason to the lack of web presence of the language.

"Google has set parameters on the basis of which translations are available. Only those languages that have a wide use on the Internet and have enough online content are included in the list. The online presence of Odia is quite insignificant," said Subhashish Panigrahi, programme officer at Centre for Internet and Society and a regular contributor to Odia Wikipedia.

Among the limited data in Odia available online, Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource have emerged as important reference sources for all kinds of information.

The Odia Wikipedia serves as an online encyclopaedia that was initiated in 2002 and hosts over 8,000 articles in Odia. The Odia Wikisource was launched in the state last year and is run by volunteers and communities. It is a sister concern of Odia Wikipedia that makes rare Odia books available on the Internet.

However, a Google spokesperson said: "We value all Indic languages and search and Gmail are available in 16 Indian languages with more languages to follow"

Recently, the entire Odia Bhagbata by Jagannath Das was made available on Wikisource. Also, Bhubaneswar-based organisation Srujanika, in collaboration with NIT, Rourkela, has digitized over 750 books. But these apart, there are no major online portals available in Odia.

Panigrahi and his contributor friends are presently working at promoting the Google Translate community, which is a platform for language enthusiasts and volunteers interested in improving translation quality for their language or help Google add it to translate.

"To ensure more availability of online content, people should be encouraged to share information on the web. More Odia content on the web will get a wider reach," said the techie.

"We are quite hopeful that the translator would be available in Odia soon."

The universal web-compatible Unicode font for Odia language was developed in 2000. Despite the Unicode standard having been made available over a decade ago, Odia language is not used actively on the Internet.

"We are still stuck to using outdated fonts such as Akruti and Sreelipi for typing text in Odia and most of these are not compatible for using on the Internet. There are thousands of book and articles available in these fonts. Most of the important content available on the government portals also uses the older fonts. Unless content is available in Unicode, it will not be searchable, sharable and reusable on the Internet," said Panigrahi.

One of the earliest websites in Odia was developed by Ganesh Mishra in 1999 for a popular Odia daily. But the website was shut down after six years when the concept of e-paper came into being.

"These days, most of the publishers of Odia newspapers and magazines have come up with e-papers which are nothing but the scanned images of the original pages. But an online search won't display them as results. Online content in Unicode is accessible through search engines," said the website developer.

He said that people have so many alternatives on the Internet that the absence of Odia language is not felt. "Customers often initiate commercial websites in Odia but soon request us to change it to English because it was inconvenient for users," said Mishra.

Some youngsters in the state are coming up with online portals to promote Odia literature. Jyoti Prasad Patnaik, a doctor by profession, has been running an online Odia literary magazine since 2006.

"The Internet is the most powerful medium of communication these days and there could be no better way to popularise our language other than this. When I started out, there were hardly any readers. Today my website has around 5,000 visitors every month. The number is growing slowly and I hope it will increase in the future," said Patnaik.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/the-telepgrah-april-6-2015-anwesha-ambaly-odia-waits-for-google-translate-debut-nine-indian-languages-available

IPR Confluence Presentation

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T06:14:22Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ipr-confluence-presentation

Tech Law Forum

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T16:34:31Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tech-law-forum.docx