Centre for Internet and Society

Sex on-the-go

praskrishna — 2013-06-05T09:08:05Z

After a freak fire in 2011 reduced the cubbyholes trading in electronic goods inside a Crawford Market shopping plaza to ashes, Junaid has gone alfresco.

The article by Anand Holla was published in Mumbai Mirror on May 4, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

He sits on a stool by a chock-full street tinkering with mobile phones while three teenage staffers hover around him. A laptop receives favourable treatment; it sits at the centre of the makeshift stall scattered with card readers. The imaginary wall of hostility he carefully builds over several seconds crashes when he realises we are genuine customers. "This is not your regular movie...it will cost you Rs 250 for 4 GB," he mutters, dodging eye contact. Some bargaining later, he hurriedly transfers 200 short pornographic clips from the laptop on to a memory card for Rs 150. Most are the fall-out of crosscountry MMS scandals, the flavour of the season. "Everyone does it, no one talks about it. A raid means we lose our equipment and pay a hefty fine," he says in staccato metre, handing us back the card. Seconds later, head down, he's back to reviving a dead smartphone.

The rates vary at a booth a few metres down. It's Rs 400 for 16GB - the same price as that for loading your phone with the latest Bollywood and Hollywood films - of a "collection" that includes foreign porn, and bestiality videos.

It's hardly a secret that several of the city's cell phone repair shops and SIM card kiosks that flaunt a computer, stock smut in secret folders marked by gibberish names. "We get some women, too," one owner says. "They say, "Zara woh waale movies daal dena'."

Which brings you to the rules of the mobile-porn-off-the-street universe.

A blunt demand for a blue film clip will send shopkeepers into a shell. Some may even express mock disgust at your request. Blame it on random raids by the State Anti-Piracy Cell. Around South Mumbai's markets, for instance, code words 'Daal gosht' or 'Pelampaal' put the Flashing-Loading-Repairing stall owners at ease. But for tongue-tied first-timers, body language is the marker. A local cell phone accessories distributor says, "The more desperate you look and sound, the easier it is for you to pass off as a bona fide purchaser. If you are well-dressed, they'll deny they stock it. There's no fixed rate. Sab grahak dekhke poodi baandhte hain. Considering how it's a simple copy-paste job, it's free money anyway."

Regular customers frequently leave their phones with their trusted 'service' providers for loading apps, games, the latest films, and porn too. It's a package deal. "If you know how to ask for it, there's hardly a corner in Mumbai where you can't buy pocket porn," says a shopkeeper from Mulund.

In fact, pornography is not high on the authorities' agenda, says Vijay Mukhi, former member of the High Court/State Government Committee on Pornography and Cyber Laws. "Unless the Anti-Piracy Cell sends a dummy customer to lay a trap, it's near impossible to prosecute the shopkeepers because watching porn is not a crime; only producing, publishing or distributing it is," he clarifies.

Shafqat Usmani, President of the Mobile Dealers Welfare Association of Mumbai, says, the paltry 2.5 per cent margin on products makes the city's 50,000 mobile phone retailers render additional services, including repairing. Is loading porn part of the survival mechanism? "The low margin is no excuse to indulge in disgusting activities," he says.

Hand-held and hi-res
The cell phone boom - both, cheap Chinese models that allow the not-so-privileged access to technology and the arrival of high-res display screens that offer the affluent a viewing experience superior to television - has worked towards making porn consumption mainstream. Local train commuters will tell you of the passenger on the corner seat watching smutty clips, as if it were an impassive pastime. It's even found favour as a 'stress reliever'. "My friends and I buy phone porn to watch whenever the workload at office gets out of hand," says a Mankhurd resident.

While watching porn on laptops, either straight off the net or via DVDs, means you could get busted by family and friends, the handheld experience - with a phone password to boot - allows complete privacy.

What would you like?
Depending on which neighbourhood market you access, the popular offering varies. In Kurla, says a cell phone mechanic, foreign porn has no takers. "They (customers) say everything happens too soon and easy. The demand is for morphed celebrity sex videos, South Indian porn and of course, MMS clips." Some of these are what the industry refers to as 'kaand' videos. They resemble MMS scandal clips but are staged. It's the lure of these grainy, sloppily shot videos that landed Karnataka BJP ministers Lakshman Savdi and CC Patil in a soup last February. The two were caught watching a clip during assembly. Amid a storm of criticism, they and Mangalore minister Krishna Palemar, who was accused of transferring the video to Savdi's phone, resigned.

On Ahmedabad's Relief Road, a row of kiosks that sport the 'Downloading' sign, like the one run by Karimmuddin, offer hi-definition (HD) foreign porn to affluent students who walk in with large-screen 3G phones demanding virus-free content. It's Rs 100 for 2GB worth of mp4 clips of 720p resolution, and Rs 50 for 2GB worth low-quality clips, says 21-year-old Moin. Smaller, dirt cheap deals are available too. A single HD clip at Rs 5.50, a low-res one for Rs 2, and the 'lightest' clip for Rs 21 paise.

"My customers are youngsters from middle and upper middle class families," says 30-year-old Rocky, a shop owner in Navrangpura, while catering to Vikas, a collegian waiting for a Rs 100 download. "We are a group of six friends, including girls. For Rs 100, I'm going away with more than 20 HD video clips," he says straight-faced, adding that his group of friends, girls included, get together during the holidays for collective viewing. A relationship of trust between regulars like Vikas and shopkeepers means he will share a clip with the mobile store owner, in case he doesn't have it in stock.

It's a business of 100 per cent profits, they admit, and raids are easy to dodge since the police usually come looking for duplicate cell phones. They'd make half their monthly earnings if they relied on selling SIM cards, mobile accessories and software loading alone, says Ramesh, a 23-year-old staffer at a cell phone shop in Odhav that gets walk-ins from rickshawallahs and college students.

The rise of mobile porn has turned into a thorn in the flesh for pirated DVD sellers. Ajju, who runs a CD/DVD stand near Panchwati Crossroads, remembers a time when customers crowded him for 'tragda' or XXX CDs. "Older women would arrive in cars, roll down the window and ask for adult movies. I'd notice how they'd chuck the explicit cover and plonk the CD in an unsuspecting plastic bag." Mobile porn has hit his profits, bringing it down by 20 per cent.

Southward bound
Surprisingly, in Bengaluru, the erotic DVD trend is experiencing freak survival. Two years ago, the youth scoured Majestic and SP Road for downloaded porn. But with affordable mobile phone data plans and pirated DVD sellers ratting on their competitors, mobile repair shop owners have had to stick to doing just that - fiddle with hardware.

It's the tier II and III cities across India that are waking up to the potential of porn-on-phone. Earlier this year, Mysore-based moral awareness group Rescue conducted a survey across 964 junior college students from Mysore, Chamarajanagar and Bengaluru. More than 75 per cent watched porn regularly, and most watched six times more porn on their phones than on any other device, said the findings.

Mangalore, Belgaum, Dharwad and Mysore, all educational centres, support a thriving porn-lending library system. A student from Moodabidri says, "Most hostel students venture out to these shops once a week, and pay Rs 50 for a porn-loaded memory card. They return it a week later in exchange for fresh content."

Mangalore leads the pack in the sleaze game. It's believed that the clip that got the Karnataka ministers into trouble was called Fasila, and was a hit in Mangalore and neighbouring Kasargod two years ago. Six years ago, a seven-minute MMS sex clip was converted into a half-hour CD named Mangalooru Mungaru Male and sold widely. In 2000, before mobiles became the rage they are now, sex CDs flew off the shelves. The famous 40-minute clip, Mysore Mallige (known as MM CD) that featured a girl from Puttur, was sold for as much as Rs 1,000.

A mobile accessories shop owner in Puttur says the porn viewing audience has grown to include blue collar workers, who aren't tech-savvy to figure their own Internet downloads. "All they want is clarity of clips,' he says.

Watch, don't act
His customers then, are not very different from 22-year-old Manoj Sah and his 19-year-old companion Pradeep Kumar, who admitted to investigators probing the rape of a five-year-old girl in East Delhi last month, that they were drinking and watching porn on their mobile phone before they lured the girl into Sah's house with a chocolate.

While the nation erupted in protest, the confession drew attention to the possible fallout of easy access to pornographic content. The Delhi case isn't isolated. In January, Mumbai cringed when 70-year-old Niyaz Raza was arrested in the Govandi rape case involving a 13-year-old girl. His SIM was found loaded with sex clips, including one where he had filmed the girl performing oral sex on him.

Last month, Indore advocate Kamlesh Vaswani filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking a change in Internet laws that would make watching pornography a nonbailable offence. It estimates that the number of such clips accessible to Indians is more than 200 million. The petition states: "The sexual content that kids are accessing today is far more graphic, violent, brutal, deviant, and destructive (than before), and has put the entire society in danger." It also finds the increasing "severity and gravity" of these visuals a concern, and accuses accessible pornography of "fuelling" most of the offences committed against women and children.

So, more than porn, it's the exposure of a larger audience to its extreme forms - bondage, bestiality, even paedophila - that's spurred a debate. To sum up the sentiment in the words of award-winning writer Robin Morgan: "Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice."

There are enough and more voices refuting Vaswani's claim. Pranesh Prakash is one of them. The policy director with Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, says, "There is no data to establish a direct co-relation between porn and sexual crimes. To be alarmed over the widespread availability of porn through mobile phone loading alone is a classist reaction; those who are well-to-do have had easy digital access anyway."

Way before those accused of rape were introduced to porn, they were exposed to a culture of misogyny that says women must be controlled, and their bodies are free to loot.

- With Hemington James and Yogesh Avasthi in Ahmedabad, Rakesh Prakash in Bengaluru and Deepthi Shridhar in Mangalore (Some names been changed to protect identity)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/mumbai-mirror-anand-holla-may-4-2013-sex-on-the-go

Several Indian Twitter users' accounts suspended due to tech glitch

praskrishna — 2014-12-05T00:17:15Z

Twitter denies conspiracy theory, blames technical glitch for account suspensions

The blog entry by Silky Malhotra was published on digit on November 3, 2014. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

The accounts of several Twitter users were suspended for unknown reasons, setting off conspiracy theories that only the accounts of right-wing supporters had been targeted. However, Twitter has denied these rumors and instead blamed technical issues for the glitch.

Although Twitter blamed a technical glitch for the account suspension, several Twitter users responded by stating that there was a pattern to the suspension because 'suspended users' were asked to change their behavior to be able to continue using the micro-blogging site.

A message sent out to a Twitter user whose account was suspended read, "Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk".

Twitter officials have denied blocking of accounts deliberately and added that the incident was an accident as part of spam cleaning process.

Twitter also apologized for the inconvenience but added, "Unfortunately, your account got caught in one of these spam groups by mistake. It is possible your account posted an update that appeared to be spam, so please be careful what you tweet... You will need to change your behavior to continue using Twitter. Repeat violations of the Twitter rules may result in the permanent suspension of your account."

However this statement has triggered outrage among users who called it Internet policing. Several users responded with humor, and one posted, "In the Twitter canteen you never get chicken wings in pairs because the right wing is blocked."

Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society, stated that though there have been instances of 'privatisation of censorship' in the past, this incident may not have been that. "It doesn't look deliberate especially because even accounts such as eBay India were suspended."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/digit-november-3-2014-silky-malhotra-several-indian-twitter-users-accounts-suspended-due-to-tech-glitch

Seventh Open Letter to the Finance Committee: A Note on the Deduplication of Unique Identifiers

praskrishna — 2011-11-22T07:28:11Z

Sahana Sarkar on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had sent in a Right to Information application on 30 June 2011 to Ashish Kumar, Central Public Information Officer, UIDAI. The UIDAI sent in its reply. Through the seventh open letter, Hans attempts to characterize in an abstract way the replies that CIS managed to elicit and makes some elementary observations. The UIDAI records one or more biometric signatures of those individuals to whom it assigns its unique identity or identifier ; and for convenience let us call this the process of registering an applicant. In the normal course of registration the signatures of an applicant will be compared to those already recorded; and the outcomes of this exercise of comparing suites of biometric signatures — fingerprints and iris-scans, say — may be regarded as the values of a binary variable:

With more than one signature, we have Y = 1 only when those of the applicant match the signatures in some other suite of such item by item; and Y = 0 then if at least one of his or her signatures fails to match any already recorded one.

Though the circumstance should be unlikely, a person who has already been registered may apply again to be registered: with fraudulent intent maybe: or simply because he or she has lost the document – some identity card, perhaps – which bears the identifier assigned to him or her by the UIDAI. And the possibilities here may be regarded as the values of a binary variable:

Though we are regarding X and Y as variables equally, and taking them for jointly distributed ones, there is an evident asymmetry between them. The exercise of trying to match a given suite of signatures to some set of other suites can be performed so long as the signatures remain available; but for a given applicant the values of X refer to events already past. Faced with an applicant of whom they may suppose no more than what he or she may disclose, the personnel of the UIDAI cannot directly estimate either of the two quantities:

We have p[X = 0] + p[X = 1] = 1 here, needless to say, so there is only one quantity that needs estimating. But it is worth emphasizing that even when an applicant declares himself to have been registered already— and has come, say, to have a lost card newly issued — the personnel of the UIDAI are obliged to remain agnostic about p[X = 1] : no matter how ready they are to believe him.[1]

That no individual should be assigned more than one identifier is an entirely evident desideratum: so the process of comparing the signatures of a fresh applicant to those already recorded must be a strict one. But the process of comparison should also make it very likely that, when a match of signatures does occur, the applicant is someone who has in fact been registered already. The chance that a genuinely new applicant’s signatures will match some already recorded suite should be very small: the proportion of such mistaken matches, among all matches, should be as low as possible. This proportion is usually denoted by p[X = 0 | Y = 1] : the conditional probability that X = 0 given that Y = 1 : the chance that, despite a match of signatures, the applicant has not in fact been registered already. The defining formula:

relates this conditional probability to the ‘absolute’ or ‘raw’ probabilities of the events [Y = 1] and [X = 0 and Y = 1] ; the second of which is sometimes said to be contained in the first.

Suppose that there have been N applicants thus far. It is usual to say N trials of X and Y have occurred; but only the outcomes for Y are known. Suppose that matches have been found some m times out of these N ; then N − m applicants will have been registered. With regard to these trials, set

Note that these numbers are not individually known; but as the specified events exhaust the possibilities, we have c 00 +c 01 +c 10 +c 11 = N ; and we do know that

The ratio m/N would be a reasonable estimate of p[Y = 1] ; and (N − m)/N a reasonable estimate of p[Y = 0] = 1 − p[Y = 1] likewise. The quantity we are seeking is p[X = 0 | Y = 1] however: of which the ratio c 01/m would be a natural estimate. But unless we have some sense of the relative magnitudes of c 01 and c 11 the quantity

could be anything between 0 and 1 now. To estimate the relative magnitudes of c 01 and c 11 in any direct way would be difficult, because one has no purchase on how likely the events [X = 0 & Y = 1] or [X = 1 & Y = 1] are. So p[X = 0 | Y = 1] must be estimated directly, it would seem; and we shall come back to the question.

The reply we have received from the UIDAI indicates that 2.59 × 107 registrations — or successful ‘enrolments’, as they have put it — had been effected by 17.08.2011;while the ‘enrolments rejected’ came to 2.005 × 103 they say. Enrolments were rejected when ‘residents were duplicates’: if we take this to mean that an applicant was refused registry on account of his signatures matching some suite of signatures already recorded, then we may suppose that

The False Positive Identification Rate, or FPIR, is defined in that reply as the ratio of the number of the number of false positive identification decisions to the total number of enrolment transactions by unenrolled individuals : if by “unenrolled individual” we understand an applicant of whom [X = 0] actually obtains, then in our notation we have

rather: which would be a natural estimate of p[X = 0 & Y = 1] now, and since

the ‘false postive identification rate’ thus construed could be bound, at least, if p[X = 0 | Y = 1] itself could be. At any rate, this latter proportion seems to be the most pertinent one here: p[X = 0 | Y = 1] is the conditional probability, of mistaken matches, that the UIDAI must strive to keep as low as possible.

The reply from the UIDAI defines a false negative identification as an incorrect decision of a biometric system that an applicant for a UID, making no attempt to avoid recognition, has not been previously enrolled in the system, when in fact they have. One is at a loss to understand how the personnel of the UIDAI are to determine when an applicant is making no attempt to avoid recognition. Putting that aside, the False Negative Identification Rate or FNIR would now appear to be p[X = 1 | Y = 0] : the probability that, despite his or her signatures not matching any already recorded suite, an applicant has in fact already been registered: and with our notation

now. But c 10 cannot be reliably estimated, again, because one has no purchase on how likely [X = 1 & Y = 0] is; and the conditional probability p[X = 1 | Y = 0] will have to be estimated or bound in some direct way as well.

The preceding paragraphs have asserted that, in order to estimate or effectively bound the identification rates being sought by the UIDAI, the conditional probabilities p[X = 0 | Y = 1] and p[X = 1 | Y = 0] will have to be addressed in some direct way: without any attempt to estimate the likelihoods of [X = 0 & Y = 1] and [X = 1 & Y = 0] by themselves, that is to say. There might be ways of reliably estimating these conditional probabilities; and the manufacturers of the devices that produce the signatures may have provided tight bounds on what they would be — when the devices are working properly, at least. But let us now consider how the UIDAI has elaborated on these rates.

Their reply to our second question states that the biometric service providers have to meet the following accuracy SLA’s for FPIR and FNIR:

The condition of ‘non-duplication’ in the requirement (P) implies that the FPIR is being understood now as the formula in (†) above computes it: as an estimate of the conditional probability p[Y = 1 |X = 0]: since one already knows that [X = 0] for each enrolment here. Such an estimate could be made if one had obtained a sample of suites of signatures from distinct individuals — where no two suites in the sample could have come from the same individual — and compared each suite to every other: the proportion of matches found would be an estimate of p[Y = 1 |X = 0] now.[2]

The ‘biometric service providers’ the UIDAI has contracted with are presumably able to perform such experiments accurately. But an estimate of p[Y = 1 |X = 0] will not, as we shall momentarily see, by itself readily yield a usable bound on p[X = 0 | Y = 1] : on the crucial likelihood that, despite his or her suite of signatures matching a suite already recorded, an applicant has not in fact been registered.

The condition “ONLY duplicate enrolments” in the requirement (N) implies that the FNIR is being understood as an estimate of the conditional probability p[Y = 0 |X = 1] now: as one already knows that [X = 1] for each enrolment here. The biometric service providers should be able to estimate this probability as well. The FNIR as (‡) construes it is an estimate of p[X = 1 | Y = 0] rather; but a usable bound for this likelihood is readily got from p[Y = 0 |X = 1] now, for we may surely expect p[X = 1] < p[Y = 0].

Let us see if the requirement (P) will yield any usable upper bound on the crucial likelihood p[X = 0 | Y = 1]: which, to note it again, is what the UIDAI must seek to minimise. Consider the consequences when the FPIR is understood as (P) envisages. Taken together with formula (1) above we have

If we are not willing to wager on any upper limit appreciably less than 1 for p[X = 0] , we obtain

now.[3] Unless one can reasonably suppose that the event [Y = 1] never occurs, one must grant that p[Y = 1] > 0 . We have

But this inequality yields a usable upper bound only when K < 3: only when K is 1 or 2 that is. In either case, only by supposing that p[Y = 1] > 10−2 will the accuracy mandated for the FPIR by the UIDAI yield a usable upper bound on p[X = 0 | Y = 1] . Since the UIDAI expects that p[Y = 1] < 10−2 surely, we must conclude now that the requirements it has imposed on its ‘biometric service providers’ will not help its personnel estimate an upper limit for the crucial likelihood that, despite his or her suite signatures matching some already recorded suite, an applicant for a UID has not in fact been registered already: which likelihood, to insist again, is what the UIDAI must seek to minimise.

The argument just made will seem perverse: but the calculation is perfectly general. Suppose an FPIR limit of 10−J is mandated; then, unless one is willing to wager an upper limit on p[X = 0] , one cannot get a usable upper bound on p[X = 0 | Y = 1] from this limit on the FPIR, used all by itself, unless one supposes that p[Y = 1] > 10−J+1.

To save writing, denote by L01 the crucial likelihood p[X = 0 | Y = 1] ; and suppose that is some desired upper bound on L01 now. Assume that the FPIR achieved by a service provider is an accurate estimate of p[Y = 1 |X = 0] ; then from (1) we get

Now [X = 0] should not be a rare event at all, and, conversely, [Y = 1] should be a rare event.[4] So one should be able to set some reasonable upper limit to the ratio p[Y = 1]/ p[X = 0] : but without attempting any precise estimate, at all, of either individual probability. One may reasonably expect, for instance, that no more than one in a thousand applicants for a uid will already have been registered; and when p[X = 1] < 10−3 we will have

from (3) above. This calculation can be repeated with any number m in place of 3 here, of course, provided p[X = 1] < 10−m and p[Y = 1] < 10−m are both likely; and it seems entirely reasonable, now, for the UIDAI to insist that its biometric service providers meet the requirement.

for some appropriate upper bound X on L01 . The considerations leading to (4) make it reasonable to insist on m _ 3 now; and recalling what L01 is — the crucial likelihood that, despite his or her signatures matching some already recorded suite of signatures, an applicant has not in fact been registered — the UIDAI will have to insist on some quite small bound X: for it would not want, too often, to refuse anyone a UID on account of a mistaken match of biometric signatures.[6]

It would be foolish to speculate on what the authorities regard as acceptable error here; but if the UIDAI is of a mind that such mistakes should happen less than one in a thousand times say, then, taking the minimal value of 3 for m in the suggested requirement (R), it should demand an FPIR less than 10−6 : a ‘false positive identification rate’ a thousand-fold less than the limit currently imposed.

[1]Should it seem entirely odd to talk of probability when one of the events in question — either [X = 0] or [X = 1] — will already have occurred, we may regard the probabilities we assign them as measures of our uncertainty only: but no practical question hinges on probabilities being understood ‘subjectively’ rather than ‘objectively’.

[2]It might be well to note, however, that the size of the sample must be manageable: for a sample of size K a total of K • (K − 1)/2 comparisons will have to be performed.

[3]Wagering an upper limit on p[X = 0] would require one to reasonably estimate the probability of finding already-registered individuals among applicants.

[4]The event [Y = 1] must be just as rare, one supposes, as [X = 0] is frequent.

[5]We are supposing, that is to say, that matches of biometic signatures are very rarely mistaken matches.

[6]A small _ is consistent with supposing that p[X = 1] and p[Y = 1] are commensurate probabilites. If p[X = 0 | Y = 1] < 10−3 for instance, then p[X = 1 | Y = 1] _ (103 − 1)/103 ; one may suppose, that is, that [X = 1] will be the case 999 out of a 1000 times that [Y = 1] obtains; and, of course, to suppose that [X = 1] will be appreciably more frquent than [Y = 1] is to grant that biometric signatures will fail appreciably often to distinguish individuals.

See the RTI application of 30/06/2011 [PDF, 15 kb].

Download the Seventh Open Letter here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/de-duplication-of-unique-identifiers

Seventh Open Letter to the Finance Committee

praskrishna — 2011-10-12T11:23:53Z

In the following I attempt, first, to characterize in an abstract way the situation being addressed by the questions that were asked by us of the UIDAI, in our RTI application of 30/06/2011. I try to make sense, then, of the replies we managed to elicit; and conclude with some elementary observations.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/seventh-open-letter.pdf

Seventh Meeting of the Group of Experts on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah

praskrishna — 2012-09-11T06:20:53Z

The seventh meeting of the Group of Experts on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court is scheduled to be held on September 18, 2012 at 10.30 a.m. in the Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi - 110001.

The agenda of the meeting is to discuss and finalize the draft report prepared on the basis of the recommendations of the two Sub-Groups of the Expert Group.

The meeting notice was sent by S. Bose, Deputy Secretary (CIT&I) to the following individuals:

Justice A.P. Shah, Chairman
Shri R. S. Sharma, D.G., UIDAI
Shri R. Ragupathi,Additional Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs
Dr. Gulshan Rai, D.G. CERT-In, DeITy
Shri Manoj Joshi, J.S. DOPT
Shri Som Mittal, Nasscom
Ms. Barkha Dutt, NDTV
Ms. Usha Ramanathan
Shri Sunil Abraham, CIS
Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj
Ms. Mala Dutt
Shri R.K. Gupta

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/seventh-meeting-of-group-of-experts-sept-18-2012-under-chairmanship-of-justice-shah

Seventh Global Intellectual Property Convention

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T16:59:01Z

The Seventh Global IP Convention took place in Mumbai from January 15 to 17, 2015. Rohini Lakshané attended the event.

Agenda

Time	Detail
08.00 09.00	Registration
09.00 10.30	Inaugural Session (Majestic I & II)
10.30 11.00	Coffee Break and Networking Session
11.00 12.30	Plenary Session I: Power of IP: Gateway to Growth (Majestic I & II)
12.30 13.30	Lunch Break & Networking Session
13.30 15.30	Technical Session: I, II & III
15.30 16.00	Coffee Break and Networking Session
16.00 18.00	Technical Session: IV, V & VI

For more info on the event, click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/seventh-global-ip-convention

Seven reasons why Parliament should debate the Aadhaar bill (and not pass it in a rush)

praskrishna — 2016-03-24T02:25:24Z

Critics say the Aadhaar Bill does not address concerns over privacy, even as government is rushing the Bill without adequate parliamentary scrutiny.

The blog post by Anumeha Yadav was published in Scroll.in on March 11, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Since it was launched by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2009, the Unique Identification project called Aadhaar has functioned without a legal framework. The project, which aims to assign a biometric-based number to every Indian resident, has been run under an executive order, which means Parliament has no oversight over it.

An Aadhaar Bill was introduced in 2010 but it was rejected by a parliamentary committee over legislative, security, and privacy concerns.

For long, critics have expressed concerns over collecting and centralising citizens' biometric data ‒ such as fingerprints and retina scans ‒ on a mass scale in the absence of a privacy law. The Supreme Court in several orders in 2014 and 2015 affirmed that the government cannot require people to register for an Aadhaar number and no one can be deprived of a government service for not having an Aadhaar number. The Supreme Court is now set to form a constitution bench to examine the contours of the right to privacy flowing from the government's arguments in the Aadhaar case.

Before the bench begins its work, however, the Modi government has introduced a new Bill on Aadhaar, which could override the court's orders.

The Aadhaar (Target Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill was introduced on March 3 in Lok Sabha. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said the new Bill addresses concerns over privacy and the security and confidentiality of information.

But a close examination of the Bill shows several questions remain.

1. Does the Bill make it mandatory for you to get an Aadhaar number?
Yes, you may have to compulsorily enrol under Aadhaar, despite the privacy concerns explained in the sections below.

Four-time member of the Lok Sabha, Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Biju Janata Dal, was on the parliamentary committee on finance that examined the previous Aadhaar Bill introduced in 2010. He said the new Aadhaar Bill does not specify that it will not be made mandatory.

“There is duplicity over this issue,” said Mahtab. “Nandan Nilekani [the former chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India] repeatedly told us in the parliamentary committee that Aadhaar is not mandatory. The Supreme Court also said, 'You cannot make it mandatory.'”

But if a service agent asks for Aadhaar mandatorily, then as a beneficiary, citizens have no option but to get an Aadhaar number, Mahtab explained. “The government, or a private company, cannot force me to get an Aadhaar number," he said. "The government should bring a law that clearly says Aadhaar is not mandatory.”

A committee of experts on privacy, chaired by Justice AP Shah, had recommended in 2012 that the Bill should specify that individuals have the choice to opt-in or out-of providing their Aadhaar number, and a service should not be denied to individuals who do not provide their number. The Unique Identification Authority of India had then stated to the committee that the enrolment in Aadhaar is voluntary.

But the new Aadhaar Bill does not incorporate a categorical clause on opt-in and opt-out. Instead, it broadens the scope of Aadhaar. Jaitley said the Bill will allow the government to ask a citizen to produce an Aadhaar number to avail of any government subsidy. But section 7 of the Bill is phrased more broadly, and refers to not just subsidies but any “subsidy, benefit or service” for which expense is incurred on the Consolidated Fund of India, or the government treasury.

7. The Central Government or, as the case may be, the State Government may, for the purpose of establishing identity of an individual as a condition for receipt of a subsidy, benefit or service for which the expenditure is incurred from, or the receipt therefrom forms part of, the Consolidated Fund of India, require that such individual undergo authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or in the case of an individual to whom no Aadhaar number has been assigned, such individual makes an application for enrolment: Provided that if an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate and viable means of identification for delivery of the subsidy, benefit or service.

As noted above, the proviso in section 7 is premised on the phrase: “if an Aadhaar number is not assigned”. This, along with language preceding in the section, indicates that a citizen may be compulsorily required to apply for enrolment.

Section 8 permits a “requesting entity” to utilise identity information for authentication with the Central Identities Data Repository. A “requesting entity” is defined under Section 2(u), and will include private entities.

2. Does the Bill allow Aadhaar authorities to share your personal data?
Yes, in the "interest of national security", a term that remains undefined.

Both legal experts and members of Parliament have flagged the provisions in the Bill on the circumstances in which users' data, including core biometrics information, can be shared.

The debate centres over the interception provisions in section 33.

In a piece in The Indian Express, Nandan Nilekani, the former chairperson of the issuing authority, stated that the Aadhaar Bill provides that no core biometric information can be shared, a principle without exception. “...Clause 29(1) is not overridden by Clause 33(2),” he noted.

However, a closer reading of the Bill shows this is not the case. Clause 33(2), in fact, does provide an exception to clause 29(1)(b):

33(2) Nothing contained in sub-section (2) or sub-section (5) of section 28 and clause (b) of sub-section (1), sub-section (2) or sub-section (3) of section 29 shall apply in respect of any disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication records, made in the interest of national security in pursuance of a direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India specially authorised in this behalf by an order of the Central Government

where, Section 29(1)(b) states:

29. (1) No core biometric information, collected or created under this Act, shall be — (b) used for any purpose other than generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication under this Act.

Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer and policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society said: “This implies that the core biometric information, collected or created under the Aadhaar Act, may be used for purposes other than the generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication 'in the interest of national security.'"

Legal experts point out that the phrase “national security” is undefined in the present bill, as well as the General Clauses Act, and thus the circumstances in which an individual's information may be disclosed remains open to interpretation.

Section 33(1) permits the disclosure of an individual's demographic information (but not biometrics) following an order by a district judge. It says that no such order shall be made without giving an opportunity of hearing to the UIDAI , but not to the person whose data is being disclosed.

3. Does the Bill protect you from interception and surveillance?
No, the Bill does not provide for transparency concerning covert surveillance.

Section 33(2), which permits disclosure of demographic and biometric pursuant to directions of the joint secretary in interest of national security, says such disclosures will be for three months initially, and a fresh renewal can be granted for another three months, without a limitation on the number of such renewals.

This can lead to a user being under continuous surveillance, and without any notification to the user even after the surveillance ceases, violating one of necessary and proportionate principles on communications surveillance related to user notification and right to effective remedy. In some countries, this principle has been incorporated in law. For example, in Canada, the law limits the time of wiretapping surveillance, and imposes an obligation to notify the person under surveillance within 90 days of the end of the surveillance, extendable to a maximum of three years at a time.

“The interception provisions are severely problematic," said Apar Gupta, a technology lawyer. "They are not open to independent scrutiny and even derogate from the already deficient practices which relate to phone tapping (Rule 419-A of the Telegraph Rules) and interception of data (Interception Rules, 2011).”

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan pointed out that the Bill lacks provisions on giving notice to a person in case of breach of information, in case of third party use of data, or change in purpose of use of data – which were among provisions recommended by the Justice Shah Committee on Privacy in 2012.

4. Does the Bill allow you to seek redress in case of breach of information?
Yes, but the provisions are weak.

Government officials overseeing the project said that the 2016 Bill is an improvement over the 2010 Bill as it safeguards the information of those enrolled as per sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

But technology law experts say the adjudicatory system for disclosure of sensitive personal data under the IT Act has structural flaws and is not functional.

“Initial complaints against the disclosure of sensitive personal data go to an adjudicating officer who is usually the IT Secretary of the state government and may not be trained in law,” said Gupta, the technology lawyer. “There is no court infrastructure and no permanent seat for such cases. The appellate body, the Cyber Appellate Tribunal, has not been made operational in the last three years. Hence, the civil remedies offered [in the Aadhaar Bill] are at best illusionary and unenforceable.”

5. Does the Bill give you the right to alter your information?
No, it leaves you to the mercy of the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Imagine a situation where a user simply wants to change their first or last name, or say, not use their caste name. Under Section 31 of the Bill, individuals can only request the UID authority, which may do so “if it is satisfied”. There is no penalty on the authority if it fails to respond. The Bill does not provide for a user to even be able to approach a court to ask for their information relating to Aadhaar to be corrected.

International norms for data protection give individuals the right to correct and alter information, if their demographic data changes. They provide for individuals to have a copy of their information, and to approach courts for an order to rectify, block, erase inaccurate information.

In an interview to Mint, Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society, compared the rights of Aadhaar users to the rights we now take for granted as internet users. “Authentication factors [biometrics in the case of Aadhaar], commonly known as passwords, should always be revocable,” noted Abraham. “That means if the password is compromised, you should be able to change the password or at least say that this password is no longer valid.” In its current form, the Aadhaar Bill gives users no such rights.

6. Is the current Bill an improvement over the previous one?
Not really.

The Aadhaar Bill 2016 provides that the renewals of requests for disclosure of data will be reviewed by an oversight committee consisting of the cabinet secretary and the secretaries in the department of legal affairs and the department of electronics and information technology.

This is a watered down version of the provisions in the previous Unique Identification Authority of India 2010 Bill, said Chinmayi Arun, executive director, Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University Delhi.

“The previous version or the 2010 Bill provided for a three-member review committee, consisting of the nominees of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and a third nominee of a union cabinet minister, with the restriction that these nominees could not be a member of parliament or a member of a political party,” Arun said. “This would be a more independent committee than the one proposed now, wherein there will be executive oversight for executive orders."

Regarding penalties, the previous 2010 Bill made copying, deleting, stealing, or altering information in the Central Identities Data Repository, punishable with a jail term of upto three years and a fine not less than Rs 1 crore.

Section 38 of the new Aadhaar Bill now makes the same offence punishable with a jail term of upto three years and reduces the upper limit of the fine to “not less than ten lakh rupees”.

7. Finally, does the Aadhaar Bill have enough parliamentary scrutiny?
The government has introduced the legislation on Aadhaar in the form of a Money Bill, which means the power of the Rajya Sabha to review and amend the Bill is curtailed ‒ if the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan certifies that this is a Money Bill.

The parliamentary committee on finance under Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yashwant Sinha had rejected the previous Bill in December 2011 citing legislative, security, and privacy concerns. Despite this, two successive Prime Ministers – Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi – have pushed ahead with Aadhaar project.

A common refrain has been that the unique biometric identity will resolve the problem of the poor in India to prove identity and overcome "one of the biggest barriers preventing the poor from accessing benefits and subsidies." But last April, the UIDAI in response to an RTI application revealed that of 83.5 crore Aadhaar numbers issued till then, 99.97% were issued to people who already had at least two existing identification documents, only 0.21 million (0.03%) used the "introducer system" that provides an exception to those lacking identity proof.

More recently, there has been no public consultation by the government over the latest Bill.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll.in-anumeha-yadav-march-24-2016-seven-reasons-why-parliament-should-debate-the-aadhaar-bill-and-not-pass-it-in-a-rush

Sevanti Ninan

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T10:54:25Z

Sevanti Ninan

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set

praskrishna — 2010-10-13T10:57:08Z

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Sessions on Kannada Wikipedia at Tumkur University

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T04:50:42Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted a session on Kannada Wikipedia for students of M.Sc. Library and Information Sciences followed by an advanced Kannada Wikipedia session for students of M.A. Literature on March 27, 2014. The event was organized by Tumkur University.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sessions-on-kannada-wikipedia-tumkur-university

Session M4 – International Public Policy and Internet Governance Issues Pertaining to the Internet

praskrishna — 2012-07-19T05:59:40Z

The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum 2012 is being organised at Aoyama Campus, Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo on July 20, 2012. Sunil Abraham will be speaking in the session on international public policy and internet governance issues pertaining to the internet. The event is organised by APrIGF.Asia

The Internet is a vital strategic communications infrastructure for the Asia Pacific region, and so the future evolution of the Internet is a hugely important policy issue for individuals, business and government alike across the region. The region is the most diverse and dynamic in the world and the formulation of a unified and coherent regional view on such an important policy issue is very challenging. With internet governance becoming increasingly important, efforts are underway by some countries in Asia Pacific and elsewhere to change the nature of internet governance; moving from a relatively open multi-stakeholder model to a more closed, government led system of governance. What is the best evolution Internet governance path for Internet users of Asia Pacific to follow? This workshop will discuss the competing paths currently under discussion and seek to offer delegates a comprehensive understanding of the issues.

Panel

Moderator – Mr. Jeremy Malcolm, Consumers International

Speakers

Hasanul Aaq Inu, Member, Bangladesh National Parliament; Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee for Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
Atsushi Umino, Director for International Policy Coordination, Global ICT Strategy Bureau (MIC)
Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet & Society, India
David Farrar, Director of Curia Market Research

Panelists

Naoya Bessho, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, Yahoo Japan Corporation
William Drake, International Fellow & Lecturer, Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland

For the full agenda, click here
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For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/session-m4-international-public-policy-and-internet-governance-issues-pertaining-to-the-internet