Centre for Internet and Society

Privacy Meet

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T05:13:57Z

Bhairav Acharya was invited by Yahoo's Director of International Privacy, Laura Juanes Micas, to a dinner meeting on privacy at the Oberoi in New Delhi.

The meeting was attended by Justice A.P. Shah, Dr. Gulshan Rai, Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj and others. At this event, Bhairav spoke about the need to develop laws to regulate surveillance and personal data in India. Bhairav further spoke about both the commercial benefits that will accrue from data protection law as well as the national benefit from surveillance regulation and security law. Bhairav also spoke of the need to create a procedure that is just, fair and reasonable and, he highlighted the point that these laws would have to survive constitutional scrutiny by the Supreme Court of India. He also pointed out that meaningful protections lay in creating procedural law that allowed individuals the protection of natural justice and identified magistrates to authorise data collections and interceptions. He further made it clear that India's distinct security situation, both internal and external, warranted a robust surveillance framework that enables law enforcement and strengthens the criminal justice system in manner consistent with the rule of law.

Timings	Agenda
19.00 19.25	Handshakes and Introduction
19.25 19.30	Welcome Remarks by Laura Juanes Micas, Director – International Privacy, Yahoo Inc
19.30 19.35	Address by Manoj Joshi, Joint Secretary, Deptt of Personnel and Training
19.35 19.40	Address by Dr. Gulshan Rai, Director General, CERT-IN
19.40 19.45	Address by Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO – Data Security Council of India (DSCI)
19.45 19.50	Address by Bhairav Acharya, Legal Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)
19.50 19.55	Address by Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)
19.55 20.00	Address by Justice A P Shah, Former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court and Chairman, Group of Experts
20.00 20.05	Address by Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court
20.05 20.10	Address by Chinmayi Arun, Research Director – Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University - Delhi
20.10 20.15	Address by Prasanth Sugathan, Counsel, Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.IN)
20.15 20.20	Address by Dr. Subho Ray, President, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)
20.20	Discussions (Along with Sit – Down Dinner)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/privacy-meet-october-7-2013

Privacy Matters, Guwahati — Event Report

praskrishna — 2011-08-26T10:31:08Z

On June 23, a public seminar on “Privacy Matters” was held at the Don Bosco Institute in Karhulli, Guwahati. It was organised by IDRC, Society in Action Group, IDEA Chirang, an NGO initiative working with grassroots initiatives in Assam, Privacy India and CIS and was attended by RTI activists and grass roots NGO representatives from across the North Eastern region: Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Nagaland, Assam and Sikkim. The event focused on the challenges and concerns of privacy in India.

Unfortunately many of the scheduled invitees had to drop out owing to developments on the Lokpal issue at the Centre, and simultaneously Guwahati was witnessing unrest following an agitation over land rights that left three persons dead.

Welcoming the participants, Prashant Iyengar, lead researcher for Privacy India, gave an introduction to the objectives of Privacy India, and briefed the gathering about the thematic “Privacy Matters” consultations previously held across the country in Kolkata, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Mr. Iyengar also gave a background to issues that India is facing in concern with privacy, explaining the many contexts that privacy can be found in, and raising questions such as: Why is privacy important? How can it be maintained with the way technology is encroaching upon our lives? And how can we make privacy laws functional?

"Privacy objectives are to raise awareness, spark civil action and promote democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. One of Privacy India’s goals is to build consensus towards the promulgation of a comprehensive privacy legislation in India through consultation with the public, legislators and the legal and academic community."

Prashant Iyengar, Privacy India.

Event Sessions

The structure of the event was one of open discussion, with presentations made by those who wanted to share. Throughout the day, the conversation fell into three main topics including: privacy and the RTI, privacy and the UID, and privacy and surveillance in the context of North East India.

Privacy and the RTI

Prashant Iyengar opened the discussion on privacy and the RTI by highlighting the tension between the need for transparency of the State, and the need to protect the privacy of public figures. For many participants privacy and transparency was a new concept that they had just started thinking about. Participant Rakesh (HRLN, Manipur) spoke on the shortcomings that he saw in the RTI Act noting that though the RTI brings some transparency to society, many citizens still do not understand the extent of their Right to Information as it is protected under the Act. Furthermore, the RTI Act is still not applied equally across the country, and the transparency that the RTI tries to achieve is still in very nascent stages. Lowang, a participant from Aru nachal Pradesh, shared the importance of drawing a line between privacy and transparency when it comes to information related to education and health. Anjuman Azra Begum, a research scholar working on indigenous people rights, noted the irony of the RTI as it is meant to bring transparency to the state, yet all ministers and MLA’s take an oath of secrecy, not transparency. Anjuman also spoke on the fact that the RTI often fails to protect the privacy of sensitive issues, such as sexual balance. She echoed Rakesh’s comment on the inaccessibility of the RTI, sharing that for a common person to exercise his/her rights is a very daunting task. Anthony Debbarmun, a human rights activist from Tripura noted that he felt that the North Eastern states are by and large seen as resource (land) by the centre and has shown no concern for citizens and their well-being. Government is seen as a dictator in this region, hence the question — Transparency for whom?, Privacy for Whom? The distinction between the transparency brought about by the RTI and individual privacy was also made. It was pointed out that the RTI is concerned with transparency of the State, but individual privacy is separate from this concept.

Personal Experiences Shared

Anjuman Azra Begum shared her sister’s experience with the RTI. Her sister had applied for a job in 2008. Their family filed an RTI for details of the procedure, but was denied details by the RTI officer, who said that furnishing details would violate the privacy of other candidates. This example raises questions about when it is appropriate for RTI officers to withhold information in the name of privacy, and what mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the RTI does not use privacy as a way to deny information. Lowang also shared his experience with the RTI. He had filed an RTI asking for answer sheets because he doubted the appointment of police personnel. He was told that the cost in total would be Rs.2000, when in reality each sheet costs Rs.2 — the misconstruing of facts was another example of how RTI officials restrict access information indirectly. From these examples the concern about RTI officials using privacy as an excuse to deny information was brought to the surface. To highlight the problems with the current implementation of the RTI and the lack of basic knowledge of how to use the RTI Mhao Lotha from the DICE Foundation shared a personal experience of his friend who had filed an RTI against the fishery department, and the RTI official simply shouted at her. L. Rima told a similar story as Mhao Lotha. In her experience the RTI is good in theory, but in practice it has become a commercial platform, where officers pay money to applicants for RTI cases to be taken off.

From the discussion and the shared experiences it was clear that the RTI, although a strong law on paper, still faces many challenges in implementation that a privacy law could also face, and that the fact that if more privacy is brought into the RTI, it will become yet another way for the State to avoid disclosing information.

Questions to Consider

Can a privacy law be made to be functional in the same way that the RTI is functional?
In terms of the RTI who should have more privacy? Who should be more transparent? Can NGOs be held accountable under the RTI?
What mechanism should be established to enforce the balance between privacy and transparency?

Privacy and Security/Law Enforcement in the North East of India

Another important discussion held during the conference was the practices of law enforcement in the North East, security, and privacy. Because the North East is in a state of armed conflict several laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Sedition Act and provisions in the IPC give immunity to security forces. This has led to gross violation of citizens’ privacy by law enforcement agencies — as the acts give large amounts

of power to law enforcement agencies with little or no accountability, and the acts are often misused. Furthermore, the security laws that exist in the North East explicitly prohibit access to individual personal information. For example, in the Assam Police Manual, which is followed by police in the North East — no papers can be given out to the public except to the investigation officer — this includes personal information such as medical records and post-mortem reports. Anjuman shared an example of how this rule violates individual privacy. In her example, a victim was not allowed access her own medical report, but her medical records were being circulated among police, doctors, and media. This example highlights how privacy and the right to information can go hand in hand as it was the victim’s right to access her own medical file, and at the same time getting access to her own medical file is an act of personal privacy protection.

Personal Experiences Shared

Participants shared how individual privacy is often violated by the army, as it is allowed to enter and search any space without warrant, if there is any type of “suspicion”. They also shared how phone tapping and random monitoring is a common practice by both the army and civil police. For example, one day the police recorded a conversation by Director of the Police, Wireless who was giving a lecture on how to lead an effective agitation. The transcript was handed to the high court and the director punished. Other examples include policemen frisking women in public, newspapers publishing police frisking women in public, and law enforcement agencies compelling pregnant women to give birth in open in front of people. The discussion surrounding privacy and security/law enforcement highlighted an important way in which privacy is violated in the North East. The unregulated action of law enforcement acts as a very real and dangerous way in which individual privacy is violated on a daily basis.

Questions to Consider

Can privacy legislation regulate the acts of law enforcement agencies?
Will privacy legislation be implemented differently in the North East because of the armed conflict?
Will a privacy law supersede other laws such as the AFSPA?

Privacy and the UID

During the conference the discussion also briefly focused on the UID and privacy. It was shared that there had yet to be UID consultations in the North East of India. The only information individuals had about the UID was that it was going to allow individuals to access BPL benefits more easily.

Questions around the UID included: why is the UID needed for citizens living within their own country? How will the UID impact and help families who send their children to gather rations from the ration shops? What is the connection between the UID and the expected privacy law? What is the connection between the UID and intelligence agencies? What would UID mean to people living in border areas?

Conclusion

Privacy as a Fundamental Right

In the closing discussion Prashant Iyengar shared different examples of privacy in Indian case law, and the various ways in which the Supreme Court has defined privacy as a right that is implicit in the right to life. The participants discussed what privacy means to them, and what they thought a right to privacy should entail. Among the points raised, it was brought up that privacy should be a right that is legally protected for sovereign individuals. The law should also include parameters and limitations in order to protect an individual’s autonomy. Furthermore, privacy should be understood and linked to the concept of human rights and individual rights. From the closing session, and the above sessions many themes and questions pertaining to privacy came out that will need to be addressed when considering the way forward for a privacy legislation including:

Property rights and privacy
Privacy rights of minorities
Privacy and the UID
Privacy and law enforcement agencies
Privacy as a fundamental right
The interplay of privacy law and traditional law

Download the Event Report here [PDF, 178 kb]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-guwahati-report

Privacy Matters — Conference Report

praskrishna — 2011-01-27T10:22:55Z

A one-day conference on Privacy Matters was held on Sunday, 23 January 2011 at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. This was the first of a series of eleven conferences on ‘privacy’ that Privacy India is scheduled to host in different Indian cities from January to June this year. Members of Parliament, Sri Manoj Bhattacharya from the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Sri Nilotpal Basu from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) spoke in the conference. Students, the civil society and lawyers also participated in it.

Introduction

The conference was held to discuss elements of the privacy legislation that has been proposed to the Parliament of India, and the UID Bill and project. The conference focused on the tensions between privacy and society that exist in India today, and acted as a space for opinion sharing and discussion. Privacy India which was formed under the auspices of Privacy International, a UK based organization that works to protect the right of privacy around the world, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), an NGO based in Bangalore, and Society in Action Group (SAG), an NGO based in Delhi joined hands to host this event.

Rajan Gandhi, founder of SAG opened the conference with an explanation of the mandate of Privacy India, the objective of which is of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. One of Privacy India's goals is to build consensus towards the promulgation of comprehensive privacy legislation in India through consultations with the public, legislators and the legal and academic community.

Keynote

The keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy professor of law and governance. Dr. Krishnaswamy began by outlining the present situation of privacy in India. The right to privacy has been read into Sections 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India through case law, which has defined privacy — among other things — as the right to personal autonomy, the right against unreasonable search and seizure, and as a fundamental right that is critical to the person, but does not supersede public or national interest. Dr. Krishnaswamy also raised many intriguing questions including: what does privacy mean to India — is it linked to a person’s dignity and their honour? Or is it purely concerned with misappropriation of information, and further is privacy in India an issue of the individual or an issue of the family and the community? He also described the philosophical groundings of privacy as being in the right to dignity, the right to autonomy, and the misappropriation of information.

Privacy Challenges

The conference was spread into three sessions. In the first session Prashant Iyengar, head researcher of the project at Privacy India, spoke about the challenges that India specifically is facing in shaping a privacy legislation including: the need to balance the right to information/transparency and privacy, the need to create a definition of privacy that does not exclude lower classes and is not a negative right, but instead a positive right, and the problem of ubiquitous surveillance that is happening in society today. Elonnai Hickok, policy analyst at Privacy India, spoke specifically on wire tapping, and the Nira Radia tapes. In her presentation she first outlined other countries definitions of privacy which include: the right to be left alone, the protection from unauthorized searches, and the right to control information about oneself through consent. Using the case study of Nira Radia and Ratan Tata she spoke about the rising concern of wire tapping in the country as being indicative of a social change and relationship of the state and government. Elonnai also raised questions concerning whether privacy should be made inversely proportional to public figures, and if public interest will always supersede the private right of individuals.

UID and Privacy

The second session of the conference focused on the UID Bill and privacy. Presentations from NUJS student Amba Kak and Sai Vinod raised concerns about the UID project and privacy. Their presentation also compared and contrasted identity schemes of other countries with the UID. A few similarities that they found amongst all scheme were: the collection of data, the processing of data, and the storing of data. Deva Prasad from the National Law School of Bangalore presented on constitutional elements of the UID scheme ranging from loopholes in the Bill to connections that can be made when the UID Bill is placed in the larger picture. Sri Manoj Bhattacharya (MP) from RSP voiced his concerns of the UID, and emphasized that by giving an individual a number which acts as their fundamental identity which they use to function in society, the government in fact is eroding an individual’s actual identity, and that is an invasion of privacy. Sri Nilotpal Basu (MP) from CPI (M) spoke out strongly against the UID, voicing that his greatest concern with the UID is that it will be a way for corporate bodies to target individuals as consumers, and that privacy legislation could be used as a way for corporate bodies to hide from the public eye.

Conclusion

In the concluding session the floor was opened up to the public for questions and opinion sharing. Many participants shared what they believed needed to be included in privacy legislation, and what issues a privacy legislation needs to address. A few of these include: privacy rights and the media, privacy and the right to information, the privacy rights of minorities, and the privacy rights of the government. Also types of regulatory models for privacy were discussed. For instance, should privacy in India be represented and protected through a data protection law, or should privacy be seen as a fundamental right to privacy? Should privacy be represented through a broad framework, or through sector specific statutes? What should the redressal and enforcement mechanisms look like?

As seen from the presentations and the comments at the conference one thing which is clear is that privacy is an issue that concerns every person in India. Over the next six months Privacy India will be conducting ten more conferences in different Indian cities to engage the public in dialogues of privacy and raise awareness around the issues of privacy. The next workshop will be held on 5 February 2011 in Bangalore.

Download the conference summary here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-nujsconference-summary

Privacy Matters in Chennai

praskrishna — 2011-08-11T12:36:04Z

Privacy and Basic Needs/Rights in a Gender Perspective

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-chennai

Privacy Matters Hyderabad Conference

praskrishna — 2011-05-06T11:39:09Z

conference in hyderabad

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/privacy.pdf

Privacy Matters Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2011-05-06T11:35:22Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/PrivacyMattershyderabadposter.jpg

Privacy Matters Conference Agenda

praskrishna — 2011-01-14T11:45:37Z

The "Privacy Matters" conference is taking place on Sunday January 23rd, at NUJS Law school at 10:30. It is a full day event that will discuss the challenges and concerns of privacy in India. Below is the agenda for the event. We look forward to your participation and attendance.

Privacy Matters agenda

January 23, 2011 NUJS

10:30 – 4:30 P.M.

Time:

10:30 - 11:00

Welcome

Who is PI
What are our objectives
Why is privacy important in India

11:00 - 11:30

Keynote

Sudhir Krishnaswamy

11:30 - 11: 45

Tea Break

11:45 - 1:00

Session I

Personal privacy: violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations
Informational privacy: violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations
What is the existing vacuum in Indian legislation in concern to privacy

1:00 -2:00

Lunch

2:00 - 3:30

Session II

Identity and privacy: why does it matter
International approaches to identity
The UID and Privacy

3:30 - 3:45

Tea Break

3:45 - 4:30

Session III

Open discussion and opinion sharing

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-privacymattersagenda

Privacy Matters Bangalore

praskrishna — 2011-01-31T07:10:28Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/PrivacyMattersBangalore.jpg

Privacy Matters — Consumer Privacy

praskrishna — 2012-07-31T10:55:30Z

Privacy India, in partnership with the Centre for Internet & Society, International Development Research Centre, Society in Action Group and Privacy International, invites you to a public conference focused on discussing the challenges and concerns to consumer privacy in India. The event will be held at the Indian International Centre, New Delhi on Saturday, July 7, 2012, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

According to the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, a consumer is a broad label for any person who buys any goods or services for consideration with the intent of using them for a non-commercial purpose. Certain services that consumers use may, by their very nature, put an extraordinary amount of sensitive personal information into the hands of vendors.

Consumer privacy is concerned with accuracy of how a consumers information is collected and used. Because a consumers relationship with another entity is based on an exchange along consented terms, a breach in consumer privacy can be constituted as an action that was not agreed to. In the age of data collection – a breach in privacy occurs when information is used in different ways than was intended. Consumer privacy in India is determined at the sectoral level, and differs depending on the services that is provided for.

As corporations sell data banks, ISP's expose consumer habits, or ones personal information falls in the wrong hands – the consequences are far reaching, and can result in spamming, unwanted marketing, theft, or the violation can impact an individual's ability to buy a home, potential employment opportunities, or gain access to credit.

In India, the right to privacy has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. - people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected.

Since June 2010, Privacy India in collaboration with Privacy International, based in London, has been conducting workshops and engaging in public awareness. Participants include policy makers, researchers, sectoral experts, NGOs, and the public to discuss and deliberate different questions of privacy, its intersections and its implications with our everyday life. The discussions have ranged from topics of online privacy to minority rights and privacy and e-Governance initiatives privacy. The workshops have been organized in different cities - Bangalore, Guwahati, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Goa, etc.

Click here for the agenda

Please confirm your participation with natasha@cis-india.org

Download the invite here [PDF, 160 Kb]

Download our research here [PDF, 178 Kb]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/consumer-privacy-delhi

Privacy Matters — Analyzing the "Right to Privacy Bill" Poster

praskrishna — 2011-12-20T04:28:24Z

The event poster for Privacy Matters — Analyzing the "Right to Privacy Bill"

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-matters-mumbai.pdf

Privacy Matters - Medical Privacy Presentations

praskrishna — 2012-07-10T11:29:13Z

The presentation files of the Medical Privacy conference can be downloaded here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/presentation-files

Privacy Matters - Bangalore

praskrishna — 2011-01-31T07:13:43Z

pdf

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/privacy-matters-bangalore

Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Chennai

praskrishna — 2011-08-23T10:40:44Z

This conference was held on August 6, 2011 in Chennai. The report is now online.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-chennai-report.pdf

Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Ahmedabad

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:14:41Z

On behalf of Privacy India, and in partnership with the Research Foundation for Governance in India and Society in Action Group, the Centre for Internet and Society invites you to “Privacy Matters” a public conference focused on discussing the challenges and concerns to privacy in India. The event will be held at the Ahmedabad Management Association. We would be honored if you would attend the meeting and contribute your views.

The conference will focus on the questions and dilemmas posed by privacy in India today, with a concentration on security, national surveillance, prisoners rights and privacy. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities,prisoners, etc. – people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected. Privacy India was established in 2010 with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India.

One of our goals is to build consensus towards the promulgation of a comprehensive privacy legislation in India through consultations with the public, legislators and the legal and academic community.

Please confirm your participation with:

elonnai@privacyindia.org, or
jsree.t@gmail.com

Agenda

Privacy Matters

March 26th 10:30 – 4:30 pm

Ahmedabad Management Association
Core-AMA Management House
Torrent-AMA Management Centre
ATIRA Campus, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Marg
Ahmedabad 380 015, Gujarat, INDIA
Phone: +91-79-263086

Time	Session
10:00 to 10:30	Registration and Welcome Prashant Iyengar Prashant Iyengar is a practicing lawyer and lead researcher for Privacy India. He will present who Privacy India is, and the objectives of Privacy India's research. Lastly he will outline the present scenario of Privacy in India.
10:30 to 11:15	Keynote Address Usha Ramanathan Dr. Usha Ramanathan is an internationally recognized expert on law and poverty. Her research interests include human rights, displacement, torts and environment. Ms. Ramanathan will speak about the coerced decline of privacy. National security, corruption, pragmatism, and the emergence of technologies that often work to establish that privacy is an irrelevant notion. She will look at links not often made between privacy and personal security, between data bases and national security, and the centrality of dislodging privacy in projects of social control are, perhaps deliberate.
11:15 to 11:30	Tea break
11:30 to 1:00	Opinions on Privacy Justice J N Bhatt, Mr. Ajay Tomar, Renu Pokharna In this session key officials from Gujarat will share their experiences and opinions on privacy in the context of India. Speakers include: Justice J N Bhatt is the former Chief Justice of Gujarat and Bihar, and currently the head of the Gujarat State Law Commission. He has had ad successful career including having: joined the Office of the Government Pleader, at Jamnagar in 1976, worked as Central Government Counsel in special matter of Armed Forces and Labour Cases, and has authored more than 50 Articles on Jurisprudence, Constitution, International Law, A.D.R, Legal Aid and Lok Adalat and Judicial Reforms Renu Pokharna, a member of the Chief Minister's Office, State of Gujarat, has spent her career working towards the betterment of society, especially the poor and the hungry through policy and not charity. For example she is a part of the project “Gujarat Skill Development Mission”. The project tries to achieve convergence of skill training programs to make them more effective. Mr. Ajay Tomar is the chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Gujarat. He has worked on cracking down on many cases involving national security and surveillance including the “Pepsi Bomber”.
1:00 to 2:00	Lunch Break
2:00 to 2:30	Privacy, Minority Identities, and Security Bobby Kuhnu Bobby Kuhnu is a lawyer, social activist, and writer. Mr. Kuhnu will examine the ideological underpinnings of the discourse on privacy and its bearings on socially marginalized identities particularly in the context of the Indian state and the constitutional right to privacy.
2:30 to 3:00	Privacy and National Security Mathew Thomas Mathew Thomas is a management consultant and activity leader for development centers. Mathew has held top positions in the Indian Army, and the Defense Research and Development Organization, where he headed the missile manufacturing facility. His presentation will focus on national security and privacy.
3:00 to 3:15	Tea Break
4:00 to 4:30	Open discussion and summary

Other Distinguished Participants

Justice Madhukar

Former Judge, Trial Courts, Gujarat

Kanan Divatia

Lawyer and Professor of Law, L A Shah Law College

Professor Amal Dhru

Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Madhusudan Agarwal

Founder, Ma'am movies

Gaurang Raval

Drishti Media

Rahul Chimanbhai Mehta

Independent Candidate, IIT Delhi Alumnus

Madhusudan Agarwal

Founder, Ma'am movies

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters-ahmedabad

Privacy matters

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:22:24Z

Privacy India invites individuals to attend “Privacy Matters”, a one-day conference on 23 January 2011 at the WB National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. Privacy India, Society in Action Group and the Centre for Internet & Society have joined hands to organize this.

The conference will focus on discussing the challenges to privacy that India is currently facing. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g., the TRAI Act for telephony or RBI Guidelines for Banks, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. This lack of uniformity has led to ironically imbalanced results. In India today one has a stronger right to privacy over telephone records than over one’s own medical records. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. – people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected.

The emergence of information and communications technologies over the past two decades has radically transformed the speed and costs of access to information. However, this enhanced climate of access to information has been a mixed blessing. Whilst augmenting our access to knowledge, this new networked information economy has also now made it much easier, quicker, and cheaper to gain access to intimate personal information about individuals than ever before. As people expose more and more of their lives to others through the use of social networks, reliance on mobile phones, global trade, etc., there has emerged a heightened risk of privacy violations in India. As privacy continues to be a growing concern for individuals, nations, and the international community, it is critical that India understands and addresses the questions, challenges, implications and dilemmas that violations of privacy pose.

Who We Are

Privacy India was set up in collaboration with the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Bangalore and Society in Action Group (SAG), under the auspices of the international organization ‘Privacy International’. Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies and the media and the public in a number of countries (see www.privacyinternational.org). Its Advisory Board is made up of distinguished intellectuals, academicians, thinkers and activists such as Noam Chomsky, the late Harold Pinter, and others, and it has collaborated with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Download the poster

" Privacy Matters" Conference Agenda

Time	Item
10:30 11:00	Welcome: Rajan Gandhi a. Who is PI b. What are our objectives c. Why is privacy important in India
11:00 11:30	Keynote: Sudhir Krishnaswamy
11:30 11:45	Tea Break
11:45 1:00	Session I: Prashant Iyengar and Elonnai Hickok a. Personal privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations Case study: Nira Radia and wiretapping b. Informational privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations Case study: The proposed data protection legislation in India c. What is the existing vacuum in Indian legislation concerning privacy
1:00 2:00	Lunch
2:00 3:30	Session II: Prashant Iyengar, Deva Prasad, Amba Kak a. Identity and privacy: why does it matter b. International approaches to identity c. The UID and privacy
3:30 3:45	Tea Break
3:45 4:30	Open discussion and opinion sharing

VIDEOS

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters