Centre for Internet and Society

RAW Monographs

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T08:45:29Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/monograph-posters.pdf

Open Systems Interconnection Model

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T06:41:44Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/osi-model.pdf

IPv4 and IPv6 - FAQs

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T06:20:33Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ipv4-ipv6-faqs

CIS highlights changes ushered in by the Internet

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T06:06:44Z

As part of its fifth anniversary celebrations, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has organised an exhibition showcasing its accomplishments, besides a series of talks by experts on the changes ushered in by the Internet. The exhibition will remain open till Thursday.

The article was published in the Hindu on May 22, 2013.

On Wednesday, a talk will be held at 6 p.m. on “Cyber security, privacy and surveillance”. Also, Laird Brown, strategic planner and writer, and Purba Sarkar, associate producer with the cyber security film project, will make presentations on cyber security.

The valedictory will have talks by Kannada writer Chandrashekar Kambar on “Kannada in modern era”, while member of Kannada Software Committee U.B. Pavanja will speak on “From palm leaf to tablet”. This will be followed by a Carnatic music programme by Nirmita Narasimha. The CIS has also invited the public to be its auditors by displaying its account books and contracts, which shows how it has spent the Rs. 13.13 crore received from donors. The exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-may-22-2013-cis-highlights-changes-ushered-in-by-the-internet

India's Internet Growth & Challenges

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T05:37:28Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indias-internet-growth-challenges

NGO invites public to peruse its accounts

praskrishna — 2013-05-21T14:38:38Z

Domlur-based The Centre for Internet and Society opens its books for anyone to see and track every rupee of the Rs 13.13 crore it received from donors.

This article by Vandana Kamath was published in the Bangalore Mirror on May 18, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In an unusual but ‘clean’ way of celebrating its fifth anniversary, a city-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) has invited the general public to inspect its books of accounts, check out its list of donors and view contracts. At a time when several NGOs are under the scanner for trying to shroud financial transactions in secrecy, The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a non-profit research organisation that defends consumer rights on the Internet, has upped its policy of transparency a notch.

Located in Domlur and largely patronised by Bangalore’s tech community, CIS’s books of accounts will be available for public scrutiny during its fifth anniversary celebrations from May 20 to 23 and will show how the NGO has spent the Rs 13.13 crore it has received from donors since its launch.

Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, CIS executive director Sunil Abraham admitted that the move was to dispel any lingering doubts on the motives of his organisation. “These days, many NGOs have been in the news for misappropriation of donations,” Abraham said. “We want to keep our books of accounts open to the public. Apart from details like salaries drawn by each board member, many other details like contractual obligations with entities, details of donors and official travel expenses by board members can also be obtained. Anybody can walk into our office and ask to see the accounts. A photocopy of all the details will also be given to them at the earliest.”

In fact, a recent debate in the Rajya Sabha centred on the lack of transparency among NGOs receiving contributions from overseas after the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was passed in 2010. With 17 donors, a majority of who are from overseas, CIS ensures that every rupee obtained is well spent and accounted for.

“We have made public a list of donors and their share of contributions to our society,” Abraham said. “This will give everybody a clear picture of the funds we receive and where and how it is being spent.”

CIS is primarily funded by the Kusuma Trust, The Wikimedia Foundation and The Hans Foundation among others. The society was founded in 2008 and has 17 staff of whom four are based in Delhi and the rest in Bangalore. The society also has seven distinguished fellows and five fellows.

It conducts policy research programmes on topics like accessibility, access to knowledge, openness, internet governance and telecom. The society has churned out 641 research items in five years that include essays, books and blog entries on the topics. It has also conducted research on the accessibility of the e-governance system and has suggested ways to make it more disabled-friendly.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, the society will hold a four-day event in its office starting May 20 that will include an exhibition showcasing its activities so far. Various artists like Kiran Subbaiah, Tara Kelton, Navin Thomas and Abhishekh Hazra are expected to participate and give live demonstrations.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-vandana-kamath-may-18-2013-ngo-invites-public-to-peruse-its-accounts

THE PORN ULTIMATUM?

praskrishna — 2013-06-05T09:56:24Z

Ravi Sharma (name changed), a 22-year old auto driver, watches adult-rated movie clips on his smartphone whenever he is on a tea break. Like most of his friends in New Delhi, Sharma has a flash drive reserved for sleazy movies. Sharma’s access to pornography could soon become a crime, much like assault or drunken driving, if Kamlesh Vaswani has his way.

This article by Adith Charlie, Rajesh Kurup and Priyanka Pani was published in the Hindu Business Line on May 21, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Vaswani, an Indore-based lawyer had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court, requesting to make watching porn a non-bailable offence. He also wants a complete ban on pornography. He says he has his reasons too.

In a recent incident in the capital, a five-year-old girl was allegedly raped by two men and left to die. According to media reports, the accused had watched porn on their mobile phones minutes before the crime. There has been a 7.1 per cent increase in crime against women nationwide since 2010, as per data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Vaswani believes that the free availability of porn is making the country unsafe for women.

Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar, member of National Commission for Women (NCW), says that viewing porn, especially at an impressionable age, becomes “an addiction and trains the mind in an inhumane and sadist way”.

According to Google Trends, India ranks fourth in the world for searching the word ‘porn’, a testimony that pornography, mainly electronic, is available across the country. New Delhi has the dubious distinction of the highest-worldwide percentage of searches for “porn” in 2012.

As smartphones become ubiquitous and cheaper (price starts around Rs 3,000) they offer a perfect medium for viewing adult content. A 2011 study by IMRB found that one in every five Indian mobile users wants adult content on 3G-enabled phones.

A different view

Vaswani is not the only crusader against pornography, but is a representative of the minority. The majority favours another strand of thinking: that what an adult views in his private space should not be controlled by the establishment.

They feel that increased censorship of the web would clamp down on the constitutionally enshrined principles of the freedom of speech and expression.

But what is termed as pornography, or what degree of obscenity should be blocked?

Interestingly, the term pornography when used in relation to an offence is not defined in any statutes in India. It is obscenity that has been effectively explained in the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

The section 67 of the Information Technology Act states that publishing or transmission of obscene and sexually explicit material in electronic form is punishable. Child pornography, is prohibited under Section 67B of IT Act.

According to the Indian Penal Code (Section 292) a person in mere possession of the obscene stuff for his personal use without any intention of producing or disseminating the material is not culpable.

However, obscenity means different things for different people.

“In countries such as Saudi Arabia, even showing cleavage falls under pornographic purview. So, who decides what is morally acceptable in the Indian society?” asks Rajesh Chharia, President of the Internet Service Providers Association of India.

Technologically possible

A blanket ban on porn Web sites, as is the case in Denmark and Australia (for extreme content), risks banning innocent Web sites too. In 2008, whistle blower WikiLeaks had released the names of sites which were blocked by Denmark’s regulators. Many regular sites were erroneously included in the list. Porn, available in India, is mainly hosted on overseas servers, making it difficult to monitor them, while those on domestic platforms can be easily restricted, according to Vishak Raman, Senior Regional Director of Fortinet, a network security provider. Yet, the technology exists for making a full-fledged ban on porn possible.

In case the Supreme Court upholds the PIL, the onus of implementation will be on the telecom regulator, the Department of Telecommunications and, the Department of Information Technology.

Raman says that companies like his can provide a ‘semi-inline’ solution, for a multi-million dollar fee, to block porn. It is unlikely that DIT and DoT will bear the cost of the entire exercise.

Thus, the ISPs would have to make the investments for a porn-free internet, says an industry official.

Sexual Behaviour

But then could pornography be solely responsible for aggressive sexual behaviour? Contemporary literature does provide some insights. Watching pornography does contribute to an increased risk of violent behaviour but only in men who have aggressive sexual tendencies, as per research by Neil Malamuth, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In other words, porn does not turn all ordinary men into rapists.

“There has been definitely a spurt in sex-related crimes in the country. However, we can’t say that a total ban on porn will free the society from such evil, but yes there should be a restriction on content on Internet,” NCW’s Prabhavalkar said.

On a TV talk show, porn star and actress Sunny Leone had said: “It's complete nonsense to blame rape on adult material out there. Education starts at home. It's the moms and dads sitting with their children and teaching them what is right and wrong.”

When eWorld approached Leone to understand her outlook on the PIL, husband Daniel Webber said that they do not have any views on the matter. “Whatever is decided by the Supreme Court in this country is decided,” he said.

The Establishment

Pranesh Prakash, a policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, says that the government cannot cite the IT Act and block content on grounds of it being immoral following the 2009 amendments to the Act.

In 2010, the Bombay High Court, had rejected a PIL filed by Janhit Manch. The NGO wanted the court to direct the government to block pornographic Web sites on the grounds that they have “an adverse influence, leading youth on a delinquent path”. The court held that it would be unconstitutional to do so as it would be infringing on the citizens’ freedom of expression.

Further, the Court observed said that the petitioner should file a complaint under the IT Act, if he feels aggrieved.

Says Nithianandan Balagopalan, a Mumbai-based lawyer: “Any law that falls foul of fundamental rights of a citizen of India is open to be challenged in a court of law and can be struck down as being ‘ultra fires’ if indeed found to be so.

Yet, Vaswani believes he has a strong case. “The court (in the 2010 Janhit Manch PIL) might have passed orders safeguarding the freedom of free speech and expression. What we are discussing here is not speech, but conduct. This cultural pollution has to stop,” he was quoted in the media.

Some experts believe that proper enforcement of existing laws are more important that enacting new ones. “There should be stringent punishment for those involved in organised production and distribution of pornographic material. The police must not be lenient with such people,” says Ramesh Vaidyanathan, Managing Partner of Advaya Legal.

Around the world

India is not the only democracy in the world to consider a ban on pornography. The latest to join the ranks is Iceland, which too wants a ban as part of its attempts to completely do away with the country’s sex industry. In 2009, it introduced fines and jail terms for those who patronise prostitutes, and later in 2010 it banned strip clubs.

A ban on porn would mean restrictions on the use of the Internet. A free Internet stimulates innovation. The world's largest democracy and a model for much of the developing world, India is set to become one of the most important test cases for the future of Internet freedom globally. Any decision by the Supreme Court on this front would be path-breaking, ramifications of which would be felt for a long time to come.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindu-businessline-adith-charlie-rajesh-kurup-priyanka-pani-may-21-2013-the-porn-ultimatum

Institute on Internet & Society

praskrishna — 2013-05-21T09:39:55Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/institute-on-internet-and-society.pdf

A lifetime of five years on the internet

praskrishna — 2013-05-20T09:04:28Z

Centre for Internet and Society observes its fifth anniversary on Sunday.

The article by Subir Ghosh was published in DNA on May 19, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this.

Five years is a long time in the internet space. The past five years, certainly, has been. And so has it been for the Centre for Internet and Society that completes five years here.

When a group of citizens got together to come under a platform called CIS five years ago, they had wanted to work on policy issues about the internet that had a bearing on society. They, in fact, still do; except that the new media space itself has undergone a metamorphosis. Five years ago social media was just starting off, few people had smart phones, and online speech was not a burning issue.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of city-based CIS, affirms this, and goes on to assert: “Five years ago, privacy was not a mainstream concern. Today, many different actors and stakeholders are interested in the configuration of the draft Privacy Bill. We first warned the public about the draconian measures in the IT Act during the 2008 amendment. Four years later, many more people are familiar with problematic sections and are adopting various strategies to amend the Act and it’s associated rules.”

Likewise, five years ago, people dismissed “shared spectrum” as a pipe dream; today “shared spectrum” is mentioned in the National Telecom Policy. CIS usually thinks ahead, and works on a range of issues.

“For internet adoption in India to grow dramatically from the dismal statistics today, we need to ensure continued access to cheap devices and affordable and ubiquitous broadband,” says Abraham.

“With Ericsson suing Micromax for Rs100 crore, the mobile wars have come to India. If we have to protect innovation in sub-100 dollar devices, we need to configure our patent and copyright policy carefully.”

But since CIS works primarily on policy issues, shouldn’t it have been based in Delhi rather than in Bangalore? “We do have a small office in Delhi. But we are headquartered in Bangalore because we need to keep learning from technologists and the technical community,” explains Abraham.

When an organisation calling itself the Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org) observes its fifth anniversary, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many of the activities related to the anniversary celebrations (May 20-23) have precious little to do with the internet, and is more about society itself. And yes, an entire evening is devoted to Kannada. There’s a talk by Chandrashekhara Kambara on ‘Kannada in the modern era,’ and another by UB Pavanaja titled ‘From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada’.

“We are looking at the complete eco-system. For instance, during the digitalisation of TV in India, what will happen to the internet? Do TV promoting policies undermine the growth of broadband? On the second day we look at the connection between another older technology - cinema and the Internet.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/dna-india-may-19-2013-subir-ghosh-a-lifetime-of-five-years-on-the-internet

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

Media Coverage

praskrishna — 2013-05-18T04:11:30Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/media-coverage.pdf

Pervasive Technologies

praskrishna — 2013-05-18T03:25:49Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-poster.pdf

CIS Celebrates 5 Years

praskrishna — 2013-05-18T02:09:00Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-celebrates-5-years.pdf

WORLD WIDE PLAYGROUND

praskrishna — 2013-06-05T09:47:33Z

The Delhi High Court recently asked the central government to explain why minors are allowed to create online accounts on social networking sites such as Facebook or Orkut. The High Court’s question stems from a petition filed by former senior BJP leader K.N. Govindacharya last year.

The Op-ed was published in the Telegraph on May 15, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Govindacharya argued that by allowing minors to open accounts on social media sites, the companies of these sites were violating the Indian Majority Act, 1875, the Indian Contract Act, 1872, and the Information Technology Act, 2000.

One of Govindacharya’s main concerns is that when minors give false information to open an account on an online portal, they are liable to be held guilty for a criminal offence.

“Providing false information about oneself is more of a crime than a civil wrong,” explains Debsankar Chowdhury, a Calcutta-based cyber law expert. “However, if it is provided with an intention to enter into a contract which otherwise is not allowed, it is tantamount to fraud under Section 17 of the Contract Act of 1872.”

For minors, though, Chowdhury points out that the Juvenile Justice Act, 2005, will be brought into play, and they will face lighter sentences.

As for the social networking companies themselves, according to the law of the land they can be held accountable if a user provides them with false information. As Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate and expert on cyber law, points out, “All social networking sites are intermediaries under Section 2(1)(w) of the amended Information Technology Act, 2000. They are made responsible for all third party data or information made available by them under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.” As such, social networking sites would be held accountable for allowing people, especially minors, to create fake profiles on their networks under Section 79 and 85 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, he adds.

The other problem here is that while a social networking site like Facebook allows anyone over 13 to open an account, according to Indian law, anyone under 18 years of age is a minor; and a minor cannot enter into a contract with any entity. “The issue raised in Govindacharya’s petition is of a fundamental nature,” opines Duggal. “Section 3 of the Indian Majority Act, 1875, clearly states that every person domiciled in India shall attain the age of majority on his completing the age of 18 years. However, Facebook allows 13-year-olds to become its members. Since children lack the inherent capacity to contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872, the contract entered into between Indian children below the age of 18 years and Facebook is null and void.”

But though the nitty gritty of the law seems to be weighted against children below 18 — or even 13 — joining social networking sites, not everyone believes that kids should be prevented from having a presence online. Six months ago, 10-year-old Shruti (name changed) met with an accident, and was bedridden for some time. She was bored and miserable. To cheer her up, her father signed her on to Facebook — yes, by providing false information about her age.

Other parents may not take a similar view of their young children joining Facebook under false pretexts. But Ashok Agarwal, a Delhi-based lawyer and child rights activist, believes that Govindacharya’s petition demonstrates an outdated way of thinking. “We are letting children speak at the UN and in Parliament, but we don’t want to let them speak online,” he says. “Allowing children to use sites like Facebook doesn’t hurt them, and if anything, denying them access to it would be denying them their universal Right to Participate. This right is part of Unicef’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.” And also it’s denying them access to a tool and medium that is, and will be, an integral part of their lives, adds Agarwal.

Leaving aside the debate on whether or not children below a certain age should be allowed on social networking sites, Chowdhury points out that right now there is no means of checking the age of those who are signing in to these online portals.

In fact, Section D of Govindacharya’s petition does point out the need for some kind of verification process when people create an online account, much like what phone service providers do when someone applies for a new connection.

But experts point out that this is not feasible in the case of social networking sites. Says Chowdhury, “Mobile companies operate their network in specific locations, whereas sites like Facebook exist worldwide. Moreover, these portals don’t take a single penny from their users. So do you really think it is possible to make offline verification?”

Indeed, verification of user data — ostensibly to cut out underage persons from logging on to social networking sites — has much wider ramifications. Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, points out that it could start a downward spiral towards loss of online privacy. “If anyone wants to create an account on a website, but has to provide some sort of verifiable data, you’re going to remove a person’s ability to post anonymously on the Internet. Then what happens to freedom of speech? People like to post online anonymously, but if everyone’s identity is known, that privacy is revoked.”

The effect of social networking sites on children will be debated for a long time. But clearly, it would be tough to enforce laws to prevent children from logging on to these sites.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-op-ed-may-15-2013-world-wide-playground

Is India's government becoming Big Brother?

praskrishna — 2013-06-05T09:39:53Z

India's new Central Monitoring System will give officials unprecedented access to calls, texts, and online activity.

The blog post by Talia Ralph and Jason Overdorf was published in Global Post on May 9, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The government has quietly started putting into place its new Central Monitoring System, a project that will give it access to its citizens' telephone calls, texts, and online activities.

The system, in development since 2009, will enable state agencies to monitor all digital interactions, the Times of India reported.

Work on CMS has been kept quiet for the past few years, although the newspaper reported that several government agencies ordered specialized equipment and systems for monitoring telecommunications.

India's government has steadily been increasing its access to telecommunications since the 2008 Mumbai bombings to help track militants and illegal activities.

The country — one of the world's fastest-growing internet markets — enacted its information technology law in 2000, and amended it twice, in 2008 and again in 2011.

As PCWorld described the new system,

The CMS will have central and regional databases to help central and state-level enforcement agencies intercept and monitor communications, the government said. It will also have direct electronic provisioning of target numbers by government agencies without any intervention from telecom service providers, it added. It will also feature analysis of call data records and data mining of these records to identify call details, location details, and other information of the target numbers.

Internet freedom activists and privacy experts worry the project offers far too much access to citizens' communications. They say official agencies allegedly misused and leaked tapped phone conversations, while the government has sought to quash dissent and silence critics on the internet under the guise of preventing hate speech.

"In the absence of a strong privacy law that promotes transparency about surveillance and thus allows us to judge the utility of the surveillance, this kind of development is very worrisome," Pranesh Prakash, the director of policy at the Center for Internet and Society, told the Times of India.

"Further, this has been done with neither public nor parliamentary dialog, making the government unaccountable to its citizens," he added.

The government last year blocked mobile phones and shut down social media sites ostensibly to prevent communal riots, but in the process blocked some 16 Twitter handles known to be critical of the government.

Critics of the CMS movement wrote a blog post arguing that the Indian government wants to use the law to censor "hate speeches and government criticism."

"We know the government today hates public criticizing it," the group Stop ICMS wrote on their blog. "The recent arrests of people for tweeting or posting on Facebook has proved that. Govt. does not like criticism that can be seen by everyone on the Internet."

The CMS program is in place in a "preliminary state" right now, with the full version expected to be in place by August 2014.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/global-post-talia-ralph-jason-overdorf-may-9-2013-is-indias-govt-becoming-big-brother