Centre for Internet and Society

New law to unlock data economy

praskrishna — 2017-06-12T01:10:06Z

Proposal has been sent to PMO for approval.

The article by Yuthika Bhargava was published in the Hindu on June 9, 2017.

The government is mulling a new data protection law to protect personal data of citizens, while also creating an enabling framework to allow public data to be mined effectively. The move assumes significance amid the debate over security of individuals’ private data, including Aadhaar-linked biometrics, and the rising number of cyber-crimes in the country.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEIT) is working on a new data protection law. A proposal to this effect has been sent to the Prime Ministers’ Office for approval,” a senior ministry official told The Hindu.

Once the PMO approves it, the ministry will set up a “cross-functional committee” on the issue.

“We want to include all stakeholders. It will be a high-level committee, and all current and future requirements of the sector will be discussed.”

Two chief aims

The official said: “We are working with two main aims – to ensure that personal data of individuals remain protected and is not misused, and to unlock the data economy.”

The official explained that a lot of benefits can be derived from the data that is publicly available, by using technology and big data analytics. “The information can be used for the benefit of both individuals and companies,” the official said.

“The underlying infrastructure of the digital economy is data. India is woefully unprepared to protect its citizens from the avalanche of companies that offer services in exchange for their data, with no comprehensive framework to protect users,” Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in), a non-profit, said in an emailed reply.

Currently, India does not have a separate law for data protection, and there is no body that specifically regulates data privacy.

“There is nominally a data protection law in India in the form of the Reasonable Security Guidelines under Section 43A of the Information Technology Act. However, it is a toothless law and is never used. Even when data leaks such as the ones from the official Narendra Modi app or McDonald’s McDelivery app have happened, section 43A and its rules have not proven of use,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at CIS.

Some redress for misuse of personal data by commercial entities is also available under the Consumer Protection Act enacted in 2015, according to information on the website of Privacy International, an NGO. As per the Act, the disclosure of personal information given in confidence is an unfair trade practice.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-yuthika-bhargava-june-9-2017-new-law-to-unlock-data-economy

New Kids on the Blog

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:10:34Z

Across the world, the blogosphere is shrinking. But that might not be a bad thing. Look closer, self-indulgence has found newer platforms, and only the fittest and the smartest blogs have survived. This article was published by the Indian Express on February 6, 2011. Indian Express reporter spoke with Nishant Shah.

Meet aneesha, a personable 20-something in a red jacket, with a coffee “without cream” cupped in her hands. Seven years ago, this Delhi-based professional was an avid user of LiveJournal. Most of her friends are from the online world; she met their blogs before she knew them personally. “My family’s perception of me and what I am are very different,” she says, “I hide myself in the layers of the internet.” Aneesha found herself and her friends through blogs; today, however, she has no time or inclination for the blogging world. “We used to write about the sunshine, a cute dog, a nice day. Who has the time for that any more?”

“I quit”. “We are moving out”. “This blog is Dead”.

An aerial view of the blogosphere resembles an abandoned city, with silence blowing through boarded-up windows. Recent Pew Internet Project surveys of teens and adults in the US reveal a decline in blogging among teens and young adults and a modest rise among adults 30 and older. According to the 2010 report, “In 2006, 28 per cent of teens in the 12-17 age group, and adults between 18 and 29 were bloggers, but by 2009, the numbers had dropped to 14 per cent of teens and 15 per cent of adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over 30 who were bloggers rose from 7 per cent to 11 per cent.” These numbers reflect American reality, but the blogosphere has not been similarly mapped and analysed in India, says Nishant Shah, director, research, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. When contacted, WordPress, a blog tool and publishing platform, said that they don’t publish country-specific statistics either.

While blogging in itself seems to have peaked and plateaued, blog-like activities have moved to other online spaces. Blogs were at the social media forefront around five years ago. According to Technorati, an internet search engine for blogs, the blogosphere in 2004 was eight times as large as it was in June 2003. Since then, Blogger and WordPress have been stagnating, says Nielsen, a media-research firm. A 2010 article in The Economist pointed out, that according to Blogads, which sells ads, “media buyers’ inquiries increased tenfold between 2004 and 2008, but have grown by only 17 per cent since then.”

But the numbers only tell a part of the story. The immensity of the blogging world means that it will always remain terra incognita. Its vastness allows poorly-written, lazily-reasoned dribbles to exist, but it also provides an unparalleled democratic platform (if you have access to the internet). The blogosphere, which had become an endless echo chamber, has evolved into a more interesting space, with startling diversity. Teenagers have found new fads, and moved out; instead, adults are setting up their couches here. Over the last four-five years, the fittest and smartest blogs have survived, whereas those with a readership of one have sunk to Google’s ocean floor. Few bloggers actually bother to delete their accounts, most starve away because of the author’s neglect and the audiences’ disinterest. The ones that have thrived have created communities of kindred souls, with an eye for beauty or a knack for the kooky. The Indian blogosphere is rich ground for posts on cinema, economics, sports, design and politics. Blogs can be conclaves of critics against the mainstream, they can be crucial support systems for the grieving. But how did we get here?

Peter Merholz, a lover of words and etymologies, and founding partner of consultancy Adaptive Path, created the word “blog” in 1999.

Playing with syllables, he decided to change “weblog” into “blog” for short. This San Francisco-based designer writes in his blog, “I like that it’s roughly onomatopoeic of vomiting. These sites (mine included!) tend to be a kind of information upchucking.”

For something that started as verbal upchucking, blogging has evolved over the decade. Anupam Mukerji, aka the Fake IPL Player, whose blog was the sensational sideshow that overshadowed the second edition of the Indian Premier League in 2009, says, “Self-indulgence is out. People want to be entertained and nobody really cares what you had for breakfast.”

In the early part of this decade, blogging was about self-expression, within a small community (like LiveJournal), says Aneesha. Kiran Jonnalagadda, a Bangalore-based social technologist, and founder of HasGeek, which organises technical discussions, recalls, “Your blog was not secret, but was private by virtue of not many people being online. It was a safe assumption for young people that their parents and siblings would never read their blog. The medium of the blog was the most advanced technology of the day. It was crude by modern standards, but fantastic compared to anything earlier.” Aneesha and Jonnalagadda abandoned LiveJournal after their initial euphoria. Today, it is said, only the Russians use it, since it was bought over by a Russian company in 2007.

Blogging has come of age in India where we now see the growth of the “modern blogger”, says Jonnalagadda, one of the early Indian bloggers. “It’s important to distinguish between these two — the blogger as someone who indulged in self-expression in the early 2000s, who’s now moved to Facebook and other tools, versus the modern blogger who uses the same technology but is actually a small media publisher serving a niche segment.”

Facebook and Twitter are dummy-friendly and easily satisfy the exhibitionist, the voyeur, the curious or the intellectual. In 2010, there were 152 million blogs on the internet; it doesn’t seem much in comparison to 600 million Facebook users. On Facebook, it takes just a few seconds to upload a picture. A “thumbs up” is all it takes to “like” a photo or a comment. A personal update becomes part of the newsflash on friends’ homepages. Facebook’s “Notes” can satisfy the desire to write long, random and personal outpourings. “Tagging” friends in these notes assures one of a readership. Sharing so little with so many has never been this effortless. Blogs, defined as a format of writing, where pieces are arranged in a reverse chronological order, are no longer the preferred tool for the personal.

Technorati reports that the significant growth of mobile blogging is a key trend in 2010. Though the smartphone may still be relatively new in India, bloggers have reported that mobile blogging has lead to shorter posts and to a growing preference for Facebook and Twitter. Kiruba Shankar, CEO of Business Blogging Pvt Ltd, a social media consultancy in Chennai, and a once-prolific blogger, says, “Five years back, I was averaging two posts a day. In 2010, which was my worst year in blogging, I did one post every two months! It’s not that I stopped writing. I just moved my updates to Twitter and Facebook.” Shankar has even written an entire book in 140-character capsules on the merits of collaborative work: Crowdsourcing Tweet. He explains, “I love reading smaller books. I love tweeting my thoughts. I wanted to eat the elephant in smaller bites and so I jotted down points in tweets.”

On the Web, none of these social mediums work in isolation, each is connected with the other. Facebook and Twitter have also become ways to promote blogs, with people often posting their links and thereby increasing their readership and the scope of the conversation.

With blogs moving beyond the personal, the rise of the modern blogger writing for a niche audience is of particular interest. Mumbai-based Chandrahas Choudhury, author of The Middle Stage, a blog of essays on Indian and world literature, says, “Blogs have matured over the years in India. People who are serious have kept it. Lots of the press indulge in the criticism that blogs are not edited. But I’ve seen many great blogs. It’s a very good way of learning how to write good prose.” The Middle Stage provides an important space for literary criticism at a time when newspapers are squeezing out literary columns. Blogs give “maximum freedom”, says Choudhury, as one can increase the content through links; they also allow one to quote freely from other texts, which newspapers do not allow.

Shankar emphasises that search engines give more importance to any site with fresh content, and that blogs have high “archival value”, compared with “Facebook or Twitter where old updates seem to fall off the face of the earth”. The Google requisite for new content has made the group blog a better option than the personal as it makes it easier to generate content regularly. Successful group blogs are making an impact.

Little Design Book, “an online journal of design, visual culture and material culture”, is run by Ruchita Madhok, Aditya Palsule, Avinash Rajagopal and Shreyas Krishnan. The editors, who are based in London, New York, and Bangalore respectively, work collaboratively and communicate through Skype. Through smart and pithy posts, they describe designs that are too good to be true and those which are too awful to seem probable. On this team blog, art and design interact in meaningful ways, producing discussions and insights. Speaking from New York on the behalf of his team, Rajagopal feels that design blogs have taken off recently in India. “The Web is a great place to discuss design because it is an inherently democratic medium. Anyone can have their say.”

Others, who have made use of the democratic and immediate nature of the internet, include Pavitra Mohan, who runs the successful blog Masala Chai, a “creative collective that features south Asian art and design”. These blogs about Indian art and design are few but they are playing an important role in the promotion and criticism of the arts. Mohan says, “There’s high art and low art. They are both provided a uniform platform on the Web.” Started three years ago, the blog recently became a physical reality, with Masala Chai opening its first outlet in Chennai.

Rajagopal feels, however, that there’s still scope for editorialising content. “Many blogs post images of design objects, and say a few obligatory words. This has its necessary place in the blogging world. But we also need many strident, opinionated voices.”

Strident voices with trenchant opinions ring in collective blogs like Kafila, run by no single CEO but by 22 members. Speaking only for himself and not on behalf of Kafila, Shivam Vij, writer and member, says, “Blogging is ‘self-publishing’. To read blogs (and today, together with social media) is to get an uncut view of what a society thinks, without the frame of the organised media. This allows people to use blogging and social media to influence opinion, and thus cause change, good or bad.”

While blogs can be viewed as enjoyable entertainment or a platform for serious discussion and debate, blogs can also change lives. It can make famous the anonymous man stooped over a keyboard, with a prank in his head and spunk in his prose. Anupam Mukerji, the Fake IPL Player whose anonymous blog fooled thousands of cricket fans and administrators, and who revealed his identity in August last year, says, “I am still the same guy, but people respond to me differently. The blog changed my life.”

Blogging was also the “perfect tonic” for actor Lisa Ray, who started writing The Yellow Diaries once she’d been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells, in June 2009. Her blog posts, written with heart and without fuss, chronicled her battle with the disease, from being a “cancer intern” to a “cancer survivor”. In what ways did the blog help her? “In every way,” she says. “It helped me process what I was going through. It helped me be honest with myself and face my fears head on. It also helped me connect with others by sharing a very human experience. It helped dilute my fear.” Her blog also helped others, obvious in the hundreds of comments left by readers. Talking about readers’ responses, she says, “I do remember thinking that we suffer from the ‘pathology of perfection’ in contemporary society and the only antidote is to celebrate our ‘humanness’ in all forms. To embrace the hurt and pain as much as the joys and success.”

Blogging was also a tonic for Indian Homemaker or Seema Rao, blogger and mother of Tejaswee Rao, a 19-year-old journalism student who passed away last year. Seema has been a frequent blogger for the last three years and now maintains her daughter’s blog In My Arrogant Opinion. She feels her daughter lives on through her presence on the Web. Sitting in a Gurgaon living room, surrounded by photos of her daughter, Rao says, “The family wanted a memorial gathering. But I know people will talk about her illness, they’ll say you should have gone to another hospital. I feel the blogosphere is more mature. A memorial would have been traumatic. I get support from bloggers, from people who don’t even know my name. On Tejaswee’s birthday, a mother in Hyderabad sent me a cake, with TJ written on it. I don’t know how I would have coped without the blogs.”

The original article was published in the Indian Express

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-kids

New internet rules open to arbitrary interpretation

praskrishna — 2011-05-06T04:58:57Z

Six years after an e-commerce CEO's arrest for a pornographic CD sold from his website, the government has introduced a liability on intermediaries such as Facebook and Google to "act within 36 hours" of receiving information about offensive content. This article by Manoj Mitta & Javed Anwer was published in the Times of India on April 27, 2011.

Under the rules notified on April 11 under the Information Technology Act, the intermediaries are required to work with the internet user "to disable such information that is in contravention" of the prescribed restrictions. While most of the restrictions in the rules are based on the criminal law (stuff that is blasphemous, obscene, defamatory, paedophilic, etc), some are so loosely worded that they could easily be misused against netizens accustomed to speaking their mind freely, whether on politics or otherwise.

One glaring example of an ill-thought-out provision is the prohibition on saying something that is "insulting any other nation". Since this expression has been mentioned without any qualifications, it could be invoked against anybody who talks disparagingly about other countries.

Apart from encroaching on free speech, the subjective notion of insulting a nation â€” as opposed to valid criticism â€” opens scope for arbitrariness and politically motivated interpretation. The authorities may not, for instance, take action against any content that is bashing Pakistan but may be touchy about similar attacks on the US.

Since such violations and the remedial action taken on them could become a subject of police probe, the rules state that "the intermediary shall preserve such information and associated records for at least 90 days for investigation purposes".

Given their legal repercussions, activists termed the new rules "draconian". Pranesh Prakash of Centre of Internet and Society alleged, "The rules seek to expand government's reach to control content on the internet. This is neither reasonable nor constitutional as the rules undermine the free speech guaranteed by the Constitution."

The intermediaries are also required to appoint a grievance officer and publish his contact details as well as the mechanism by which "users or any victim who suffers" can notify their complaints. The grievance officer is required to redress the complaints within one month of the receipt of the complaint.

Industry sources hold that the 36-hour deadline imposed on the intermediaries to take action on complaints would unduly affect their freedom as service providers in the Indian jurisdiction. A Google spokesperson told TOI that the proposed guidelines could be "particularly damaging to the abilities of Indians who are increasingly using the internet in order to communicate, and the many businesses that depend upon online collaboration to prosper."

Read the original article published by the Times of India here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internet-rules-arbitary-interpretation

New Internet rule: 'Objectionable' content can be removed without notifying users

praskrishna — 2011-05-11T09:31:58Z

In the age of internet-fuelled information explosion, the government's new rule allowing telecom companies and blogging sites, among others, to remove "objectionable" content from the web without informing users is a violation of the right to freedom of speech, say netizens and cyber law experts. This article was published in dailybhaskar.com on May 11, 2011.

The Information Technology (Due Diligence Observed by Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, say that intermediaries - which include telecommunication companies, internet service providers (ISP), blogging sites, search engines, as well as cyber cafes - can remove "objectionable" content without notifying the user.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology announced the rules last month.

Pavan Duggal, cyber law expert and Supreme Court advocate, said: "It (the new rules) is in direct violation to the freedom of speech, which is a fundamental right and mentioned in article 19 of the constitution."

"The new rules say that intermediaries should remove such kind of objectionable items within 36 hours without informing the users. They have the right to remove any post on a blog or site, work with the user to correct the post or disable access to their services altogether," Duggal said.

According to InternetWorldStat.com, India stands fourth in the world in internet surfing with 8.5 percent of the country's population using the internet.

Nishant Shah, director (research) of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, said the government should recognise blogging as the right of the people and that the new rule is "against the fundamental right of freedom of speech".

Pushkar Raj, general secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), plans to knock the door of the Supreme Court in a week's time on the issue.

"The biggest problem of this rule is that it gives a lot of power to lower-ranking police officials without any kind of supervision. In this era of information flow, it is very hard to define the term 'intermediaries'," Raj said.

The rules also say that the intermediaries will preserve such kind of information and maintain records for at least 90 days for investigation purposes.

Taha Sahil, a management student in Amity University, said the internet was the only weapon to spread the truth and these rules would curb that.

"It's like snatching away our freedom of speech. We all know that the media is biased and blogs and other web portals are the only unbiased source through which people can write and spread the truth. Moreover, this rule does not give any opportunity to the user to defend his work or even appeal," Sahil said.

The new IT rule specifies that the intermediaries should not display, upload, modify or publish any information that is "harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, pornographic, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, disparaging, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, relating to money laundering or gambling".

Bloggers say the new rule is too tedious and will discourage them from blogging.

Shivam Vij, a Delhi-based journalist and blogger, said: "This rule is so vast that it causes confusion and annoyance. Who defines that the content is objectionable and how?"

The new rule also gives the government easier access to content from the intermediaries. The intermediaries will be required to provide information to authorised government agencies for investigation and cyber security.

Ghulam Muhammed, a Mumbai-based blogger, is one of the net users who partly agreed with the reasons behind the government's initiative.

"The government's control on internet is in essence a draconian measure. But on the good side, it will control things like the spread of pornography," Muhammad said.

Internet service providers argue that the rules are transparent enough and it was high time such legislation was put in place as people had suffered in the past because of malicious content being posted against them.

"There are sets of words defined and most of them are illegal under the law, though there are a few loose words which need to be taken care of," said Subho Ray, president, Internet and Mobile Association of India.

"If the user has a problem with his content being removed, he can move court and if the court agrees to his appeal his content can be put back again," he added.

Read the original article published by dailybhaskar.com here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/objectionable-content-can-be-removed

New Indian Rules May Make Online Censorship Easier

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:57:20Z

Draft rules proposed by the Indian government for intermediaries such as telecommunications companies, Internet service providers and blogging sites could in effect aid censorship, according to experts. The article by John Ribeiro was published in Yahoo News on March 7, 2011.

Under the draft rules, intermediaries will have to notify users of their services not to use, display, upload, publish, share or store a variety of content, for which the definition is very vague, and liable to misuse.

Content that is prohibited under these guidelines ranges from information that may "harm minors in any way" to content that is "harmful, threatening, abusive."

Some of the terms are so vague that to stay on the right side of the law, intermediaries may in effect remove third-party content that is even mildly controversial, said Pavan Duggal, a cyberlaw consultant and advocate in India's Supreme Court.

While the definition of some of the terms like obscenity have been ruled on by India's Supreme Court, some of the other terms do not have a precise legal definition, said Pranesh Prakash, program manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, a research and advocacy group focused on consumer and citizen rights on the Internet.

"Would creating a Facebook profile for a minor, for example be considered as harming a minor ?" Duggal said.

The draft rules are secondary legislation framed by the government under the country's Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008. Under the IT Act, an intermediary is not liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him, if among other things, he has observed due diligence under the draft rules.

The new rules will give rise to subjective interpretations, thus giving a lot of discretion to non-judicial authorities in the country to decide whether the intermediary has observed due diligence or not, Duggal said.

According to the draft rules, an intermediary has to inform users that in case of non-compliance of its terms of use of the services and privacy policy, it has the right to immediately terminate the access rights of the users to its site. After finding out about infringing content, either on its own or through the authorities, the intermediary has to work with the user or owner of the information to remove access to the information.

Rather than recognizing the diversity of the businesses of intermediaries, the draft rules use a "one-size, fits all" set of rules across a variety of intermediaries including telecom service providers, online payment sites, e-mail service providers, and Web hosting companies, Duggal said.

An intermediary such as a site with user-generated content, like Wikipedia, would need different terms of use from an intermediary such as an e-mail provider, because the kind of liability they accrue are different, Prakash wrote in his blog.

The draft rules also add new provisions that appear designed to give the government easier access to content from intermediaries. Intermediaries will be required to provide information to authorized government agencies for investigative, protective, cybersecurity or intelligence activity, according to the rules.

Information will have to be provided for the purpose of verification of identity, or for prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of offenses, on a written request stating clearly the purpose of seeking such information, the rules add.

The IT Act already has specific procedures in this connection for very specific information requirements, but the draft rules have broadened this to a general requirement for intermediaries to provide information, Prakash said. The new rule could in fact be a way of circumventing the earlier laws, he added.

The draft rules assume significance in the context of recent moves by the Indian government to get Research In Motion to provide access to information on BlackBerry services in India. While providing lawful access to its consumer services like BlackBerry Messenger, RIM has declined to provide access to its corporate service, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, claiming that it does not have access to customers' encryption keys.

The Indian government has previously also said it would demand lawful access from Google's Gmail and Skype, but has not taken any action so far in this direction.

The draft rules will require compliance from a number of entities who until now had thought they were outside the ambit of compliance, Duggal said.

Google did not immediately respond to e-mailed requests for its comments on the new rules. Microsoft said that the government should set the policy objectives and provide directional framework, and still allow flexibility to intermediaries to set the data protection measures as they deem fit for different situations and services.

"We believe that the intermediary should be obliged to take down non-compliant content on being notified of the same as well as terminate access rights for those who use these platforms for dissemination of non-compliant content," Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement. Non-compliance include, but is not limited to, copyrights, it added.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service.

Read the original in Yahoo News here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/online-censorship

New Editors Statistics

praskrishna — 2013-07-03T09:19:11Z

New Editors Statistics

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NewEditorsStatistics.png

New Editors

praskrishna — 2013-07-03T09:12:17Z

New Editors

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New Delhi Expands Curbs on Web Content

praskrishna — 2012-08-24T13:16:22Z

India on Thursday broadened recent efforts to regulate the Internet with moves to block Twitter accounts of some prominent journalists and content from mainstream news organizations, sparking a backlash across social media in the country.

This article by R Jai Krishna and Rumman Ahmed was published in the Wall Street Journal on August 23, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Since last week, the government has blocked content that it claims has fueled continuing communal violence in the northeast of the country. That fighting, between Muslim settlers and members of an indigenous group in the state of Assam, has left more than 80 people dead and sent ripples of tension across India.

The government confirms it has blocked around 250 Web pages it says were inciting Muslims to attack northeasterners, including sites carrying doctored photos purporting to show Muslim victims of fighting in Assam. Officials say these images on the sites, coupled with mass SMS phone messages threatening reprisals, have caused panicked northeasterners to flee their homes in a number of large Indian cities.

In recent days, though, the government has quietly widened its offensive, drawing up lists of journalists' Twitter accounts and news stories by local and foreign media organizations to be blocked. The lists, some of which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by two telecom operators, include Twitter handles of journalists who have been critical of the government and some who have parodied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The government didn't respond to requests for comment.

The government's actions caused an uproar on Twitter, where hashtags such as #GOIBlocks and #Emergency2012 were trending Thursday. "The Emergency" refers to a period in the 1970s when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi cracked down on media freedoms and civil liberties.

"The government's move to block several Twitter handles is a clear case of administrative overreach," said Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "This action means citizens are less likely to believe that the government can use its powers responsibly."

Government officials said Internet curbs are necessary to maintain harmony in a multicultural nation of 1.2 billion people.

Pankaj Pachauri, a spokesman for Mr. Singh, acknowledged the government had asked for Twitter's help to block six accounts that impersonate the prime minister. One of those accounts appeared on the government's lists. Twitter, based in San Francisco, has agreed to review the requests, he said. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment. Mr. Pachauri said earlier this week that Indian cyber authorities unilaterally blocked those six accounts.

Those six Twitter accounts faced government scrutiny because they made remarks that could have increased tensions, not because they poked fun at the prime minister, Mr. Pachauri said. "We're all for media freedom and encourage criticism by the media," he added. "But when it comes to inciting trouble between communities then we have to take firm action."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday that "we are always on the side of full freedom of the Internet." She added that "we also always urge the government to maintain its own commitment to human rights, fundamental freedoms, rule of law."

India's Constitution allows restrictions on free speech for a number of reasons, including defense of "the sovereignty and integrity" of the country and in order to maintain "public order, decency or morality." Critics say the government has used the vague framing of the Constitution to clamp down on a widening array of Internet material, threatening India's democratic traditions.

Last year, the government framed new rules that require Internet companies to remove within 36 hours material that falls into a range of subjective categories—for instance, anything "ethnically objectionable," "grossly harmful," "defamatory" or "blasphemous."

India's telecoms minister, Kapil Sibal, in December urged Google Inc., and other Internet companies to screen derogatory material from their sites. The requests came amid anger over content that parodied Mr. Singh and Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress party, as well as other leading politicians.

"One always wonders if the government is using the garb of hate speech and communalism to…limit political criticism online," said Apar Gupta, a cyberlaw expert at Advani & Co., a Delhi-based law firm.

Google and Facebook executives are facing criminal charges in a New Delhi court for allegedly hosting objectionable material on their sites. If found guilty, the executives could face jail time or fines. The companies have petitioned to have the charges dropped, arguing that they shouldn't be held liable for material posted by users. Both firms have said they will remove material that contravenes their own standards or local laws.

Google, Facebook and Twitter again came under fire from India this week amid violence in Assam. Google and Facebook said Tuesday that they were complying with Indian government requests to remove content. Twitter hasn't commented.

Kanchan Gupta, a columnist who has been a fierce critic of the Congress party-led government, said his Twitter account had been temporarily blocked Wednesday night and Thursday. His name was on the government lists. "They thought they could do this slyly," he said. "They didn't anticipate the backlash on Twitter."

Raghavan Jagannathan, editor in chief of FirstPost.com, an Indian news portal that was on the lists, said some of its stories had been blocked.

"We understand that the government wants to stop the circulation of incendiary material that may inflame passions, but should it be blocking news and opinions on the subject?" he said. "I am not sure the decisions are well-thought-out."

Doha, Qatar-based Al Jazeera, an international cable-news organization, was also on the list. An Al Jazeera spokesman said the company was seeking a response from the government on reports of media restrictions affecting it and other outlets.

The government appeared unmoved. "Every company whether it's a construction company or an entertainment company or a social media company, it has to operate within the laws of the given country," Junior Minister for Communications Sachin Pilot told reporters on Wednesday.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wsj-com-jai-krishna-and-rumman-ahmed-aug-23-2012-new-delhi-expands-curbs-on-web-content

New Bill to decide on individual’s right to privacy

praskrishna — 2012-02-07T07:19:07Z

A group of experts would identify issues relating to privacy and prepare a report to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. Vishwajoy Mukherjee's article was published in Tehelka on 6 February 2012.

American jurist William J Brennan once famously remarked, “If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.” Now the Government of India is on the verge of formulating, for the first time, a Privacy Bill that will lay down a specific framework to adjudicate an individual’s right to privacy.

The Planning Commission has constituted a small group of experts under the chairmanship of Justice A P Shah, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, to identify issues relating to privacy and prepare a paper to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. The group will be studying the privacy laws and related bills promulgated by other countries and will also be analysing the impact of various programmes being implemented by the government, from the perspective of their impact on privacy. A detailed report with suggestions and remarks will then be handed to the Planning Commission by 31 March.

In the run-up to the formulation of a new Privacy Bill in India, an All India Privacy Symposium was held on 4 February to discuss aspects of privacy in the context of transparency, national security and internet banking. One of the most vociferous oppositions to the idea of privacy becoming an enshrined right for individuals, has come from those who believe that national security is of paramount importance. “The notion that one has to choose between privacy and national security is a false dichotomy of choice… When the judiciary adjudicates between privacy and surveillance, privacy in almost all cases loses. Especially when the word terrorism is invoked,” said Oxblood Ruffin, a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow, an information security and publishing collective. Speaking at the conference Ruffin stressed on the idea that the State shouldn’t act as a “peeping Tom” but instead respect the “sovereignty of its people.”

One of the more stark examples, in recent years, of the State clamping down on individual rights, such as the right to privacy, on the pretext of national security, is the Patriot Act in America. The Patriot Act was passed in the United States of America in the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the twin towers, and allowed the government to scrutinise everything from “suspicious” bank accounts to wire-tapping lines of communication. Menaka Guruswamy, a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India, believes that unlike America, India does not yet have a codified view on privacy. “Privacy is a vast, fragile, and an open space in the Indian justice system,” she told Tehelka.

Though India doesn’t have clearly defined laws dealing with the issue of privacy, it does have certain directives under which surveillance methods such as wire-tapping can be done. Wire-tapping, which is regulated under the Telegraph Act of 1885, saw a major overhaul in a 1996 Supreme Court judgment, which ruled that wire-taps are a "serious invasion of an individual's privacy." The Supreme Court (SC) recognised the fact that the right to privacy is an integral part of the fundamental right to life enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution, and therefore laid down guidelines defining who can tap phones and under what circumstances. Only the Union Home Secretary, or his counterpart in the states, can issue an order for a tap, and the government is also required to show that the information sought cannot to be obtained through any other means. The SC mandated the development of a high-level committee to review the legality of each wire-tap.

“Interceptions and intrusions by the state have often gone on to help exonerate people who have been falsely accused, so I think it would be unfair to demonise wire-tapping in general. One does have to ensure though, that those who intercept exchanges do not exceed limits,” said a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Besides the dimension of privacy versus surveillance, another important aspect which comes under the scanner when privacy laws are discussed is Internet banking. Details of personal bank accounts and other highly sensitive information of individuals have been whizzing around the cyber space with the advent of E-banking. Everything from booking tickets for movies and flights, to transferring money between accounts is happening via computers, and is happening fast. This growing trend has sparked a major debate on how safe is our information on the web, and what can the government do to secure it? In May 2000, the government passed the Information Technology Act, which laid down a set of laws intended to provide a comprehensive regulatory environment for electronic commerce.

The Act also addressed computer crimes such as hacking, damage to computer source code, breach of confidentiality and viewing of pornography and created a Cyber Appellate Tribunal to oversee and adjudicate cyber crimes. However, at the same time, the legislation gave broad discretion to law enforcement authorities through several provisions, such as Section 69, allowing the interception of any information transmitted through a computer resource and mandates that users disclose encryption keys or face a jail sentence up to seven years. Section 80 of the Act allows deputy superintendents of police to conduct searches and seize suspects in public spaces without a warrant.

“Confidentiality between banker and customer is the golden rule of traditional banking, but with the coming of E-banking, banks are using confidentiality as an excuse for not putting out data that shows how vulnerable they are to cyber crimes like hacking,” said N Vijayashankar, an E-business consultant, and a front runner in raising awareness about cyber laws in India. He said, “When framing privacy laws one has to ensure that banks are mandated to disclose data on breach of Internet security. That is the only way to ensure that banks take the necessary steps to secure customer information.” Malavika Jairam, a lawyer who focuses on technology and intellectual property, believes that allowing private participation in what should essentially be a sovereign State function is a dangerous path to tread on. “Tesco, a major retail chain in England, is now into E-banking… There are numerous examples of such private banking entities sharing customer information with insurance policy firms. These details are often used as markers for the kind of premium that will be set for a person,” Jairam said.

With the current pace of technological advancements fast thinning the line between individual privacy and public content, it remains to be seen what kind of privacy laws India will frame to keep up.

The original was published by Tehelka, Malavika Jayaram, a Fellow at CIS is quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-bill-to-decide-on-individual2019s-right-to-privacy

New $1 Billion RIC Project Casts Doubts on Aadhaar

praskrishna — 2013-04-04T08:28:51Z

The Indian Government is going ahead with a new project dubbed RIC that will effectively undermine the existing UIDAI – Unique Identification Authority of India project and will cost a whopping $1 billion.

This was published in AEG India on March 16, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The National Population Register and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) are the two organizations which will capture the biometric details of the citizens and will develop the resident identity card (RIC) and create the unique identifier number (UID) popularly known as Aadhar number respectively.

Both the RIC and UID projects are designed to unify the distribution of social and welfare services to the citizens. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society India, said that the ID number and the ID smartcard are both different and are not at all complementary as declared by the Indian Government previously.

The ID number and the ID smart card are two completely separate visions. They cannot be mixed up together to make some kind of salad which can be consumed partly, added Abraham.

He said that it was easy for the Indian government to proceed simultaneously with both the projects rather than cancelling the much criticized Aadhaar project.

Minister P. Karunakaran, on March 12 in the Lok Sabha, asked R.P.N. Singh, the Minister of State, to clarify the confusion over the proposed biometric identity card and the UID (Aadhaar number). The government has planned to spend more than US$1 billion to issue the Indian citizens a resident identity card (RIC) which will also feature the Aadhaar number as well.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/aeg-india-march-16-2013-new-dollar-one-billion-ric-project-casts-doubts-on-aadhar

Networking? Not working

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:12:33Z

Concerns about privacy, wastage of time and trivialized communication are some reasons ‘refuseniks’ are going off sites such as Facebook and MySpace, writes Shreya Ray in Livemint.

Pune-based law student Arjun Khera, 24, broke many a Facebook stalker’s heart in April when he announced his decision to quit the network one fine afternoon on his status message. “Guys, I’m deleting my Facebook account. Please send me all your email and phone details,” he said. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of concern in his notification window. Why was the effervescent and popular part-time actor and full-time Facebook enthusiast committing Facebook suicide? “What happenedddddd?” (sic)
“Everything ok, dude?”

“It was eating into my life,” Khera says. “I was always logged on, always leaving or commenting on status messages, waiting a few minutes to see if there had been any responses to my comments, and comment some more. I didn’t go out for a walk any more, didn’t get photographs developed because I was only too busy seeing them on Facebook.” Khera signed up for his account in July 2007.

Then, it was the one platform through which he could locate and reconnect with all his long-lost friends. He loved the fact that he could have a pictorial chronicle of his life; that he could “compare friends”, find out if indeed he was a glass of wine (and not a pint of beer) and fit a Shakespearean insult to his current mood. “With time, I got tired of those lame quizzes. I got sick of what it was doing to my time. I hated how it trivialized communication,” he says.

Khera is part of a growing cult of social networking “refuseniks”. Although figures for sites such as MySpace, Orkut, Facebook and Twitter show an overall increase, some recent statistics suggest that not everyone wants to socialize this way. According to a study by TechCrunch Europe, the number of visitors to MySpace, UK, halved in just six months, from “just under 10 million at the start of the year to around 5 million as of the end of June 2010”, leading to a round of layoffs at its London office. “It would appear to show a pretty staggering decline,” says the report, released on 6 July.

The privacy factor

Environmental researcher Maddipatla Rajshekhar, 33, alumnus of the University of Sussex, UK, used Facebook to keep in touch with former classmates. On 31 May, however, along with the 30,000-odd people who had had enough of Facebook changing its privacy policies, he quit. “It was getting increasingly intrusive. Its latest feature let me see what some of my friends said on the walls of their friends—(who were) complete strangers to me,” he said.

Although the Quit Facebook group wasn’t a success in numerical terms (30,000 isn’t even close to a drop in the 450-million ocean), it successfully sent a message to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who held a press conference in the last week of May on new privacy policies and changes.

A May report brought out by the Pew Centre for Internet and American Life Project (of the Pew Research Centre, Washington, DC) finds that social media plays a “central role” in building one’s online identity. Quite naturally, privacy becomes a big issue. “Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go—changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online,” says the report. Interestingly, it also finds that young adults are more likely than older users to restrict what information is available and to whom, contrary to popular perception.

The next level

Privacy is not the refuseniks’ only issue, however. What social networking does to actual relationships is another, as Khera notes. Mumbai-based social worker Maya Ganesh, 35, too got tired of the constant blurring between friends and acquaintances, and having to constantly update her “limited” lists. “I regularly ignored friend requests but there were some requests not easy to ignore, especially some work connections. I also wanted a break from all the hectic ‘social activity’ that Facebook is about,” she says of her three-year-old account, which she abandoned in May.

Ganesh had reached what Sunil Abraham, executive director, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, refers to as the end of the “hype cycle”. All technology goes through a standard process, says Abraham: People get hooked to it, then get tired of it, and it disappears. “Some tend to be sticky and last longer; the particular advantage of social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and MySpace is that they bring a critical mass of community to individual users. It’s now difficult for people to get off a network simply because all their friends are on it,” he says.

Conversely, though, he cites Harvard-based social networking researcher Danah Boyd, who says the reducing exclusivity quotient has also put many people off. “Parents getting online also... acts as a self-censorship mechanism,” Abraham adds.

Most of the people who have deleted their accounts are happy with the way their non-virtual life now takes centre stage. Khera enjoys sitting at home and doing nothing; Ganesh says she doesn’t miss being out of the loop. It may take a bit more effort to share holiday photographs or write an email every time you feel the need to connect; but as Rajshekhar says, “Anything for not losing touch, anything for richer conversations.”

Varuni Khosla contributed to this story.

See the original article in livemint.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/networking-not-working

Networking its way to better governance

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:13:04Z

New policy to regulate Government presence on social media. This article by Deepa Kurup was published in the Hindu on March 28, 2011.

The official Facebook page of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department, “DGPCIDKARNATAKA”, is a string of one-sided comments punctuated with official-ese, or newspaper links of some prominent crime or an article by the officials.

The Twitter account, also started around June 2010, has all of 38 tweets, and barely any interaction with “common” men/women. Started with much fanfare, these are among the very few State Government agencies that took to social media, but haven't taken it beyond mere formalities. On the brighter side, blogs by a few Ministers — most prominently, Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya and Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs S. Suresh Kumar — are lively and even interactive, in spurts. A few government departments too have blogs, but none remarkable.

Though the Indian Government's tryst with social media is fairly new — it took a few Twitter controversies, courtesy former Minister @ShashiTharoor, to make the government sit up and take note — some departments such as IndiaPost, the Delhi Traffic Police, Census India and even the Planning Commission, have been able to take it beyond mere posturing and have interacted with citizens, even tried to solve problems. IndiaPost's Twitter page is a good example of how agencies can engage with stakeholders, at least to an extent.

A draft policy

Twitter recently hit headlines again when foreign secretary Nirupama Sen logged on with an official ID and interacted with Indians stranded in Libya looking to make their way back. All these examples, that have earned these departments accolades, has prompted the Indian Government to come up with a new policy for social media.

The e-governance group of the Department of Information Technology (DIT) held a meeting this week to draw up guidelines to “regulate” Government presence on social media sites.

Speaking to The Hindu, a DIT official said this had been on the Government's agenda because efforts in this direction had been all too scattered, and some of the success stories had convinced them that it could be a good platform for interaction. The official added that the feedback they got on the 12th Planning Commission's Facebook page was seen as a good example of how these tools could be leveraged.

But why regulate at all? Regulating social media use by government officials is imperative mainly to ensure that use of information or data is compliant with existing laws.

Consistency needed

Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, points out that with no general rules in place, the use of Twitter or Facebook account varies according to the bureaucrats heading the departments. “This cannot be the case as the channel of communication has to be a continuous thing, and the data shared with citizens has to be accurate; which means the same standards need to be applied to online sharing of data as is applied to offline data handling. Departments should also be obliged to back-up online data periodically,” he says.

For instance, a traffic police department announced that citizens could share pictures of traffic rule offenders on Facebook or on its website, to facilitate tracking of offenders. “Such a move could have huge privacy implications, and may also lead to vigilante activism,” warns Mr. Abraham, adding that we need a policy so that all activity, however casual it may seem, is compliant with existing law governing data protection and privacy.

With the Government jumping on to the 2.0 bandwagon (often under pressure like in Mumbai where citizens created a Facebook page for the police forcing them to create a real one), it is time to really make it official. So, while the idea of giving a face to government agencies and pushing for transparency and greater interaction with citizens, standardisation of social media use is indeed the way forward.

Read the original article in the Hindu here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/networking-better-governance

Networking

praskrishna — 2013-07-29T10:18:13Z

Networking

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Network.png

Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:41:13Z

The Centre of Internet and Society (CIS) in association with Observer Research Foundation, and IT For Change in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce a roundtable on ‘Network Neutrality Regulation Across South Asia: Aspects of Differential Pricing” that will take place on January 22, 2016 from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at TERI in Bangalore.

Download the Invite

The objective of this roundtable will be to look into the issue of differential pricing in light of TRAI’s recent consultation process, with the specific intention of research building. The network neutrality debate has gained significant momentum in India during the past year, with competing interests of internet service providers, OTTs and the public giving rise to important questions of ICT regulation and policy.

With Facebook looking to expand its zero rated walled garden, Free Basics, into nascent markets, differential pricing is an important point of regulatory policy not just in India, but in jurisdictions across South Asia. These countries have limited connectivity, large consumer potential and low internet penetration which bring to the fore questions of access, diversity, competition and innovation. To this end, the roundtable will seek to address the regulatory and market aspects of differential pricing as well as the impact on rights. Broadly, the roundtable will be forward looking and seek to build future research agendas.

Draft Agenda

11:00 – 11:30	Tea and Registration
11:30 – 12:30	Roundtable 1: Framing the issue: The practice of differential pricing Examples of differential pricing Stakeholder perspectives Competition and market effect of differential pricing Larger social consequences of differential pricing
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Roundtable 2: Regulatory response: Discerning governmental actions Locating public interest Moving from research to action
2:30 – 3:00	Tea
3:00 – 4:30	Roundtable 3: Impact on rights: Access Freedom of expression Privacy Equity and Social Justice
4:30 – 5:00	Discussion and research agenda building

Roundtable Questions:

Roundtable 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE:

What is differential pricing and how does it work? What are the technical components and policy components of differential pricing? What are examples of differential pricing?
What has been the response from different stakeholders to differential pricing schemes? What are the arguments for/against differential pricing?
What could be the market effect of differential pricing?
What are possible larger social impacts of differential pricing?

Roundtable 2: REGULATORY RESPONSE:

How have governments responded to differential pricing? What can these responses tell us about the position of governments?
What are the different components for consideration with developing a regulatory response? What are different forms of regulation for differential pricing?
What type of policy research around differential pricing can drive meaningful action?

Roundtable 3: IMPACT ON RIGHTS:

How does differential pricing impact the right to access, freedom of expression, privacy, and equity and social justice?
Are there ways to mitigate this impact through regulation? Market incentives? Company policy?
What are forms of redress that individuals could seek in the context of differential pricing?

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/network-neutrality-regulation-across-south-asia-a-roundtable-on-aspects-of-differential-pricing

Network Neutrality across South Asia

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:37:52Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/network-neutrality-across-south-asia