Centre for Internet and Society

Look what the state just did to you

praskrishna — 2011-06-16T10:51:58Z

The government's recent introduction of new rules in the IT Act allows 'offensive' material on any website to be removed within 36 hours. Did the state just arm everyone to shoot the messenger, online?Th

Let's say a newspaper published a contentious piece that begs to be questioned in the court of law. What would happen if instead of the journalist who wrote the article or the editor who published it, we decide to sue the newspaper boy who delivered the paper? Irrational? According to bloggers and digital media experts, new rules notified under the Information Technology Act 2008, has armed everyone to shoot the messenger, online. Will this challenge our fundamental freedom of speech and expression, and the fabric of the Internet as we know it?

In April this year, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) introduced a new set of rules called Intermediary Due Diligence. According to it, every citizen has the right to complain against any digital content to the website host or any ISP that serves the content or any cybercafe from which the content is available, etc (legally referred to as intermediary). In other words, any website that carries content Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and even newspaper websites can be sued for the content they carry, even if it is a third party that has written it.

So, even though over 190 million users worldwide publish over a billion comments a week on social broadcast medium Twitter, if someone were to find a particular 'Tweet' offensive even if it hasn't been written by an Indian they can ask Twitter to remove the tweet, failing which, they can sue the site.

According to the rules, every intermediary (read website) is now required to hire a grievance officer, to whom the offended party can send their complaint. The website is given 36 hours, to remove the comment, post or content, failing which the website is liable to judicial action.

The website owner no longer possesses the discretion to ignore complaints and uphold the freedom of speech of his site's users without risking liability himself.

Is the rule unconstitutional?

According to Pranesh Prakash, programme manager for Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, the new rules are unconstitutional.

The pre-existing section 79 of the IT Act states that intermediaries (that is to say, websites) are not liable for third party information (such as comments, posts, tweets or posts) as long as they are mere conduits, observe 'due diligence' and don't encourage criminal activity. The new rules were meant to clarify what 'due diligence' meant. A draft of the rules was released in February, and the final rules were added to the IT Act in April.

"The rules have gone far beyond mere clarification. The Department has imposed rules that insist that intermediaries play the role of a judge and executioner on mere complaint, without any opportunity for the other side to be heard," says Prakash.

In a press release issued on May 11 this year, the DIT stated, "The Government adopted a transparent process for formulation of the Rules under the Information Technology Act. The draft rules were published on the Department of Information Technology website for comments [in February] and were widely covered by the media. None of the Industry Associations and other stakeholders objected to the formulation, which is now being cited in some section of media."

However, media analysts disagree. "The DIT was expected to create a public listing of comments submitted. From what we've seen on their website, they haven't," says Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, a website that offers analyses of news on various forms of media, including the Internet.

Interestingly, some Members of Parliament registered their protest against the draft rules.

Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar registered his protest against the draft rules during Zero Hour on March 22, and received the support of three other MPs Kumar Deepak Das, P Rajeev, Mahendra Mohan.

His argument was also published on his website: "The execution of these rules could result in a shutting down of the Internet, which is the main form of expression for growing Indians, if the information posted is found inconvenient to Government, institutions or individuals. This would also take away the right to freedom of expression of bloggers and other Internet users in the country. The Government must call for transparent public consultation/public opinion."

Restricting freedom of speech

What's more, say lawyers, the ground on which a person can find a comment offensive is vague and open to interpretation.

Apar Gupta, a lawyer associated with the Software Freedom Law Centre in New Delhi, says, "The grounds to block content are arbitrary. In a situation like this, any intelligent critique, discourse etc can be deemed offensive and no one can do anything about it."

Nor is it mandatory for the website to inform the person, who has posted a comment that someone else found offensive, before removing it.

"In a case like this, the so-called violator does not even have the opportunity to be heard or defend himself, which is a violation of the principles of natural justice," adds Prakash.

Websites no longer have a final say in regulating content, as they are legally bound to remove matter that has been found offensive. The removed content can be re-instated if the website wins a lawsuit against the complainant if it chooses to go through with one in the first place.

"Suppose you do not like what I have posted on Twitter, and file a complaint with the grievance officer.

Twitter has two options remove the content and be safe or keep it and be liable. What do you think is easier for Twitter? Obviously, it wouldn't want to be party to hundreds of lawsuits," explains Gupta.

Before the rules were notified, a police complaint could be registered, a civil suit filed, or a 'nodal officer' required to be designated in all government departments could be approached, which would be followed by a judicial probe. If the content was eventually found offensive, the website would be asked to remove it.

"Now, websites will lose protection from law if they don't take down 'offensive' content. They have no incentive to uphold the freedom of speech of their users. Instead, they have been provided incentives to take down all content about which they receive complaints without applying their minds," Prakash points out.

Then again, in our country where anything from a paragraph in a history textbook to a 15-second jig by a politician can be deemed offensive, analysts fear that the rules can be rampantly misused.

"The rule will be used by conservatives and not liberals. Lots of organised people (political parties, bureaucrats etc) will take down all content against them. People could end up using the rule to challenge a website and making money by agreeing for an out of court settlement," fears Gupta.

"It can become a tool for harassment," Shivam Vij, a member of radical critique blog Kafila, adds tersely.

The new clause has the potential to immediately address truly offensive material, such as child pornography, online grooming of young girls and boys by paedophiles (such as the recent case of Paul Wilson who was convicted in Birmingham for grooming 20 minors online) and videos taken on the sly (one such case led Rutgers university student Tyler Clementi to commit suicide, when a video of him having sex with a fellow male student was posted online). However, it is a double-edged sword that calls for further debate on what can be posted and what can be removed.

One way to do this is to make information public. If a site is blocked or content removed, there should be a public notice issued and a list should be maintained of all requests for removals or blocks. Also, the reason for removing or blocking a piece of content, and the authority responsible for taking that decision should be made public. When a user visits a blocked site, there should be a notice about the block, and a specific recourse mentioned for getting the block removed.

This article by Yoshita Sengupta was published in Mid Day on June 12, 2011. Read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/state-just-did-to-you

Lone Patient

praskrishna — 2018-08-13T15:08:13Z

Lone Patient

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

Lokmat

praskrishna — 2015-11-30T14:39:55Z

Lokmat

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

Lok sabha polls: Social media companies launch special pages for polls

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T11:28:54Z

Internet and social media giants such as Google and Facebook have launched special campaigns, pages and services around the Indian Lok Sabha elections to make the most of the world's largest democratic exercise that kicked off on Monday.

The article by Varuni Khosla was published in the Economic Times on April 10, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Big and small social media companies are looking to use the poll fever to augment their businesses by wooing new users and generating more traffic.

Google, for example, recently launched an election page along with a Google Hangout series and a 'Pledge to Vote' and 'Know Your Candidates' campaign that featured 97-year-old Shyam Saran Negi from Himachal Pradesh who has voted in every election in Independent India. Twitter has come up with a 'Discover' section of curated tweets while Facebook has launched an election trackers as well as a 'Facebook Talks' page.

Indian social platform Vebbler has unveiled 'Ungli' campaign while telecom operator MTS has tied up with Social Samosa for an election tracker.

"While in the short run it may just be a branding exercise, in the long run it could result in more sign-ups and convert into a wider user base for these companies," said Bhupendra Khanal, CEO and co-founder at social business intelligence company Simplify360.

"But it also shows how important India is as a market for these companies — that they are looking at generating information beyond short-term revenues," he added. Khanal said the most popular hashtags with mentions in last 30 days are #Elections2014, which got 46,000 mentions, and #Election2014:, with 36,000 mentions.

This shows that social media users are following and discussing the elections and candidates constantly. Raheel Khursheed, head of news, politics and government at Twitter India, said election candidates across political parties are using Twitter platform to break news, answer questions and post 'selfies'.

"This page lets voters see all the official Twitter feeds from political parties and candidates and will let voters make an informed choice before they go and vote," he said.

Sunil Abraham, executive director at non-profit charitable organisation Centre for Internet and Society, said social media companies are looking at earning close to 10% of the entire media spend by political parties.

"When they have election related features on their site, they can tell their advertisers (political parties) that they are a serious platform that talks politics," he said. "Also, when a user clicks on these ads that are being put up by parties, social media companies are able to gain granular information about the user's likes and dislikes and therefore figure out how to advertise to them in the future," Abraham added.

These make it doubly attractive for social media companies to have such services.

Also, experts say that it doesn't cost much at all to set up these special pages and launch campaigns. "Spends on these campaigns could cost social media companies just about Rs 10-20 lakh - including making videos and setting up pages," a social media agency head said.

This person said that about 60 million people have been discussing Indian Elections on social media, even though there are just about 40 million Twitter users in India. "So, a lot of interest has been taken in the elections from other countries," the person added.

Close to 65% of India's population is under the age of 35 and more and more young people in the country are using social media.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) estimates that a well-executed social media campaign can swing 3%–4% of votes. "Digital advertising in India has increased by 30% this year and around Rs 3402 crore is expected to be spent in 2014. Of this, social media spend is close to Rs 300 crore according to IMRB," says James Drake-Brockman, head of digital marketing division, DMG :: events.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls

Logos

praskrishna — 2012-07-10T10:38:28Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/p9.jpg

Logo

praskrishna — 2016-10-24T08:06:21Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has published its logo under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Click on the links below to download the logo in the format of your choice:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/logos/cis-logos

Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:32:56Z

The Union government and mobile operators are at loggerheads on location based services (LBS) – the service through which mobile companies can provide real time location of mobile users to the government.

The article by Danish Raza was published in FirstPost on October 15, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In the aftermath of Nirbhaya gangrape case in December, Delhi Police approached mobile operators to implement LBS, but the operators refused citing the costs involved in the process, said M M Oberoi, joint commissioner of Delhi police. Oberoi was talking at the India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance, conducted by FICCI in New Delhi on Tuesday. “Often the person in distress dials 100 but does not know his or her location. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the PCR vans to track the victim. A lot of time is spent trying to figure out the victim’s location, as it happened in the 16 December gangrape case,” said Oberoi.


Representational image. Agencies.

As reported by Firstpost, the government has already directed all telecom service providers to make location details a mandatory part of call data records (CDR) of all mobile users in the country starting mid- 2014.

India is the second-largest mobile phone user with over 900 million users, as per the union government data. However, mobile companies are not complying with the government order, Oberoi told Firstpost. “In our attempt to develop a better response mechanism, we are also exploring ways through which we can bypass mobile companies to track the person. We can do it through software,” he added.

The mobile companies have maintained that they can help the government in tracking people in distress, but the kind of accuracy the law enforcement forces are demanding involves huge costs.

The DoT directive says that while detecting the location of the mobile users in urban centres, the telecom operator should achieve 80 percent accuracy in the first year of implementing the technology followed by 95 percent accuracy in the second year. However, it is not clear from the DoT note which year will be taken into account while determining the degree of accuracy of the company’s technology – 2011 (when the order was issued) or 2014 (when location details shall be part of CDR for all mobile calls).

“For such accuracy, we need to put enhanced cell tracking software on cell towers which is a very expensive process,” Rajan S Mathews, director, Cellular Operators Associations of India, told Firstpost.

In the last meeting with the representatives of DoT, Cellular Operators Associations of India told the former that it was against the idea of LBS for all mobile users, but can cooperate in the case of targeted tracking, said Mathews.

He suggested two alternatives which can work to track a person in distress. It should be mandated by the government, he said, that people use only high end phones which send signals to cell towers when they make a call. “It is not easy to make everyone use such devices though.”

Another possibility, according to him, is that a person gets registered with the mobile operator for such service. “When this person is in distress and dials 100, he avails the service through which police can track his or her location,” said Mathews.

According to Sunil Abraham, director of Bangalore based Centre for Internet & Society, it is unethical implement LBS as a blanket order and the government, along with mobile operators, should find a way out to introduce targeted surveillance.

“There is an initial increase in security that accompanies increase in surveillance – after which increased surveillance actually undermines the security imperative and could make the security worse than when surveillance was initiated. Therefore surveillance should always be targeted, blanket surveillance is almost always a terrible idea,” he said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/first-post-october-15-2013-danish-raza-location-tracking

Locating the Mobile

praskrishna — 2015-10-05T15:02:24Z

The project examines questions of inter personal relationships, intimacies, community formations and belonging to examine processes of internal migration and dislocation as a result of growing mobile and internet usage in urban India and China.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/locating-mobile

Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation

praskrishna — 2011-07-21T06:00:39Z

Deadline for submission: 26th July 2011-06-08; When: 19th - 22nd August, 2011; Where: Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, Ahmedabad; Organised by: Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Please Note: Travel support is only available for domestic travel within India.

LOCATING INTERNETS is an innovative, multi-disciplinary, workshop that engages with some of the most crucial debates around Internet and Society within academic scholarship, discourse and practice in India. It explores Where, When, How and What has changed with the emergence of Internet and Digital Technologies in the country. The Internet is not a singular monolithic entity but is articulated in various forms – sometimes materially, through accessing the web; at others, through our experiences; and yet others through imaginations of policy and law. Internets have become a part of our everyday practice, from museums and archives, to school and university programmes, living rooms and public spaces, relationships and our bodily lived realities. It becomes necessary to reconfigure our existing concepts, frameworks and ideas to make sense of the rapidly digitising world around us. The Internet is no longer contained in niche disciplines or specialised everyday practices. LOCATING INTERNETS invites scholars, teachers, researchers, advanced research students and educationalists from any discipline to learn and discuss how to ask new questions and design innovative curricula in their discipline by introducing concepts and ideas from path-breaking research in India.

Comprised of training, public lectures, open discussion spaces, and hands-on curriculum building exercises, this workshop will introduce the participants to contemporary debates, help them articulate concerns and problems from their own research and practice, and build knowledge clusters to develop innovative and open curricula which can be implemented in interdisciplinary undergraduate spaces in the country. It showcases the research outputs produced by the Centre for Internet and Society’s Researchers @ Work Programme, and brings together nine researchers to talk about alternative histories, processes, and bodies of the Internets, and how they can be integrated into mainstream pedagogic practices and teaching environments.

Knowledge Clusters for the Workshop

LOCATING INTERNETS is designed innovatively to accommodate for various intellectual and practice based needs of the participants. While the aim is to introduce the participants to a wide interdisciplinary range of scholarship, we also hope to address particular disciplinary and scholarly concerns of the participants. The workshop is further divided into three knowledge clusters which help the participants to focus their energies and ideas in the course of the four days.

Bridging the Gap: This workshop seeks to break away from the utopian public discourse of the Internets as a-historical and completely dis-attached from existing technology ecologies in the country. This knowledge cluster intends to produce frameworks that help us contextualize the contemporary internet policy, discourse and practice within larger geo-political and socio-historical flows and continuities in Modern India. The first cluster chartsdifferent pre-histories of the Internets, mapping the continuities and ruptures through philosophy of techno-science, archiving practices, and electronifcation of governments,to develop new technology-society perspectives.
Paradigms of Practice:One of the biggest concerns about Internet studies in India and other similar developed contexts is the object oriented approach that looks largely at specific usages, access, infrastructure, etc. However, it is necessary to understand that the Internet is not merely a tool or a gadget. The growth of Internets produces systemic changes at the level of process and thought. The technologies often get appropriated for governance both by the state and the civil society, producing new processes and dissonances which need to be charted. The second cluster looks at certain contemporary processes that the digital and Internet technologies change drastically in order to recalibrate the relationship between the state, the market and the citizen.
Feet on the Ground: The third cluster looks at contemporary practices of the Internet to understand the recent histories of movements, activism and cultural practices online. It offers an innovative way of understanding the physical objects and bodies that undergo dramatic transitions as digital technologies become pervasive, persuasive and ubiquitous. It draws upon historical discourse, everyday practices and cultural performances to form new ways of formulating and articulating the shapes and forms of social and cultural structures.

Workshop Outcomes

The participants are expected to engage with issue of Internet and it various systemic processes through their own disciplinary interests. Apart from lectures and orientation sessions, the participants will actively work on their own project ideas during the period in groups and will be guided by experts. The final outcome of the workshops would be curriculum for undergraduate and graduate teaching space of various disciplines in the country.

Participation Guidelines

LOCATING INTERNETS is now accepting submissions from interested participants in the following format:

Name:
Institutional affiliation and title:
Address:
Email address:
Phone number:
A brief resume of work experience (max. 350 words)
Statement of interest (max. 350 words)
Key concerns you want to address in the Internet and Society field (max. 350 words)
Identification with one Knowledge-cluster of the workshop and a proposal for integrating it in your research/teaching practice (max. 500 words)
Current interface with technologies in your pedagogic practices (max. 350 words)
Additional information or relevant hyperlinks you might want to add (Max. 10 lines)

Notes:

Submissions will be accepted only from participants in India, as attachments in .doc, .docx or .odt formats at locatingInternets@cis-india.org
Submissions made beyond 26th July 2011 may not be considered for participation.
Submissions will be scrutinized by the organisers and selected participants will be informed by the 30th July 2011, about their participation.
Selected participants will be required to make their own travel arrangements to the workshop. A 2nd A.C. train return fare will be reimbursed to the participants. Shared accommodation and selected meals will be provided at the workshop.
A limited number of air-fare reimbursements will be available to participants in extraordinary circumstances. All travel support is only available for domestic travel in the country.

Chairs: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore;

Pratyush Shankar, Associate Professor & Head of Undergraduate Program, Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University

Supported by: Kusuma Foundation, Hyderabad

Experts:Anja Kovacs, Arun Menon, Asha Achuthan, Ashish Rajadhykasha, Aparna Balachandran, Namita Malhotra, Nithin Manayath, Nithya Vasudevan, Pratyush Shankar, Rochelle Pinto and Zainab Bawa

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop

Locating Gender Politics in the New Techno-Industrial Complex: A Lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin

praskrishna — 2011-10-21T08:44:37Z

The Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), IT for Change and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are hosting a lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin, Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women's Studies, Miami University, Ohio, USA at CIS, Bangalore on 23 July, 2010.

Dr. McLaughlin will address the gendered ties that bind the 'new global governance' to the 'new information economy', with a focus on women, work, and information and communication technology.

Dr. McLaughlin is spending two months in India (June and July) to work on a joint research project with IT for Change titled, “Women’s Enterprise and Information Technology”. The study explores ICT policies and practices that seek to integrate women entrepreneurs, especially from the informal and small business sectors, into formal and global markets. She is also part of the Advisory Group of the research program “Gender and Citizenship in the Information Society”, coordinated by IT for Change. This initiative aims to explore the the concept of citizenship, and use citizenship as a framework to understand gender issues implicit in the 'Information Society'.

About Dr. Lisa McLaughlin

Dr. McLaughlin is an Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women's Studies at Miami University-Ohio, USA. She teaches undergraduate courses in media and society, global media, and gender and media. She also teaches graduate seminars in feminist media theory, global media, technology and culture, and media governance. Her research has been published in scholarly journals including as Media, Culture and Society, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Critical Studies in Media Communications, and Sociological Review. She is the author of two forthcoming books, one titled Global Communications and the Public Sphere and the other titled Keywords in International Communications. She also has worked as an academic journal editor and is founding editor, and current co-editor, of an international journal titled Feminist Media Studies. Her research interests include feminist studies, critical theory, gender and information work in the knowledge economy, and global communications governance.

Video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/locating-gender-politics

Local Researcher's Methodology Guide

praskrishna — 2011-11-23T09:25:27Z

This Methodology Guide was developed collaboratively by the project members of “Free Access to Law – Is it Here to Stay?”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/local-researchers-methodology-guide.pdf

Local Researcher's Methodology Guide

praskrishna — 2012-06-21T10:17:20Z

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

Local Researcher's Methodology Guide

praskrishna — 2012-06-21T10:19:00Z

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

Living in a Fish Bowl

praskrishna — 2014-07-16T07:15:22Z

Though India needs a comprehensive law on the right to privacy, it may not be ready for something as avant garde as the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet, argues Shuma Raha

The article by Shuma Raha was published in the Telegraph on July 16, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

If you do a Google search for journalist and television personality Barkha Dutt, a raft of scurrilous information about her pops up. It isn’t tucked away somewhere on the 10th page either — it’s all up front, right there in “autosuggest”, almost prompting you to go and check it out. And thanks to Google’s search algorithm, the more people click on that link, it further strengthens the score for that “hit”.

Dutt says she has brought the matter to the attention of Google, but to no avail. “I have lost interest in the whole struggle,” she says. “But Google definitely needs to do something about the slanderous, inaccurate, fictional information out there that creates a narrative of its own.”

Well, in Europe at least, the tech giant has taken a step in that direction. Late last month, it started erasing search results that threw up information deemed to be “irrelevant”, “outdated” or “excessive”. The move came after the European Court of Justice ruled that Internet search engines would have to allow people the “right to be forgotten” in specific cases and accordingly, take down information about them.

The European Court ruling has triggered a huge debate since an individual’s right to be forgotten seems to be at complete loggerheads with people’s right to know. Nevertheless, it’s a landmark decision when it comes to right to privacy on the Internet. After all, the online space has perma-memory and inaccurate or irrelevant or outdated information about a person can be embedded there forever, damaging him or her in manifold ways.

So how far are we in India from securing the right to be forgotten on the Internet?

The short answer to that is, very far. That is because India does not have a well-defined privacy regime wherein one could envisage a court of law handing out a similar — and some would say a somewhat radical — order on a Google or a Bing. “The right to be forgotten is a bit too advanced for us,” says Sunil Abraham, director, Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit organisation that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy. “After all, we are yet to come up with a privacy and data protection regime that implements the best practices of European countries.”

Adds Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based lawyer, who has written extensively on privacy issues, “Sector specific privacy legislation do exist, but they do not provide substantive rights or efficient remedy in case of violations.”
No one disputes that India should get a right to privacy law, especially one that relates to the collection, processing and use of personal data. Right now the government’s surveillance mechanisms like the Central Monitoring System and the Lawful Interception and Monitoring Systems allow security agencies and income tax authorities to intercept communication, snoop on phone conversations, read emails and SMSes with little or no safeguards for privacy protection.

A right to privacy bill has, in fact, been in the works since as early as 2011. But the government has been dragging its feet over it. Early this year, a new version of the draft bill was “leaked” to the press. But few are happy with it. On the positive side, it raises the penalty for unlawful interception of communication (from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 crore) and increases penalties for other offences such as obtaining personal data under false pretexts. But crucially, it almost wholly exempts intelligence agencies from the purview of the law, thereby allowing them unbridled access to personal information. Of course, no one knows if this “leaked” draft is indeed the official one.

Experts say that the government should really formulate a right to privacy law based on the recommendations of a committee chaired by Justice A.P. Shah. The report, which was published in 2012, proposes that the right to privacy be statutorily extended to all Indians. It recommends, among other things, the appointment of privacy commissioners and the formulation of certain “national privacy principles” such as taking the consent of the individual prior to the collection of data, allowing him the choice to withdraw such consent, limiting the use of personal information to the stated purpose and so on. The privacy principles would apply to all data collectors in both private and public sectors.
There are, of course, a number of provisions in existing laws that relate to privacy. For example, Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, sets down certain privacy safeguards such as maintaining details about the officer ordering an intercept of telecommunication.

Moreover, Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000, prescribes “punishment for the violation of privacy” (in the context of capturing “private” images of a person without his or her consent); Section 43A lays down that a “body corporate” will be liable to pay compensation in case it fails to protect personal data gathered in the course of its operation; and Section 79 stipulates that “intermediaries” — entities such as Google, Facebook, Twitter — would have to take down any information stored or transmitted by them that is found to be grossly harassing, defamatory, blasphemous, obscene, pornographic and so on, within 36 hours of being notified.

Of course, this section of the IT Act has been roundly criticised as arbitrary and Draconian, but that is another story.
The point is that despite the fair number of privacy provisions, in the absence of a comprehensive law, the untrammelled and unauthorised use of personal data cannot be ruled out. “Every country in the world collects personal data. But once the data are collected for a particular purpose they should not be used for any other purpose. The law has to be in a position to catch the violators,” says Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO of Data Security Council of India, an organisation that works to promote data protection and privacy best practices.

As always, the key issue is that an individual’s right to privacy has to be balanced with public interest. And it is in that context that experts feel that even if India were to have a privacy law, it is probably not ready for something akin to the European Court ruling on the right to be forgotten. As Gupta says, “It raises a real danger of public personalities blocking legitimate journalism on grounds of privacy. This is specially true in a country like India which permits a high degree of illegality in the name of secrecy and confidentiality.”

Abraham agrees with that view. “I’m not sure if the right to be forgotten will enhance privacy or usher in a level of censorship,” he says.

As Europe grapples with that debate, India’s privacy warriors are asking for something far more fundamental — a comprehensive law that guarantees the right to privacy to all.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-16-2014-living-in-a-fish-bowl

Lives suspended in the Web

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:45:39Z

When 14-year-old Manish sits behind his laptop, punching away at keys, his facial expressions reflecting his various online interactions, his parents stand in the doorway, watching curiously. Their son is physically at home, but to all purposes, lost in the limbo of the Internet. By all standards, Manish is a good, responsible young adult but his parents worry because they don’t seem to have any control over Manish’s online life. They find it difficult to understand the digital realms that he seamlessly integrates into his life.

As young people across the country are creating these new hybrid physical-digital spaces of work, leisure and lifestyle, the “analogue generations” remain outside, concerned about how they can ensure that their children are safe online, and not abusing the power of this largely unregulated space.

Their paranoia is amplified by the stories of uncontrolled access to pornography, of children falling prey to sexual predators, fears of intellectual property theft, and subversive and violent mobilisations that the young orchestrate through these online networks. The need to regulate, control and design this digital environment that so many of these young people inhabit is countered by their own ignorance and lack of control over these spaces. Technological solutions, like cyber-nannies and filtering software that prevent access to websites that can have questionable content, have eventually proven to be futile preventatives.

Attempts at technology-based censorship are useless because these young people, digital natives, find ways to circumvent the attempts at controlling their access. It is clear that the solutions are outside of technology, and not very different from ways in which parents have always dealt with these questions.

Here are the top five ways to do so, which do not require a parent to become a netizen overnight, but can get them involved and make sure young users of technology remain responsible, safe and canny in their interactions online.

Monitored access: Instead of figuring out censorship software, parents need to learn that as with the TV, monitored access for younger users of the Internet is completely valid. Web 2.0 rhetoric promotes a strong sense of individualism and privacy and parents often feel like they are intruding on a child’s “private” time online. However, it is completely valid for parents to be in the same room and keeping an eye on what their child is up to while surfing.

Limited time: Instead of trying to control the content, try and help the young person to efficiently manage time and digital resources. We live in a world where the impulse to stay constantly connected is very strong. However, there is no reason why the young user has to be online in all their free time. If they are given a specified number of hours a week to spend online, they learn to use their time more efficiently. Password-protect the computers, take limited expenditure accounts for their mobile phones and have strict rules (which everybody in the family has to follow) about interface access during family time.

Shared computers: As computing becomes more personal, young users access the Internet from many computing devices like cellphones, personal laptops, etc. Studies have shown that young users who use shared machines kept in common areas of the house are less prone to accessing undesirable material online. Do not keep the computing devices in bedrooms. Use shared studies or quiet corners of the living room.

Get digital and involved: One of the reasons why young people often do not communicate with parents about their technological forays is because the older generation professes a digital disconnect. Take this opportunity to initiate a two-way learning. Get your children to teach you on how to use certain platforms and websites, and in conversations, you might be able to educate them about responsible behaviour online. This peer-to-peer connection helps establish trust and a safe space to discuss problematic areas. Parents of teenagers who join social networks like Facebook and Tumblr, and get to be a part of the child’s life, often find new channels of communication opening up for them.

Storytelling: Digital storytelling has huge potential for voicing concerns and problems. For these young people, the spaces provided online are safe spaces. They write freely, tell stories, create digital content, providing a gateway into what is happening in their lives. Recognise the creative potential of young users, appreciate their ability to tell these stories — through blogs, micro-blogs, audio and video podcasts, commentary on other content, etc. Getting them to tell stories and sharing your own with them makes for greater insight. Many cross-generational storytelling projects, where younger children tell the stories of the older people in the house, or write a combined blog have proven to be quite successful online.

At the end of the day, it is good to remember that the problems that new technologies throw up are not necessarily new. The solutions need to be found in our everyday interactions and practices, and dependence on technological application is often counter-productive. Technology can only be a way by which solutions are implemented.

The article by Nishant Shah was published in the Indian Express on March 11, 2011. The original can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suspended-in-web