Centre for Internet and Society

Transparent Government, via Webcams in India

praskrishna — 2011-07-21T05:41:53Z

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India — Little Brother is watching you. That is the premise for the webcam that a top government official here has installed in his office, as an anticorruption experiment. Goings-on in his chamber are viewable to the public, 24/7.

The chief minister of Kerala state in India has installed a webcam in his office and puts the feed online as an anticorruption measure.

In an India beset by kickback scandals at the highest reaches of government, and where petty bribes at police stations and motor vehicle departments are often considered a matter of course, Oommen Chandy is making an online stand.

"Instead of taking action against corruption, I believe that we have to create an atmosphere where everything should be in a transparent way," Mr. Chandy, who recently became chief minister of Kerala state after his coalition won a close election, said in an interview in his office. "The people must know everything."

About 100,000 visitors logged in to the video feed on the day it began, July 1. And through last Friday afternoon, it had been visited by 293,586 users.

The chief minister — equivalent to an American governor — gave the interview during a break in negotiations with leaders of the state’s private colleges over the fees they can charge students.

Although the proceedings were being streamed on his office’s Web site, as with everything captured by the webcam there was no audio. (The minister says he wants visitors and aides to speak freely when they meet him.)

Sunil Abraham, the executive director of the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, said he applauded Mr. Chandy’s webcams, even if the effort amounted to no more than tokenism.

"This type of tokenism is also quite useful," said Mr. Abraham, predicting it might check the behavior of not only the chief minister, but also his underlings and the powerful executives and politicians who come to visit him.

Of course, he noted, if people are intent on paying bribes, they could probably still do it outside the office.

Mr. Abraham said webcams might be a far more powerful tool if installed in police stations, drivers’ licenses offices, welfare agencies and other places where Indians interact with officials who sometimes demand bribes to do routine work. A few agencies around the country have started such surveillance, he said, but most have not.

Mr. Chandy’s effort comes as India has been racked by one corruption scandal after another. A former federal telecommunications minister is sitting in jail on charges that he gave cellphone licenses to favored companies, costing the government as much as $40 billion. Several corporate executives, an official involved in planning the Commonwealth Games and the scion of a political family are also behind bars while being tried on various corruption charges.

But transparency is tedious. For most of the day, as the videos stream from the Chandy chambers, the chief minister is either out of the office or sitting with aides and other politicians. The video from a second camera, trained on the outside chamber, shows aides at their desks answering phones or staring into their computer screens.

A career politician and a member of the ruling Congress party, Mr. Chandy, 67, had a webcam in his office when he was chief minister for two years from 2004 to 2006. But his successor, the leader of a communist coalition government, removed the device when he took over. Now in the opposition, the communists deride the webcams as a publicity stunt.

But others see virtue in such efforts, even if the details are still being refined.

In Bangalore, the top executive of a government-owned electricity utility has been using a webcam in his office. The official, P. Manivannan, said he was now installing a "hemispheric" camera that would capture the goings-on in his entire office rather than just show his visitors.

But he said he would no longer broadcast the video stream to the Web site of the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company.

"I have been getting a lot of brickbats because of the cameras,” Mr. Manivannan said in a telephone interview. "My colleagues were telling me, 'What are you trying to prove — that you are the only honest one?' "

Once the new camera is installed, Mr. Manivannan said it would record everything. But anyone interested in viewing segments of the video would have to request the clips, at no cost. That should ease tension in the office, he said, while still keeping things on the up and up.

He said he had success with a similar camera when he was in the city government and some politicians threatened to call a strike unless he reinstated a fired employee. The politicians backed off, Mr. Manivannan said, when he threatened to give a recording of their meeting to local television stations.

"I definitely believe that putting a camera helps you prove that you are accountable," he said. "I would be very happy if tomorrow the government of India decided you must have a camera."

A version of this article appeared in print on July 18, 2011, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Transparent Government, Via Webcams in India.

This news by Vikas Bajaj was published in the New York Times on 17 July 2011. It can be read here. (Photo of Oommen Chandy, the Chief Minister of Kerala taken by Sanjit Das for the New York Times)

The above news was published in other languages as well:

Read the news in wprost here [Polish]
Read the news in ictnews here [Vietnamese]
Read the news in@rret sur images here [French]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/transparent-government-india

Accessibility Policy Making: An International Perspective (Revised Edition 2011)

praskrishna — 2012-12-14T10:27:00Z

A G3ict White Paper researched and edited by the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. Editor: Nirmita Narasimhan, Revised edition: May 2011

In 2009, G3ict published a comparative review of the web and electronic accessibility policies of 15 countries and the European Union intended to serve as a guide to policy makers on how web accessibility has been implemented in different countries. Since then, there have been several relevant developments in the policy landscape, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. The White Paper has been updated to keep abreast of these new changes. Some highlights of the revised White Paper include the updated version of Australia's Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes, issued by the Australian Human Rights Commission under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 in October 2010; the Equality Act 2010 (replacing the Disability Discrimination Act), The Statutory Code of Practice (2010), BS8878:2010 Web accessibility Code of practice replacing the PAS 78 and the e-Accessibility action plan in the U.K.; and the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 in the U.S.A.

The published G3ict White Paper is available here
Click here to download the White Paper [Word Document, 232 KB]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/accessibility-policy-international-perspective

The Walls Have Ears

praskrishna — 2011-07-06T06:26:25Z

The proposed Privacy Bill seems skewed towards the state rather than the citizen, writes Saikat Datta. This news was published in the Outlook magazine, issue, July 11, 2011.

Sometimes the best of intentions can camouflage the worst of motives. On the face of it, the government’s bid to bring in a privacy bill is a welcome move, a long-overdue measure. But after an initial approach paper prepared by lawyers and bureaucrats in November last year, the government went into a secretive huddle. Now a leaked April 19, 2011, version of the bill raises several disturbing questions.

"The idea behind it was to protect privacy but not short-circuit the current systems to combat terror."

K.M. Chandrashekhar, Ex-cabinet secretary

While recognising the need for privacy, the government has also slipped in several clauses that could severely restrict the freedom of the press if enacted in its current form. Worse, it could actually make journalists liable for prosecution as well as imprisonment up to five years. And if that was not bad enough, it does little or nothing to prevent the government from invading a citizen’s privacy. In fact, it will legitimise all forms of intrusion by the state and collection of a wide variety of data from individuals.

TV news channels could be the most affected by this. Sting operations could become a very risky thing in the future, with section four of the proposed bill saying that any form of filming/recording can be deemed as surveillance and anyone doing so without proper authorisation would be liable for prosecution. So if someone was to secretly catch on camera MPs accepting cash for posing questions in Parliament, or record a bureaucrat demanding bribes, chances are he/she will be doing time in jail.

While the proposed draft draws a distinction between data and personal information, it still leaves little room for journalists. For instance, if a reporter were to use "personal information" of an individual for an article without his/her written consent, it will amount to a civil offence and immediately attract a penalty of up to Rs. 1 lakh. If the journalists were to repeat the "offence" by publishing another story using the same material, the penalty goes up to Rs. 5 lakh. So, is the UPA government, under the scanner for a plethora of scams, trying to muzzle the media? It certainly seems so.

"The bill, in its current form, brings an element of pre-censorship that violates our right to speech. It’s disturbing."

Now when it comes to the government’s right to invade a citizen’s privacy, the proposed legislation offers little immunity. It will uphold all existing laws of phone-tapping, interception of communications, collection of statistics and personal data with impunity. "The proposed bill doesn’t change any system or structure of surveillance that are in place today," says Usha Ramanathan, a law researcher who has worked extensively on privacy issues. "Look at the Collection of Statistics Act passed by Parliament last year. You can be penalised for not sharing the information that the government seeks from you. This is very disturbing."

Usha Ramanathan, Law Researcher

Ramanathan’s discomfiture has its reasons. "In the past three years, the government has become far more intrusive than it ever was. All this is asserting the sovereignty of the state over the citizen when the Constitution says that the citizen is supreme. This bill, in its current form, also brings in an element of pre-censorship that violates our fundamental right to speech as well as several judgements of the Supreme Court that ruled against pre-censorship."

On the other hand, former cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrashekhar, a prime mover behind the bill during his tenure, feels that the security needs of the state warrant "lawful" intrusion by it. “The idea was to protect privacy but not short-circuit the current surveillance systems in place for combating terrorism."

"While we accept the primacy of public interest, we must be very, very careful about what is public interest."
Satyananda Mishra, CIC

As far as protecting privacy is concerned, of course all is not bad with the proposed bill. Prashant Iyengar, a researcher with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that has played a leading role in shaping the public discourse on this issue, is hopeful. "For the first time, this bill creates a strong liability for the government. This means that the government can be held liable and penalised for the violation of privacy. It also establishes a routine civil liability against the government for all its lapses in protecting the privacy of citizens... which is very good.” But Prashant also feels that the bill has a long way to go before it resolves some inherent contradictions. “The proposed Act must recognise the concept of public interest while it protects privacy. That is an element missing from the current discourse."

Satyananda Mishra, the chief information commissioner and a former secretary, DoPT, has a nuanced view of the proposed bill. He feels public interest must outweigh privacy in every case. "But while we accept the primacy of public interest, we must be very, very careful about what is public interest," he says.

Mishra, in many ways the country’s biggest trustee of transparency in public life today, suggests a few key modifications in the conditions in the proposed legislature. "We need to understand that after the enactment of the RTI Act, it has become incumbent upon us to have some form of inherent disclosure in all our public dealings. This will also safeguard our privacy from the government."

The relationship between citizen and government, says Mishra, is guided by a social contract. "People elect governments and trust them with their lives and liberty in the promise that the government will exercise its powers for their welfare. But there could be instances where the government breaks that promise. It could legitimately tap someone’s phone through legal means, but with malicious intent."

To prevent this, Mishra suggests a modification to the proposed Privacy Act. "Let there be disclosure of all such events, after a reasonable period of time, of any effort by the government to invade the privacy of citizens. For instance, if it needs to tap the phones of a person, then it must be disclosed after a period of time. After all, phones can be tapped legally only to protect the interests of the state. So it should either lead to a criminal prosecution or a disclosure after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed. That is the only way we will be able to curb the intrusive powers of the state and protect the privacy of citizens." Prashant of CIS agrees with Mishra’s suggestion. "In the United States, all wire-tapping laws have a clause for disclosure. This way, a citizen will know if his privacy has been violated lawfully or not."

Now if a reporter were to use "personal info" without consent, it will mean a civil offence, a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh.

While the government will take its time to introduce the bill in Parliament, it needs to be more transparent in its deliberations. Right now two ministries are working simultaneously on the same bill. While the ministry of law and justice under Veerappa Moily is busy shaping its draft, the ministry of personnel, training and public grievances under the prime minister is busy formulating its own version. While they work on it, what both ministries must recognise is that nothing is private about public policy.

Click here to see the story originally published by Outlook

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/walls-have-ears

Aadhaar’s moment of truth

praskrishna — 2011-07-05T07:16:58Z

It’s time for the unique identity project to answer tough questions it has dodged so far, writes MA Arun in the Deccan Herald.

On June 25, 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh generated one of the biggest feel-good headlines of UPA2. He appointed former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani as Chairperson of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which had been set up to assign a unique number to every resident of the country.

UIDAI – billed as the world’s largest e-governance project – presented a numbing technical challenge. Fingerprint and iris samples of one billion plus Indian residents had to be collected along with details of name, gender, birth date and address. A unique identity had to be assigned to each resident in return and then authenticate it online whenever called for.

Nilekani using his stature in the IT industry assembled a smart team of engineers, who could take the challenge head on. He also started tirelessly crisscrossing the country promoting the project and tying up with different government agencies and PSUs.

He addressed countless gatherings conveying a simple message: Indian growth has bypassed the poor and giving them legal identity was the first step in acknowledging their existence and making government services accessible.

In the last two years, there has been a little change in his script and in the response of the audience, which has by and large remained breathless and adulatory. There have been a few jarring notes. Once in a while he is accosted by individuals and organisations, who say the project takes away their privacy.

Most memorably, on January 7, 2011, Nilekani faced an uncharacteristically unruly audience at IISc, Bangalore, which demanded strong protection to privacy. People who attended the meeting found Nilekani evasive as protesting students waved placards outside the venue, urging him to go back.

But for the media, this reporter included, the dissenting opinion from possibly fringe protesters, sounded exaggerated, making too much of a small issue, debating an academic issue of little practical value.

Perhaps reflecting the larger prevailing sentiments on Aadhaar, Sujeet Pillai of Feecounter, says with the rise of social networking, privacy has already eroded. "We put more information on Facebook and Twitter than we share with Aadhaar. The benefits of the project outweigh the cost," he adds.

Many say it is only the middleclass which worries about privacy, while the poor would be more concerned about the benefits. Trying to address privacy concerns, Aadhaar officials have maintained they collect just basic details, enrollment is voluntary and information is encrypted. Your approval is required to authenticate your identity and while revealing who you are, the system just gives a yes or no response, they say.

Over the last year Aadhaar has picked up steam and observers, who expected the bureaucracy to resist, given its anti-corruption overtone, are mildly surprised. Various government departments are embracing it in competition. Several central ministries, state governments, PSUs have begun to tie their programmes to the Aadhaar number.

Aadhaar officials say they are on course to enroll 600 million by 2014 and by October this year they expect to start enrolling one million numbers a day. The pilot projects at Mysore, Tumkur and Hyderabad have already enrolled 85 per cent of the population and the project is ramping up to other districts and states.

Early last month the Cabinet Committee on Security in a seemingly unrelated move gave partial approval for a Home ministry project, National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid). The development alarmed the privacy advocates to again raise a cry over Aadhaar. Among other things, Natgrid, being run by an ex-army man, Capt Raghu Raman, reportedly seeks to integrate 21 databases - railways, airlines, stock exchanges, income tax, bank account details, credit card transactions, visa and immigration records, telecom service providers and chemical vendors.

Most of us reading this article appear in many these databases, which today are islands of information controlled by different government agencies. They cover different segments of the population and may overlap to some extent. Stitching together these disparate databases together would require a mammoth exercise to uniquely identify all Indian residents. That is precisely what Aadhaar, the missing link, is doing, say critics.

"If Aadhaar ever succeeds in assigning a unique number to all residents, it will take a maximum of two years to create a common Natgrid database. Using a terminal in his office, a cop would be able to watch whatever you do - travelling, talking, buying - in real time. The surveillance technology is pretty straightforward," says noted security expert and IIT Mumbai alumni, Dr Samir Kelekar of Teknotrends.

The system is being designed to catch terrorists and criminals, say Natgrid supporters. "But why subject the entire population to potentially the same level of surveillance," asks Sunil Abraham of Centre for Internet and Society.

Noted jurist Usha Ramanathan says since 2008 several measures such as the Collection of Statistics Act, The Information Technology Act, Aadhaar, National Grid have come about to collect information about people. “After 9/11 in the guise of homeland security USA expanded police powers. Something similar is happening in India after 26/11,” she says.

The claims of Aadhaar benefiting the poor is untested as there has been no feasibility study, she adds. "This is a security project masquerading as an anti-poverty project," says Abraham.

Aadhaar has eluded a debate so far on these issues, say critics. Ramanathan says she made three attempts in November 2009, July 2010 and February 2011 to engage Nilekani, Aadhaar Director General R S Sharma and few other project officials on the issue.

Dubious demands

A New Delhi-based Aadhaar government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was no discussion within the project on the potential risks it posed. "The main focus is in making a paradigm shift in governance and reaching out to the poor to ensure that the Rs 3,26,000 crore being spent on subsidy is not pilfered," he said.

But he went on to acknowledge that Aadhaar was like 'nuclear energy', which could be used to either make bombs or generate electricity. “It is for the media and civil society to apply pressure for the right safeguards," he said.

While the engineers and bureaucrats are steamrolling the project, the laws of the land and the promised safeguards are yet to catch up with it.

Indian judiciary has also given a free hand to the law enforcement authorities to conduct surveillance. According to the latest Google Transparency Report, Indian government officials made 67 requests to remove contentious items from various Google services between July to December 2010. Only 6 requests were backed by court orders and rest were demands made by police and other executive agencies.

Why is Nilekani who has emerged as the face of Aadhaar silent about the security dimension of the project, ask critics. After all, the Infosys credo is to ‘disclose when in doubt’, they point out. "Nilekani and team are good people without any evil intention. They have never lived in villages and believe that technology can solve any problem," says Abraham.

Ramanathan differs. "In 2009, I would have said he was unaware of the possible risks of Aadhaar. I will not attribute that innocence to him anymore. People in power tend to be blinded by it," she says.

"Their response has varied from ‘nobody else is asking these questions’, ‘have not come prepared to address these issues today’ and ‘we will get back to you’," she says.

Critics also accuse Aadhaar officials of presenting a misleading picture. Enrollment started as a voluntary exercise, but is now being made mandatory to get LPG cylinders. "They were supposed to collect only basic details, but Aadhaar enrollment forms now ask for email ids and phone numbers," Ramanathan said.

This news appeared in the Deccan Herald on 5 July 2011. The original post can be read here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/aadhaar-truth

Sorry Wrong Number

praskrishna — 2011-07-08T04:11:02Z

The government’s ambitious project to give a unique identification number to every Indian citizen is running woefully behind schedule. T.V. Jayan investigates the problems that beset the project. The news was published in the Telegraph on 3 July 2011.

It was supposed to be a smooth, if mammoth, operation — one where a 12-digit unique identification (UID) or aadhaar number would be provided to every Indian citizen within a specified time frame. Yet less than a year after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi launched it with much fanfare in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district, the ambitious project seems mired in problems.

In Nandurbar itself, the pace of implementation has been agonisingly slow. As against the enrolment target of 2.6 lakh people by June end, only 1.17 lakh people have been enrolled so far.

And Nandurbar is just one case in point. In most districts and states, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the body that is overseeing the project, is struggling to meet its target. Only three states have crossed the one million mark in providing aadhaar numbers to their citizens. Andhra Pradesh leads the pack with nearly 3.5 million UIDs, followed by Karnataka (1.82 million) and Maharashtra (1.6 million). The total enrolment, according to the UIDAI website, stands at 9.5 million as on June 27. The plan, though, is to provide aadhaar numbers to 600 million people by 2014 — a target that will surely remain way out of reach if the UIDAI continues with its current pace of work.

Forget the debate on whether or not the UID project will compromise a citizen’s right to privacy. Right now, the big issue facing it is that it’s beset with a host of operational problems. “There are issues at all levels — conceptual, technology, logistics and at the implementation stages. Unless we resolve them fast, there could be inordinate delays. The project could even be derailed,” says a senior manager at one of the biggest enrolment agencies empanelled with the UIDAI, on condition of anonymity.

The UID programme works something like this. The UIDAI has appointed a large number of registrars, which are either state or central government departments, or public sector banks and insurance companies. The registrars, in turn, have enlisted the services of private firms to enrol people and collect demographic and biometric data such as their finger prints, iris scans and so on. So far 209 firms have been enlisted as enrolment agencies (EAs). While most of them are information technology firms, stock broking companies, financial service companies and even printing presses have been commissioned to obtain the UID enrolment data.

Once the EAs collect the information, the data packets are sent to the respective registrar to be vetted and thence to the UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) in Bangalore. The CIDR checks the data packets for authenticity and makes sure that there has been no duplication of data — in case an individual has been enrolled more than once. When all the processes are cleared, a UID number is generated against the person’s name, which is delivered to him or her by post.

Incidentally, the government is yet to announce the cost of the entire project, although UIDAI director general Ram Sewak Sharma reveals that the cost of generating each aadhaar number would be about Rs 150.

What is also slowing down the project is the process of “de-duplication” of data. UIDAI technology head Srikanth Nadhamuni admits that the biometric service providers who help the CIDR check duplication in biometric records now take a couple of minutes to process a single data packet. As a result, right now the UIDAI can issue fewer than 50,000 aadhaar numbers a day. And yet, it plans to generate one million numbers daily by October this year. To achieve this target the UIDAI should be processing 11 data packets per second during a 24-hour cycle.

UIDAI director general Sharma feels that these are niggling problems that will soon be resolved. “Kindly understand that the world has not seen this scale of de-duplication thus far,” he exclaims. “The IT systems, both hardware and software, are continuously being tuned to scale up to these numbers.”

UIDAI’s chief technology architect Prashant Varma is also optimistic. “These things need not be done sequentially. If we have enough computing power it can be carried out in a parallel manner,” he says, adding that more hardware is on its way to streamline the de-duplication process.

But others hold out a much bleaker view. “The de-duplication algorithm will get slower and slower as the size of the database grows. The authority has also not been transparent about the de-duplication process,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore.

Enrolment agencies too say that the problem is far more serious than what the UIDAI admits. “Currently, they are processing data packets that we had sent in April,” says the state head of an EA working with the commissioner of civil supplies in Andhra Pradesh.

Again, the fact that the UIDAI is taking an inordinately long time to generate the aadhaar numbers — about three to four months from the time of data collection, in place of a month as originally planned — is creating its own complications. Thanks to the time lag, a citizen who is unsure of his UID status may go to another enrolment agency associated with yet another registrar. So his data is collected again and sent to the CIDR for registration once more. This leads to duplication of data and hence, further increases the de-duplication workload.

What’s more, it also hits the margins of enrolment agencies as the UIDAI pays only once for someone’s data. So any EA that unwittingly collects the personal data of a citizen the second time will not be paid for its pains.

In fact, the EAs are beginning to realise that the work is barely financially viable for them. Having procured the enrolment job through competitive bidding, they are now finding out that the rates are abysmally low. “If one EA quotes a low price, others are asked to match it if they want to work with the same registrar,” says an executive with an EA, who does not wish to reveal his or his agency’s name.

“For instance, a Noida-based firm, which bagged the tender for 200 enrolment stations to be set up in Hyderabad from the commissioner of civil supplies in Andhra Pradesh, had quoted a figure of Rs 23 per enrolment. We all knew this was a ridiculously low amount as an ideal per capita enrolment cost should be between Rs 30 and 35. But others working in the Hyderabad area had no choice but to quote a figure very close to it,” he says.

Then again, because enrolment agencies are paid only after their enrollees have received the UID numbers, and because these numbers are taking months to be generated, the EAs are not getting paid on time. “We are already working on tiny margins. So if the cash flow is tight, we find it difficult to pay salaries to people who work on the ground,” says an enrolment agency official.

Admittedly, while the profitability of an EA need not be the UIDAI’s concern, it certainly needs to check if enrolment is being affected because the EAs are cutting corners to stay within their budgets.

The EAs are also witnessing high attrition rates among enrolment operators. These operators, who have to clear a certification exam before they can enrol people, work for three or four months and leave if some other agency offers them more money, reveals Sudhanva Kimmane of Comat Technologies, a Bangalore-based EA. Since getting a new operator certified takes about 20 to 25 days, the deadline goes for a toss.

Sometimes, the unreasonable demands of state governments also lead to delays. Karnataka, for instance, has asked registrars working in the state to gather information on as many as 19 counts. “Filling out so many additional fields reduces the number of enrolments that an operator can complete in a day and thus makes our targets go awry,” says an EA working in Karnataka.

Experts feel that one of the biggest flaws of the UID project is that it was launched all across the country without trial runs in small areas. “Whether in the private sector or the public sector, if a new project is being undertaken, it is usually tested in a small area before being launched on a large scale,” says an IT expert who has been involved with launching e-governance programmes in Kerala. “This way you suss out the feasibility of the project. Also, it helps to resolve all possible problems that may be encountered during the full roll-out. Why didn’t they first test the UID programme in a district, and then in a state before taking it pan India,” he asks.

With so many problems bedevilling the project, many people are sceptical of its success. Asks R. Ramakumar, associate professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, “Will the benefits accruing from the project justify the huge expenses involved?” He points out that a similar project in the UK — that aimed to create a National Identity Register — was scrapped by the government in December. The London School of Economics, which analysed the proposal, found that the cost could end up being 10 times more than what was envisaged. “If the technologies involved are so infallible, why did a few developed countries which tried to use them drop them eventually,” he asks.

Clearly, there are too many uncomfortable questions facing the UIDAI right now. It remains to be seen if it is merely experiencing teething troubles or if India’s zillion-rupee aadhaar number scheme will tie itself into knots even before it gets to the halfway mark.

GLITCHES GALORE

Slipping targets: Only three states have crossed the one million mark in providing aadhaar numbers to their citizens. Total enrolment stands at 9.5 million as on June 27. The goal is to provide aadhaar numbers to 600 million people by 2014.

Slow data crunching: Processing each data packet now takes a couple of minutes. To achieve the target of generating one million UID numbers daily by October this year, the UIDAI should be processing 11 data packets a second during a 24-hour cycle.

Devil is in duplication: Since the UIDAI is taking about three to four months to generate an aadhaar number, a citizen who is unsure of his UID status may go to another enrolment agency. So his data are collected again and sent to the CIDR for registration once more. This increases the de-duplication workload and slows down the entire process even more.

High attrition rates: Enrolment operators, who have to clear a certification exam before they can enrol people, work for three or four months and leave if some other agency offers them more money. Since getting a new operator certified takes about 20 to 25 days, the enrolment agency’s target goes for a toss.

Click here to read the original in the Telegraph

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sorry-wrong-number

June 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-30T07:14:57Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage:

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Six monographs Rewiring Bodies, Archive and Access, Pornography and the Law, The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem - An Inquiry into Technology and Governance, Transparency and Politics and Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities are published online and will be launched later this year.

CEPT to Set up Centre to Research Role of Internet in Social Development [Published in the Indian Express on June 18, 2011]

Upcoming Event in CEPT, Ahmedabad

Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation [Deadline for submission – 15 July 2011; Workshop from 19 to 22 August 2011]

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.

The Digital Natives Newsletter

The Digital Dinosaurs [Volume 5]

Pathways

HE Cell's initiative on social justice, in collaboration with CIS, has initiated the Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education. It is supported by the Ford Foundation. Under this project, nine under-graduate colleges in different parts of India will be identified to provide special skills in livelihood, knowledge and technology to underprivileged students in those colleges.

New Blog Entry

Pathways for Learning in Higher Education

Accessibility

Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.

New Blog Entries

Policy Spotlight: 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act [Written by Deepti Bharthur; contains an e-mail interview with Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director for Government Affairs and head of the Telecommunications & Technology Policy Initiative at the American Association of People with Disabilities ]
ICT Accessibility in Sri Lanka [Written by Nirmita Narasimhan]

Intellectual Property

CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.

Statement

Statement of CIS, India, on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 22nd SCCR

New Blog Entry

Putting a Lid on Royalty Outflows — How the RBI can Help Reduce your IP Costs [Written by Sanjana Govil]

Openness

CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software.

Submission

Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy [submitted to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure]

Internet Governance

Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:

New Articles

The Present — and Future — Dangers of India's Draconian New Internet Regulations [By Anja Kovacs in the Caravan on June 1, 2011]
Big Brother is Watching You [By Sunil Abraham in Deccan Herald on June 1, 2011]
The Digital is Political [By Nishant Shah in Down to Earth, Issue of June 15, 2011]
Do You Want to be Watched? [By Sunil Abraham in Pragati on June 8, 2011]
Snooping Can Lead to Data Abuse [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 9, 2011]
Privacy and Security Can Co-exist [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 21, 2011]

Column in Indian Express

Nishant Shah, Director-Research will be writing a series of columns on Internet and Society issues:

Say 'Password' in Hindi [By Nishant Shah in the Indian Express, May 15, 2011]

Upcoming Event

Socio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla [at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, July 8, 2011]

CIS is doing a project, ‘Privacy in Asia’. It is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and the International Development Research Centre, Canada and is being administered in collaboration with the Society and Action Group, Gurgaon. The two-year project commenced on 24 March 2010 and will be completed as agreed to by the stakeholders. It was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around challenges and violations of privacy in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.

Featured Research

New Articles

A Street View of Private and the Public [By Prashant Iyengar in Tehelka on June 4, 2011]
The new Right to Privacy Bill 2011 — A Blind Man's View of the Elephunt [By Prashant Iyengar in Privacy India website on June 8, 2011]

New Blog Entry

Bloggers' Rights Subordinated to Rights of Expression: Cyber Law Expert

Event organised in Guwahati

Privacy matters [Donbosco Institute, Kharguli, Guwahati, June 23, 2011]

Upcoming Events

Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden [TERI, Bangalore, June 27, 2011]
Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Hyderabad [Osmania University Center for International Program, Hyderabad, July 9, 2011]

Telecom

The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this:

Articles by Shyam Ponappa

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.

NTP 2011 Objective: Broadband [published in the Business Standard on June 2, 2011]

Miscellaneous

Technology, Transparency and Accountability: A Bar-Camp in Delhi [June 5, 2011, Delhi]
Communication Policy Advocacy, Technology, and Online Freedom of Expression: A Toolkit for Media Development [June 20 – July 1, 2011, Budapest, Hungary]

News & Media Coverage

Your cyber space is a hackers paradise [Mail Today, June 6, 2011]
Centaur website reveals guests' personal info [Times of India, June 20, 2011]
Mumbai Takes Note of Sexting, the Seamier Side of Texting [Times of India, June 19, 2011]
Look what the state just did to you [Mid Day, June 12, 2011]
Tough neighbourhood tests India's e-tolerance [Times of India, June 12, 2011]
India Weighing Looser Web Rules [Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2011]
Public data on the Web leaves much to be desired [Hindu, May 28, 2011]
What documents will you need, to get UID? [CitizenMatters.in, May 28, 2011]
Mobile education comes to villages [Mail Today, May 27, 2011]
Google now stalks your street [Hindu, May 27, 2011]
Women in love with Facebook [Deccan Herald, May 27, 2011]
Google Unveils Controversial Street View Mapping in B’lore [Economic Times, Mumbai, May 27, 2011]
NGOs say eG8 report must stress internet rights [TELECOMPAPER, May 26, 2011]

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Follow CIS on identi.ca
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2011-bulletin

The Centre for Internet and Society - Bulletin - July '11

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:43:57Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage. Subscribe to our newsletter and get monthly updates in your inbox and read it at your convenience. The newsletter issue of June 2011 can be accessed here! Click below to download previous issues.

Researchers@Work

# New Blog Entry

CEPT to Set up Centre to Research Role of Internet in Social Development [Published in the Indian Express on June 18, 2011]

# Upcoming Event in CEPT, Ahmedabad

Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation [Deadline for submission – 15 July 2011; Workshop from 19 to 22 August 2011]

* Digital Natives*

# The Digital Natives Newsletter

The Digital Dinosaurs [Volume 5]

* Pathways*

# New Blog Entry

Pathways for Learning in Higher Education

Accessibility

# New Blog Entries

Policy Spotlight: 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act [Written by Deepti Bharthur; contains an e-mail interview with Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director for Government Affairs and head of the Telecommunications & Technology Policy Initiative at the American Association of People with Disabilities ]
ICT Accessibility in Sri Lanka [Written by Nirmita Narasimhan]

Intellectual Property

# Statement

Statement of CIS, India, on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 22nd SCCR

# New Blog Entry

Putting a Lid on Royalty Outflows — How the RBI can Help Reduce your IP Costs [Written by Sanjana Govil]

Openness

# Submission

Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy [submitted to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure]

# Comments

Comments on Draft National Policy on ICT in School Education

Internet Governance

Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as "the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet."

# New Articles

The Present — and Future — Dangers of India's Draconian New Internet Regulations [By Anja Kovacs in the Caravan on June 1, 2011]
Big Brother is Watching You [By Sunil Abraham in Deccan Herald on June 1, 2011]
The Digital is Political [By Nishant Shah in Down to Earth, Issue of June 15, 2011]
Do You Want to be Watched? [By Sunil Abraham in Pragati on June 8, 2011]
Snooping Can Lead to Data Abuse [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 9, 2011]
Privacy and Security Can Co-exist [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 21, 2011]

Columns in Indian Express
Nishant Shah, Director-Research is writing a series of columns on Internet and Society issues:

Say 'Password' in Hindi [By Nishant Shah in the Indian Express, May 15, 2011]

# Upcoming Event

Socio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla [at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, July 8, 2011]

# Featured Research

# New Articles

A Street View of Private and the Public [By Prashant Iyengar in Tehelka on June 4, 2011]
The new Right to Privacy Bill 2011 — A Blind Man's View of the Elephunt [By Prashant Iyengar in Privacy India website on June 8, 2011]

# New Blog Entry

Bloggers' Rights Subordinated to Rights of Expression: Cyber Law Expert

# Event Organised in Guwahati

Privacy matters [Donbosco Institute, Kharguli, Guwahati, June 23, 2011]
Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Hyderabad [The English and Foreign Languages University (TBC), Hyderabad, June 18, 2011]

# Upcoming Events

Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden [TERI, Bangalore, June 27, 2011]
Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Hyderabad [Osmania University Center for International Program, Hyderabad, July 9, 2011]

Telecom

# Articles by Shyam Ponappa

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.

NTP 2011 Objective: Broadband [published in the Business Standard on June 2, 2011]

* Miscellaneous *

# Technology, Transparency and Accountability: A Bar-Camp in Delhi [June 5, 2011, Delhi]

Communication Policy Advocacy, Technology, and Online Freedom of Expression: A Toolkit for Media Development [June 20 – July 1, 2011, Budapest, Hungary]

News & Media Coverage

Your cyber space is a hackers paradise [Mail Today, June 6, 2011]
Centaur website reveals guests' personal info [Times of India, June 20, 2011]
Mumbai Takes Note of Sexting, the Seamier Side of Texting [Times of India, June 19, 2011]
Look what the state just did to you [Mid Day, June 12, 2011]
Tough neighbourhood tests India's e-tolerance [Times of India, June 12, 2011]
India Weighing Looser Web Rules [Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2011]
Public data on the Web leaves much to be desired [Hindu, May 28, 2011]
What documents will you need, to get UID? [CitizenMatters.in, May 28, 2011]
Mobile education comes to villages [Mail Today, May 27, 2011]
Google now stalks your street [Hindu, May 27, 2011]
Women in love with Facebook [Deccan Herald, May 27, 2011]
Google Unveils Controversial Street View Mapping in B’lore [Economic Times, Mumbai, May 27, 2011]
NGOs say eG8 report must stress internet rights [TELECOMPAPER, May 26, 2011]

* Follow us Elsewhere*

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Follow CIS on identi.ca
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

Socio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla

praskrishna — 2011-06-24T11:37:52Z

The Centre for Internet and Society invites you to a public lecture by Prof. Radhika Gajalla of Bowling Green State University. She will give a lecture on how microfinance online functions through the social networked online space and the micro-transactional abilities of the interface together work to enhance financialization of the globe.

In her lecture, she will focus on how this is made possible by the increased digitalization of financial practices and the role micro practices play in producing globalization. She will also lay emphasis on the fact that the increased digitalization of finance also means that "financial literacy" is also removed into the virtual space so that it is further away from subaltern daily praxis while simultaneously staging subaltern presence in cosmopolitan space through mobilizing structures of 'feeling' that Dr. Shameem Black refers to as "sentimental sympathy".

Prof. Gajalla’s lecture will also touch upon issues like what online socially networked micro-credit websites do visually and through the use of multiple tools that are embedded in the discourse of interactivity is to make it seem as if the subaltern is indeed participating in these networks. Thus, the appearance of a subaltern presence is produced. In this production of appearance of the subaltern presence in online contexts, just as in other visual and static contexts, the complexity of socio-cultural and economic intersections are not clearly revealed or accounted for. This reproduces exotic notions of the authentic, mummified ‘other’ and offers the subaltern image up for consumption. In turn, as Web 2.0 tools are set up to actually reach the offline subaltern via non-profit or for profit representatives that connect to these online networks, the subaltern in turn is tapped as a consumer for capital.

Radhika Gajjala

Radhika Gajjala is a Professor of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University and Director of the American Culture Studies program. Her book, "Cyber Selves: Feminist Ethnographies of South Asian Women" was published in 2004. She has co-edited collections on "South Asian Technospaces", "Global Media Culture and Identity" and "Webbing Cyberfeminist Practice: Communities, Pedagogies, and Social Action". She is presently working on a forthcoming book, "Weavings of the Real and Virtual: Cyberculture and the Subaltern" to be published in 2012 and is also working on two interrelated projects — one on "Microfinance Online and Money in Virtual Worlds and Social Media" in relation to the ITization and NGOization of global socio-economic work and play environments and the other on "Coding and Placement of Affect and Labour in Digital Diasporas".

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks

Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden

praskrishna — 2011-09-08T03:19:35Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, invites you to a public lecture by Caspar Bowden*, the Chief Privacy Adviser of Microsoft’s Worldwide Technology Office, on Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?

Abstract

In 2000, as Director of the independent think-tank, "Foundation for Information Policy Research", Caspar led a campaign to revise several aspects of a new comprehensive UK law governing electronic surveillance ("the RIP Act"). UK legislated in this area many years before most other countries, and the approach was widely criticized although some amendments were achieved. After a hiatus of a decade, many Commonwealth countries are now copying the RIP law (evidently unaware of the original controversies over its defects). Caspar will discuss the legal-technical intricacies of such legislation, the underlying policy dilemmas, the background context of the failed 1990s policy of “key escrow”, and the subsequent privacy catastrophe of blanket retention of the “traffic data” of all of the 500m citizens of the EU.

Caspar Bowden

Caspar Bowden is Microsoft's Worldwide Technology Officer for Privacy, providing advice on technology policy matters concerning privacy in over 40 countries, with particular focus on Europe and regions with horizontal privacy law. His goal is to ensure that users of Microsoft products and services are in control of their personal data and that fair information practices are respected. He is a specialist in data protection policy, privacy enhancing technology research, identity management and authentication.

Earlier he was the director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research and was also an expert adviser to the UK Parliament for the passage of three bills concerning privacy issues, and was co-organizer of the influential Scrambling for Safety public conferences on UK encryption and surveillance policy. His previous career over two decades ranged from investment banking (proprietary trading risk-management for option arbitrage), to software engineering (graphics engines and cryptography), including work for Goldman Sachs, Microsoft Consulting Services, Acorn, Research Machines, and IBM.

Who should attend?

This public talk aims to engage in a dialogue with anybody interested in questions of technology, surveillance, policy and the politics of Internet based governance. Students, research scholars, academics, practitioners, those in the business of technology development, design and study, are invited to attend the lecture that approaches the issue from different angles of technology, society and politics.

Entry: Free; Limited Seating

Registration recommended: prasad@cis-india.org

For additional info click here [PDF, 521 kb]

* Caspar is speaking in his private capacity and his remarks do not necessarily reflect any official Microsoft position

Videos

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture

Statement of CIS, India, on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 22nd SCCR

praskrishna — 2011-08-04T04:41:12Z

The twenty-second session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is being held in Geneva from June 15 to June 24, 2011. Nirmita Narasimhan and Pranesh Prakash are attending the conference. CIS delivered its statement, on the Broadcast Treaty, and made it available in print form as well.

The Centre for Internet and Society would like to associate itself with the comprehensive statement made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). We are one of the signatories of the joint statement, which EFF referred to, of the many civil society non-governmental organizations, cable casters and technology companies opposing an intellectual property rights based Broadcasting Treaty.

We believe that the protection that may be afforded to broadcasters under existing international treaties, including Article 14 of the TRIPS Agreement, are sufficient to safeguard the interests of broadcasters, and that the Broadcast Treaty, which has been under discussion for more than a decade without any progress is, as the WIPO Chair observed in the conclusion to the informal summary prepared after the 16th SCCR (SCCR/17/1/inf), an expenditure of "time, energy and resources to no avail". Without prejudice to that position, we would like to make a few points on the content of the treaty as well.

There has been talk of ensuring a technology-neutral approach. While a technology-neutral approach is useful since technology keeps changing, we believe that that necessarily means the differences between different technologies should be recognized. The capital costs and investments of traditional broadcasters, which are—as has been highlighted in the many statements here today—the basis on which broadcasters' rights are demanded, are not in the least comparable with the capital costs and investments of webcasting.

These differences have not come out adequately in the various regional seminars that WIPO helped organize, since those were mostly with traditional broadcasters and did not cover webcasters.

"Communication to the public", while that is a technologically neutral formulation, is an element of copyright, and is not the same of broadcast rights, which is a related right.

Any departure from a signal-based approach would require the assent of the WIPO General Assembly, which has in 2007 specifically requested for signal-based approach for the treaty.

Specifically, we believe that Paragraph 16 of the WIPO Development Agenda, which relates to preservation of a vibrant public domain, will be endangered by a right being given to webcasters which is separate from the underlying content of the transmission.

In this regard, we strongly support the delegations of South Africa and India, in their strong pronunciation of public interests while looking at such a treaty. We further support the delegation of Canada, for strongly emphasizing the need to allow countries the flexibility to opt-out of the provisions of the treaty for certain forms of broadcasting.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sccr-22-broadcast-cis-statement

Policy Spotlight: 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act

praskrishna — 2011-11-08T10:18:29Z

The means and modes of communication have changed drastically in today’s age and the earlier bright lines, if they ever did exist have become increasingly blurred. The mainstreaming of social media has brought forth some new questions to the forefront, the issue of accessibility being one of them. Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director for Government Affairs and head of the Telecommunications & Technology Policy Initiative at the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), elaborates more on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act in this interview.

The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (21st CVAA) passed in October 2010 by the United States is a response to the regulatory challenges that the new generation of telecommunication, internet and digital communication devices present for persons with disabilities.

What does the Act do?

21st CVAA is an update to the Communications Act of the United States and brings in new rules for ensuring accessibility to persons with disabilities as technologies change and advance.

The Act extends federal law provisions for hearing aid compatibility for manufactured and imported telephones to all equipment and devices that offer IP-enabled communication services such as smart phones, PDAs, tablet devices, etc.

It also requires all internet based communication technologies to be accessible to persons with disabilities except in cases where it would result in an 'undue burden'[1] on the manufacturer or service provider. In such cases, the latter must then ensure that the equipment and services are compatible with third party assistive technologies to enable use by persons with disabilities.

In addition, 21st CVAA puts in place accountability measures to ensure better enforcements of the accessibility measures outlined under section 255 of the Rehabilitation Act and identifies persons with disabilities as a specific user group that can receive the benefits of universal service programs including broadband connectivity and USD 10 million annual support for assistive technologies. A section of the Act also deals with emergency access and Real-Time Text[2] support.

Video accessibility is a major component of the Act, with provisions having been created for closed captioning and video descriptions of television and web video content (with the exception of online only video programming), accessible programming guide and user interfaces. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is still in the process of rolling out regulations for these provisions.

Jenifer Simpson

Could you briefly trace the kind of advocacy and work that has gone into getting this law enacted?

Advocacy for the 21st CVAA was, and continues to be based in coalition work by disability organizations. First formed in March 2007, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) grew very rapidly due to the strength of its communications advocacy agenda. The groups lobbied the U.S. Congress for three years, conducting both grass roots efforts utilizing the member groups’ leaders and membership, and worked at the national level, providing witnesses and testimony at three Congressional hearings and working hard to bring knowledge of the effort to the larger disability community. The COAT leadership met intensively with industry representatives from the television, communications, and information technology sectors, and then in 2010 saw the legislation passed in both houses (U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate) with signature by the President in October 2010. Note that the final Bill differed somewhat from the Bill that was first introduced in December 2009 as a result of the consultative process with industry and legislators. Critical to advocacy was the role of electronic social media such as a blog-website, an E-list, a Twitter or a Facebook account. This kept everyone informed as to what was going on and is a key way to ensure that everyone knew what was being done.

Where does the 21st CCVA stand as of now, what processes must be completed before it becomes fully effective?

Attached is a copy of the schedule for the rulemakings. Right now this law is enacted. We are in the implementation stage with the implementing federal agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent federal government agency, issuing proposed rules or regulations. During that process everyone has a chance to be heard all over again and to influence what will be the final rules. We do have one final rule issued, that is, for the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution program that the new law required. To ensure full implementation, advocacy groups have to be directly involved in the rulemaking processes at the FCC. This includes commenting into the proposed rules, participating in any standards development bodies and otherwise being at the table.

What in your view are its greatest strengths and its failings?

The greatest strength of the new law is that it is based on feasibility. That is, most of the requirements are not new, they are extensions of what was already required, except now, with communications and other technologies connecting largely with the Internet, these older requirements must now be extended to internet-enablement. Furthermore, most of the solutions for accessibility that the new law requires do not require rocket science or major research and development; technological solutions are known in many cases or can be developed easily and widely disseminated. Many will be software solutions that can be developed as part of the usual product design and development cycle, if the entity is willing to do this.

The only failing is that we didn’t really get to go far enough due to industry pushback. For instance, we started out wanting a requirement for captioning and video/audio description of all video material that would be displayed and distributed via the Internet. We did not get this. But we got major steps forward in these areas. That is, a requirement for captioning of any TV shown on the Internet and reinstatement of video description of TV. We also succeeded in ensuring that browsers in cell phones would be designed for accessibility so that blind users who might reach internet content that is accessible would have an accessible ‘ramp’ to that content.

What are the shortcomings of the earlier Communications Act that you would say 21st CCVA addresses?

With technology and communications converging, the 21st CVAA directly addresses newer forms of technology. We previously had section 255 of the Communications Act, enacted in 1996, but regulations were not issued until 2000, four years later. Also, at that time we had a requirement for video description of TV but it was overturned by the federal district court. Disability advocates learned their lessons from these experiences and in the 21st CVAA we redressed these shortcomings.

The 21st CVAA does not address internet content or website accessibility measures that must be taken. These topics are, in the U.S., covered under different statutes. Part of the advocacy process was, early on, to recognize that we needed to craft a law that was feasible despite our need for a comprehensive law. We knew the legislative and regulatory process — this meant some things were not going to be included. COAT works on these other laws to improve and update the regulations for things such as website accessibility.

The law was enacted in October? What if anything, has changed since then? What are you hoping will change?

We are still in the rulemaking phase and won’t see implementation of many of the requirements until next year. A big negative continues to be the bad attitude of some in the various industries to the need for accessibility. Some commenters into the proposed rules are attempting to influence the rules to delay implementation, to create exemptions or carve out waiver situations, and to otherwise stymie what must occur if we are to see people with sensory disabilities able to use most communications technologies like everyone else. Since the 21st CVAA is comprehensive in scope, there is little doubt that disability advocates have to maintain vigilance as the regulations are developed. Passing the law was just the first step, the next steps are implementation.

Are there any loopholes, grey areas in it that you feel could render it less effective?

Since we do not have final rules for most of the law, there are no known loopholes yet. While the law does not go as far as some would like, there is little doubt that this law has major impact and is stimulating change at the companies and within the industries affected.

Do you feel that ICT accessibility can be achieved through policy intervention alone?

First of all, there is nothing to stop any product or service from being designed and developed at the outset to be disability accessible and usable. In fact, there are several companies that do this already as a matter of corporate policy and a commitment to be leaders in this way. It is the rest for whom public policy has to be developed. Such policy must be developed that includes all stakeholders. However, there must be public policy leadership or nothing will change. Leadership involves Congressional members willing to say the law needs to be changed, willing to stand up for the right of people with disabilities to be included. This is the civil or human rights viewpoint and which must extend to disability to be fully inclusive. Leadership can involve a particular company or group of companies saying they will support the new law once they understand the need for the policy change. This happened with the 21st CVAA. Early on the largest wireline/wireless carriers supported the legislation. Most importantly, there must be strong leadership by consumer disability advocates who must make the key decisions and decide the directions and choices at critical junctures in the policymaking process. Also, critical to disability advocacy is the ability to work together in a consensual fashion, to put aside differences and to understand that “we’re all in this together” and to not give up or become discouraged.

Notes

[1].The term "undue burden" has the same meaning as given to it in the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act – “Undue burden means significant difficulty or expense. In determining whether an action would result in an undue burden, an agency shall consider all agency resources available to the program or component for which the product is being developed, procured, maintained, or used."

[2].Real-Time Text is a conversational text feature which can be sent in real time and can provide captioning of a voice conversation.

* The post has been updated to include an interview with Jenifer Simpson

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/communications-and-video-accessibility

Communication Policy Advocacy, Technology, and Online Freedom of Expression: A Toolkit for Media Development

praskrishna — 2011-06-23T04:45:30Z

Organized by the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University (CEU), and Internews Network, and the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania from June 20 to July 1, 2011.

Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia remind us that the development of the internet as a global, free and open resource stands at a perpetual crossroads. The dynamic and decentralized nature of the internet, and other new technologies, continually offers new avenues for open communication and free expression as well as new challenges and threats. The strategic use of digital technologies and information tools with the goal of empowering civil society and building capacity for an open society is critical. And at the same time, so-called 'old media' continues to play a vital role in communication, especially during times of crisis and conflict.

The issue of free and open communications is not only relevant in the case of repressive regimes and transitional democracies, but is remains crucial across all layers of socio-politics. The complexities of the relationship between technology, free expression, privacy and policy lie at the heart of the relationship between global security and human rights.

This intensive summer course is designed to help both researchers and activists gain new insights into the role which civil society can play in advocating for free expression online and communication policy change, and will highlight the opportunities and challenges of technologies and online tools for mobilizing and organizing constituencies and for enhancing the security and privacy of advocates. During the course, we will explore a wide range of practical and theoretical views related to communication policy advocacy and online tools and tactics, and how to integrate research into these fields. The course will include hands-on work in developing advocacy campaigns and seek to cover some of latest developments in online tools for advocacy, security, privacy and crowd-sourcing. We will also look at Internet governance issues and online free expression policies.

As part of the course, participants will also work in teams on a group assignment for the duration of the course. Each group will be presented with a case study for which they should develop an advocacy campaign for communication policy change. Each team will be required to prepare a written report (approximately 10-15 pages in total), and give a multi-media presentation to the group at the end of the course.

In order maximize the output and opportunities for participants the course will have a maximum of 20-25 students.

Course Participants: This course is intended for practitioners, policy makers, media policy advocates, PhD students, advanced MA students, and media development professionals (drawing from government, civil society/NGOs, foundations), journalists and other media practitioners with a demonstrated interest in new media and technology and communication policy advocacy.

Course Director:

Kate Coyer, Center for Media and Communication Studies, Department of Public Policy, CEU, Budapest, Hungary
Kristina Irion, Center for Media and Communication Studies, Department of Public Policy, CEU, Budapest, Hungary
Susan Abbott, Internews Network
Leslie Harris, Center for Democracy and Technology
Monroe Price, Annenberg School for Communication, U Pennsylvania, US and Chair Center for Media and Communication Studies, CEU, Budapest, Hungary

Faculty:

Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society, India
Gary Garriott, Internews Network
Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University
Kathleen Reen, Internews Network
Jacky Sutton, IREX Iraq
Sam Gregory, Witness, UK
Ivan Sigal, Global Voices online

Download the agenda here

Also see the event flier

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/notices/communication-policy-advocacy-technology-and-online-freedom-of-expression-a-toolkit-for-media-development

Centaur website reveals guests' personal info

praskrishna — 2011-06-20T07:35:57Z

The Centaur Hotels' website, centaurhotels.com, appears to have compromised personal information of its hotel guests, in what seems to be a case of poor internet security protocols implemented by the site. This allowed website visitors on Saturday to obtain and view details of passports, driving licences, pan numbers, credit cards, and other forms of personal identification provided by its guests.

Centaur Hotels, a unit of the Hotel Corporation of India (HCI), is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Aviation Company of India that runs national carrier Air India. It runs a hotel near the Delhi international airport and another in Srinagar.

Around 52 scanned copies of passports of people of different nationalities, pan card details of Indian guests and driving licences were visible on the site. The page was taken down when the issue was brought to their notice. Various online facilities such as reservation are not available now. But TOI has screen shots of some of the documents. When contacted, Centaur marketing head Pradeep Garg said, "We will look into the matter. Please lodge a formal complaint. We don't have an online payment system, hence we don't collect any identification proof."

Centaurhotels.com shows the site manager as Capt Samarth Singh, who is the chief executive of a consultancy firm called Hybrid Content. But Singh said that for the past one year, the site was under the jurisdiction of a website developer in Mumbai, S Naidu. "We will, however, clarify to both the parties - Naidu and Centaur Hotels," Singh said.

He said he had sent requests to Centaur Hotels to remove his name from the hotel portal as his contract had ended. Hybrid held the contract from December 2008-April 2010. It has won the mandate to manage the site from June 1. "But the domain is not within my reach. It is still with the old registrar," Singh said.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society, said personal information leaked online is a breach of privacy. "Anybody collecting passport and credit card details has to follow security policies. According to Sec 43 of the IT Act 2000, the hotel shall be liable to pay damages not exceeding Rs 1 crore to every individual so affected."

This article by Shilpa Phadnis was published in the Times of India on June 20, 2011. Read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/centaur-reveals-personal-info

CEPT to Set up Centre to Research Role of Internet in Social Development

praskrishna — 2011-08-02T06:06:55Z

Nishant Shah, Director (Research) at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore who will assist the centre, said: "No one predicted the outcome of the Arab Spring, because everyone was looking at the way Internet was being used globally, not at the local level. We had the pink chaddi campaign, the anti-corruption calls of the Hazare camp, and those against sexual violence in New Delhi, but they were largely ad-hoc and temporary, and disappeared."

Cross-posted from the Indian Express

Pratyush Shankar, an associate professor of architecture at CEPT University in Ahmedabad had begun teaching a new course, “Cyber Culture” at the institute when news of the Jasmine Revolution began to filter out from Tunisia.

By the time the 35-day course was over, a new government was in place in Tunis and Sharkar is now thrilled that a full-fledged centre to research the role of Internet in social and academic developments will be established at CEPT this session.

"I thought to myself, 'This is going to be big! Just watch how the internet is going to make this different! and I was right," said Shankar.

The establishment of the "Centre for Internet and Digital Technologies" will be supplemented by a weeklong workshop in August - "Locating Internets: Histories of the Internets in India" for academics from various disciplines, an effort the organisers hope will propel thinking on how Internet is now part and parcel of academia.

"When we give students assignments, the first thing they do is go to Google-uncle," said Shankar, pointing out the Internet’s "knowledge-producing" role, a phenomenon academia is not entirely willing to accept as a formal part of the teaching process although teachers use it extensively as a tool.

Shankar calls himself a 'non-techie', though he uses Internet as part of his work profile: his students post their assignments on a server called "Sa-nity", where he also uploads and archives work from previous batches. The latest plan is to form a blog where students will comment on the classroom teaching or discuss topics - 'an after-class space'.

Shah said the reasons could be factors like caste, religion, language and region.

He added: "During the Independence movement, two things were going on at the same time; there were mass movements where foreign clothes were burnt, khadi promoted and the like, which was buoyed by a very active print media that spread the information and ideas."

Internet technology now is equivalent to the print technology of that time, he added.

This news was published in the Indian Express on June 18, 2011.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/cept-centre-for-role-of-internet

Indian SMEs still fail to harness the power of Net

praskrishna — 2011-06-29T06:04:12Z

In India, only about 81 million people have access to the net, as it needs a level of education and IT skills to operate a computer. This article by Satarupa Paul was published in the Sunday Guardian on 19 June 2011.

Last month, a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the economics research arm of consultant McKinsey and Co, evaluated the impact of the Internet on growth, jobs and prosperity in the G8 nations as well as in India, China, Brazil, South Korea and Sweden. The study mentioned that the Internet contributed 3.2 per cent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009.

Based on a survey of 4,800 small and medium businesses in the 13 countries, it concludes that the use of the Internet has led to a 10 per cent increase in their productivity as well as accelerated their growth and export by two times.

India, however, featured low on the indices that support the report. Anja Kovacs, Fellow at Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, tells Guardian20, "Firstly, the figures for private investment and public expenditure on the Internet are very low in India. This shows that the web is still the domain of the elite here. Secondly, almost half of the contribution of the Internet to India's GDP comes from trade balance (net export). This definitely cannot be the play of small and medium businesses as they still fare poorly in the trade market. So to say that the Internet has led to an increase in their productivity in India, which in turn has led to a significant growth in GDP, is not entirely true."

She explains by saying, in India only about 81 million people have access to the net, as it needs a level of education and IT skills to operate a computer. As most of the small and medium businesses in India are run by economically backward people with minimum or no education, accessing the Internet and running their own websites for their businesses remains a distant dream.

Such cynicism dies down when we consider the case of Tilonia.com. A website dedicated to the craftsmen from Tilonia in Rajasthan who produce clothes and accessories, decorative home furnishings, handmade paper products, metalwork, leather goods, etc, it is run by a US based NGO called Friends of Tilonia, Inc, which besides being a platform for showcasing the products by artisans, also acts as an e-commerce portal. It does business worth Rs 30 lakh on an average every year. For an organisation that falls under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) category, such income is pretty impressive. Extrapolate this number to the estimated 26.1 million registered MSMEs in India and their contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could become enormous, but in reality, it is not quite so.

Osama Manzar, Founder and Director of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in New Delhi, says, "Almost 70 per cent of the registered MSMEs in India are not online and not more than 20 per cent are using any kind of IT or IT-enabled services. We conducted a workshop with 200 MSMEs recently and 99 per cent of these didn't have a website."

DEF works towards bridging this digital divide and organises workshops within the various artisan pockets of India. Manzar says, "The Internet has still not reached the grassroots level in India. We have such internationally famous handicrafts and artwork created by artisans working in various small and medium businesses, but they don't garner the business which the Net can help them fetch."

To address this problem, DEF has launched an e-commerce website for Chanderi silk saris and products made by weavers in Madhya Pradesh. Also, their eMSME facility provides MSMEs with a cost effective web platform with unlimited web pages to help entrepreneurs create a virtual identity for wider reach.

On a larger scale, the Indian government has set up Internet kiosks, one for every panchayat, in the rural areas. About 95,000 of such Common Service Centres (CSCs) have been installed all over the country and are meant to ease billing, enquiry, tax payment and other services. "But for a majority of Indians, especially those in small and medium businesses in small towns, the easiest Internet access points are cyber cafes. Such kiosks, if operated punctually, could provide them with a whole range of possibilities for communication and business that their counterparts enjoy in other countries," concludes Kovacs.

Cross-posted from the Sunday Guardian. The original can be read here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/failure-to-harness-power-of-net

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