Centre for Internet and Society

Crypto Currency

praskrishna — 2021-07-01T09:58:55Z

Crypto Currency

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Crypto Currency

praskrishna — 2021-07-01T09:57:37Z

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Cry, you nasty trolls

praskrishna — 2015-05-09T15:05:23Z

Micro-blogging site Twitter has introduced a tool that identifies abusive tweets and hides them from their targets. Will it stem the tide of viciousness online, asks Prasun Chaudhuri.

The article by Prasun Chaudhuri was published in the Telegraph on April 26, 2015. Rohini was quoted.

When India's star batsman Virat Kohli failed to perform at the India vs Australia semi-final match at the World Cup, a section of Indian fans started venting their fury on his girlfriend Anushka Sharma on Twitter. The actress, who had flown to Sydney to watch the match, was blamed for India's loss and her Twitter account was flooded with abusive posts. One Atul Khatri tweeted: Hey Anushka, can you please distract the Aussie fielders on the boundary by showing them your lip job? Plleeeaasee. One anonymous tweet requested the "public to boycott Anushka Sharma's films (sic)" while another by Bollywood producer Kamal R. Khan incited his followers to "stone Anushka's house".

The star couple are not alone. Media persons, scholars and celebrities - especially if they are women - often face such vicious attacks on Twitter. Ask Chinmayi Sripada, the Chennai-based singer, or Sagarika Ghose, a prime time TV anchor, or scholar and columnist Ramachandra Guha who have endured worse forms of assaults - ranging from threats of gang rape, torture and murder. Many Twitter users across the world have gone silent and even deactivated their Twitter accounts after being harassed on the platform.

With more and more people around the world facing such vitriolic attacks, Twitter - the San Francisco-based online social networking service - recently decided to protect its users from abusive tweets. It switched on an anti-abuse tool that automatically identifies abusive tweets and hides them from their intended target. According to Twitter, the tool will search for patterns of misuse and identify repeat offenders so as to enable the social media platform to impose account suspension on them. "Users must feel safe on Twitter in order to fully express themselves and we need to ensure that voices are not silenced because people are afraid to speak up," wrote Shreyas Doshi, director of product management at Twitter, in a blog post.

Dick Costolo, Twitter's CEO, admitted two months ago at an internal forum that his company "sucked" at dealing with bullies and abusers. He said he would "start kicking these [abusive] people off... and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them."

Hemanshu Nigam, former chief security officer of social media platform MySpace and software giant Microsoft in the US, hails Twitter's new move. "The new tools are meant to honour human dignity and safety. Now that online and offline persona of many social media users have converged, it's become essential for tech companies to take steps to protect people from assaults in the cyber world." Nigam, a founder of SSP Blue, a leading online security firm, had sifted through thousands of offensive comments and abusive images during his earlier avatar in social media companies. "People with such evil intentions are minuscule but their twisted expressions can have a profound impact not only on the victims but thousands of impressionable minds of young users," he says.

Abuse on social media platforms can be extremely brutal and traumatising. According to Debarati Halder, a lawyer and cyber victim counsellor based in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, a large proportion of these attacks - especially those where explicit pictures and videos of sexual acts are sent - are perpetrated on women by their former boyfriends or husbands to seek revenge on their ex-partners.

She feels that social media giants have failed to protect their users and that these so-called "new tools" and automated systems fail to screen most cases of abuse. "They (social media platforms) also don't react to reports of abusive behaviour unless they are lodged by celebrities or other influential people," she adds.

While announcing the new policy, Twitter's general counsel Vijaya Gadde wrote in The Washington Post, "At times, this (tweet) takes the form of hateful speech directed at women or minority groups; at others, it takes the form of threats aimed to intimidate those who take a stand on issues. These users often hide behind the veil of anonymity on Twitter and create multiple accounts expressly for the purpose of intimidating and silencing people." She also wrote how technicians at Twitter are going to erect a "better framework to protect vulnerable users, such as banning the posting of non-consensual intimate images."

Rohini Lakshane, programme officer at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, says that Twitter had simplified and enhanced its system of reporting abuse in December last year. "Measures such as muting and blocking users and manual review of reports were already in place. The changes included mechanisms for Twitter's review teams to expedite responses from dire forms of abuse," she says.

Evidently, these measures have not been too effective. Says Lakshane, "Women are still disproportionately targeted on Twitter and several users simply choose to leave rather than face the strain of dealing with abuse, rape and death threats, and insults."

Singer Sripada, however, is one of those few Twitter users who stood up against her abusers. When she tweeted in support of Tamil fishermen who were attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy, she was flooded with abusive tweets that were tantamount to sexual harassment. She says, "I took on the abusers - one of them a professor at a top fashion institute. I filed a case under Section 66A of the IT Act (which is now defunct) and they were jailed for two weeks. That was when I saw the worst face of online abuse."

Advocate Halder rues the recent scrapping of Section 66A of the IT Act to protect freedom of speech. "The act could have have been modified to protect victims of abuse." She believes the new Twitter policy to check abuse may not be able to check the spread of the meta data of a post as it is replicated across thousands of sites.

"If the visuals or texts depict explicit sex, these spread like wildfire in voyeuristic websites, mirror sites and caches before any law enforcer anywhere in the world can react," says Siddhartha Chakraborty, a cyber expert based in Calcutta. A single tweet, a Facebook comment or a YouTube video "gone viral" often causes significant damage to an individual or a company before they can even report the abuse, says Rajiv Pratap, a data analyst based in Calcutta and California.

The problem also lies with over 20 million robot users - or automated accounts, not actively operated by humans but remotely controlled by groups of anonymous people - who are difficult to track. "These bots generate a lot of spam and even abusive comments," says Harsh Ajmera, a social media expert based in New Delhi. "Twitter is not striking at all the nasty content, but putting various checks like limiting the reach, asking you to get rid of those tweets which can protect genuine users."

On the other hand, stresses Lakshane, using parameters such as the number of flags (reports of abuse) a tweet receives can have implications for free speech - an unpopular but non-abusive view could also be targeted. Moreover, it's essential for reviewers to understand cultural and linguistic connotations to be able to effectively address abuse.

Still, Nigam is hopeful. He says, "Social media companies are going through a learning curve. As they evolve they will learn how to rein in abusers."

Twitter's 288 million users worldwide are waiting for that to happen.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-april-26-2015-prasun-chaudhuri-cry-you-nasty-trolls

crunching data

praskrishna — 2013-12-13T03:54:44Z

Crunching Data

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crunching data

praskrishna — 2013-12-13T03:52:46Z

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Crunchbase

praskrishna — 2013-08-08T05:40:21Z

Crunchbase

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Crowdsourced innovation for government projects and services is easier said than done

praskrishna — 2017-02-07T15:36:38Z

Late January. The buzz was palpable at the MLR Convention Centre in South Bengaluru. Developers were streaming into 50p, a conference organised by HasGeek, which has curated technology forums since 2011. But this wasn't just one of the six HasGeek communions that the programmers attend annually. 50p put the spotlight on digital payments, which meant the gathering would be more diverse than anything before.

The article by Kunal Talgeri was published in the Times of India on February 3, 2017. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Of the 250-plus attendees in two days, only 40% were developers. There were around 10 lawyers, an activist here, a social-impact investor there, product managers, and a 20-strong team from online payment systems company PayPal. There were managers from traditional banks too. "We realised early on that one thing the developer community really needs to know is how various payment-systems work, like who makes what percentage (in the value chain)?," said Zainab Bawa, cofounder of HasGeek. "It is a big mystery to them."

Kiran Jonnalagadda, co-founder of HasGeek and Bawa's husband, concurred: "A payment conference cannot primarily be centred on technology. Regulations make a bulk of the difference." So the interdisciplinary forum traversed areas as diverse as customer data and privacy, payment-systems unique to India, regulations, and the Watal Committee report apart from technology.

HasGeek got folks from the payments industry to converse with developers. At the outset, Bawa spelt out to the audience something about technology's role in society. "While we (coders) are here to bridge gaps, we also need to understand that technology is not necessarily the solution. Developers must have their ears to the ground." She had touched upon the divide between the coder community and the government.

Globally, governments are only just beginning to be exposed to the geeks. "The broader theme of digitisation and opening up of APIs (application programming interface) is happening across the world," said Sanjay Swamy, managing partner at Prime Venture Partners, and an Aadhaar volunteer with the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) until early 2011. APIs empower developers to build applications that access the features or data of an operating system or service. This requires developers to come together with, in this case, the government.

The digital dream has never showed more promise in India—the chance for a few developers to build a platform that can digitise government services for millions of users. "The government wants to use hackathons for digital disruption—leverage hackers to build solutions for them," says Subhendu Panigrahi, co-founder of Venturesity that helps companies find developers.

This is easier said than done. But how did India even get to this point?

CODE NAME: GENESIS
On 10 June 2016, the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT) think-tank released a paper that took note of the country moving from "data poor to data rich."

This was a few weeks after the UIDAI platform Aadhaar crossed 1 billion enrolments. "The Aadhaar system can authenticate 100 million transactions per day in real time," iSPIRT stated. The paper also pointed to three national platforms - essentially services that would in time digitise government services on a national scale.

These were the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Network, the Bharat Bill Payment System which would cover utility services (electricity, water, gas, and so on), and the electronic toll collection system.

All three platforms come under the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation for retail payment systems in India. iSPIRT had helped NPCI organise a hackathon in Mumbai in February 2016 to build prototypes for harnessing the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) platform's application programming interface to digitise bank transfers in real time. Similarly, steps were being taken to open up APIs to large companies for the other NPCI platforms.

On its part, iSPIRT was drawing the attention of a breed of software developers to the national-scale opportunities ahead. It unequivocally stated: "Data flows benefit public services and governments." But even as India moves to being data rich, the outreach to developers - estimated to be more than 5 million in India - could be futile for two reasons.

First, government departments and traditional systems of, say, nationalised banks have a technology procurement culture that is at odds with how developers build digital solutions. While government is the largest technology procurer, procurement contracts typically have clauses that encourage lowest (cost) bidders, which rarely spawns innovation.

"Government needs to adopt and evangelise pro-challenger tools and policies that reduce barriers to experimentation, level-playing field and encourage innovating around national issues," wrote Swati T Satpathy for iSPIRT in a November 2015 paper titled 'Igniting Hundreds of Experiments'.

Second, independent developers still have to come out in larger numbers for the best solutions to shine. Sachin Gupta, CEO of HackerEarth, another developer platform, agrees: "Governments may still go ahead and give projects to a TCS and Wipro, but they want to crowdsource the innovation, prototype and the whole concept. They want to build an active relationship with the tech community."

These can be government bodies at the state level, too, like the Department of Urban Land Transport in Karnataka, for whom Venturesity helped with a 'transit hack' to solve traffic in Bangalore with submissions like how to enable carpooling or track public transport.

"The government is really interested in the final product or an app they can use," Panigrahi said. For this, governments are willing to distribute their APIs to eventually own the app. "Developers participate in such hackathons to make it part of their portfolios or resumes, or because they love building products, or for the prize-money."

This is crowd sourced innovation. Yet, culturally, it is hard for developers and governments' interests to be aligned.

INSIDE THE DICHOTOMY
The API-driven approach is based on a philosophy in the United States that dates back to the 1960s. It a culture of giving powerful building blocks, as opposed to just building an actual solution, said Jonnalagadda. A 'solution' evolves into a platform if it can serve as 'building blocks' for the next set of developers to build on.

"A good product is also one on top of which something more can be built. That has been the principle on which the developer community has thrived," he said. This approach works well in technology. "It means you are slow, but also that you are a lot more mature and innovative."

The government has got this aspect right, by opening up secure APIs to nationalscale projects and systems. But while they have provided such building blocks, they have already decided the path to meet goals like financial inclusion. Mobile apps like BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) are becoming the default mode of reaching the masses. Many observers agree with the smartphone as a medium for India, but developers feel web browsers are more secure than apps.

Jonnalagadda cites a 50p session, 'Everyone can see your credit card details. Seriously,' where the speaker Arnav Gupta described the flow of the web as independent websites that can't actually communicate with each other. As against this, every function of a mobile app is a subset of the parent app. "So whatever password you type for one 'function' can be visible to the parent, which never happens on the web," Jonnalagadda said. "If security is defined by the fact that it is tested against being broken, a mobile app is trusted on the basis of goodwill. For developers, this is a shitty way to do technology. It bothers the heck out of him when a security model assumes goodwill because government wants an app."

Also, solutions need a decentralised approach from governing bodies like local municipalities. Independent budgets and decision-making can lead to stronger links between government and local service providers. There are exceptions to this, like Singapore, a city nation. But in larger developed countries like the United States, local government bodies are stronger than in India. "Here, we are getting even more centralised over time," Jonnalagadda said. It makes the government look like a monolith in the eyes of developers. How can the two be compatible? "We haven't found a solution yet."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-february-3-2017-kunal-talegri-crowdsourced-innovation-for-government-projects-and-services-is-easier-said-than-done

Criticism mounts over India censorship

praskrishna — 2012-08-27T06:38:51Z

India’s government is facing fierce criticism from privacy groups, political opponents and irate internet users accusing it of an excessive and poorly targeted censorship drive as it seeks to contain social alarm triggered by communal unrest.

This article written by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco was published in Financial Times on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Following panicked scenes among groups from the nation’s troubled north-east and fearing an escalation of urban violence between Muslim and Hindu groups, the administration this week instructed internet companies, including Facebook and Google, to block more than 300 web pages and more than a dozen Twitter accounts it claimed were inflaming communal tensions.

But by Friday the order was being assailed as an example of administrative incompetence, as internet analysts revealed that many of the pages contained seemingly harmless material from foreign media organisations, political columnists and critics of India’s government.

Pranesh Prakash, a legal expert at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said: “I am not questioning their original motives, but I do think this is excessive and incompetent censorship.”

Political opponents also accused the government of over-reach, including Narendra Modi, the controversial chief minister of the state Gujarat and a member of the Hindu nationalist BJP party, who on Friday used a Twitter post to call the moves a “crackdown on freedom of speech”.

The government denies it is being heavy handed. “We are only taking strict action against those accounts or people which are causing damage or spreading rumours,” said Kuldeep Dhatwalia, an Indian home ministry spokesman. “We are not taking action against other accounts, be it on Facebook, Twitter or even SMSes.”

Twitter found itself at the centre of the growing controversy, as government spokespeople accused the US-based social networking site of failing to respond to requests to block users, some of which involved accounts appearing to impersonate Manmohan Singh, the prime minister.

Twitter responded by suspending a number of impersonator accounts and is now in discussions with the prime minister’s office in an attempt to defuse the row, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment.

Angry users also used the site to attack the restrictions using the hashtags #GOIblocks and #Emergency2012, the latter a highly charged reference to prime minister Indira Gandhi’s two-year period of rule by decree in the late 1970s.

India has a long history of censorship measures designed to prevent communal violence, ranging from restrictions introduced under the British Raj in the early 20th century to more recent edicts banning Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and restricting derogatory portrayals of religious figures in Bollywood movies.

“Blocking content to help mitigate a volatile situation involving civilian security could be justified,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But when the government expresses equal concern about fake Twitter handles or criticism of political leaders, it begins to look like censorship.”

The online restrictions followed related measures restricting to five the number of text messages that could be sent from most Indian mobile phones, although this was lifted to 20 on Thursday.

They also came during a week of deepening political crisis in the world’s largest democracy, as opposition leaders repeatedly halted parliamentary proceedings and called for Mr Singh’s resignation in the aftermath of a critical report from India’s government auditor.

“These threats to social harmony are real, but like almost everything the Indian state is doing at present, the restrictions incompetently deal with a few symptoms rather than addressing causes,” says Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the Centre for Policy Research, a think tank in New Delhi. “They are simply exacerbating a crisis of trust, not solving it.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-24-2012-james-crabtree-tim-bradshaw-criticism-mounts-over-india-censorship

Critical Point of View: WikiWars II

praskrishna — 2011-04-05T04:12:17Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore), in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam) is hosting the second Critical Point of View (WikiWars) conference in Amsterdam on March 26 and 27, 2010. In this two day event that seeks to engage with different aspects of Wikipedia across different disciplines and practices, we invite students, researchers, Wikipedians and interested stakeholders to come and join us at WikiWars.

WikiWars brings together more than forty scholars, students, practitioners, artists and experts who have been critically reflecting upon the emergence of Wikipedia in various contexts of education, politics, resistance, art theory and practice, knowledge production, learning, pedagogy and new and alternative forms of interaction and community building.

Dates: 26th, 27th March, 2010.

Venue: Public Library Amsterdam

Programme for the event has International and National delegates presenting in panels on Wiki-Theory, Encyclopedia Histories, Wiki Art, Wikipedia Analytics, Designing Debates and Global Issues and Outlooks.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars-amsterdam

Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader

praskrishna — 2011-05-13T07:24:16Z

For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia’s rapid rise, novel organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and denounced by a host of commentators. Critical Point of View moves beyond unflagging praise, well-worn facts, and questions about its reliability and accuracy, to unveil the complex, messy, and controversial realities of a distributed knowledge platform.

The essays, interviews and artworks brought together in this reader form part of the overarching Critical Point of View research initiative, which began with a conference in Bangalore (January 2010), followed by events in Amsterdam (March 2010) and Leipzig (September 2010). With an emphasis on theoretical reflection, cultural difference and indeed, critique, contributions to this collection ask: What values are embedded in Wikipedia’s software? On what basis are Wikipedia’s claims to neutrality made? How can Wikipedia give voice to those outside the Western tradition of Enlightenment, or even its own administrative hierarchies? Critical Point of View collects original insights on the next generation of wiki-related research, from radical artistic interventions and the significant role of bots to hidden trajectories of encyclopedic knowledge and the politics of agency and exclusion.

Contributors: Amila Akdag Salah, Nicholas Carr, Shun-ling Chen, Florian Cramer, Morgan Currie, Edgar Enyedy, Andrew Famiglietti, Heather Ford, Mayo Fuster Morell, Cheng Gao, R. Stuart Geiger, Mark Graham, Gautam John, Dror Kamir, Peter B. Kaufman, Scott Kildall, Lawrence Liang, Patrick Lichty, Geert Lovink, Hans Varghese Mathews, Johanna Niesyto, Matheiu O’Neil, Dan O’Sullivan, Joseph Reagle, Andrea Scharnhorst, Alan Shapiro, Christian Stegbauer, Nathaniel Stern, Krzystztof Suchecki, Nathaniel Tkacz, Maja van der Velden

Colophon: Editors: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz. Editorial Assistance: Ivy Roberts and Morgan Currie. Copy-Editing: Cielo Lutino. Design: Katja van Stiphout. Cover Image: Ayumi Higuchi. Priner: Ten Klei, Amsterdam. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. Supported by: The School for Communication and Design at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam DMCI), the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore and the Kusuma Trust.

Download the pdf for free here
To order a hard copy of the reader, send an email: books@networkcultures.org

Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds), Critical Point of View: A Wikpedia Reader, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011. ISBN: 978-90-78146-13-1, paperback, 385 pages.

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

Critical Point of View

praskrishna — 2012-06-25T03:28:34Z

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Critical Information

praskrishna — 2010-09-07T12:09:14Z

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Crisis for identity or identity crisis?

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T08:16:30Z

The hurry with which the government is pushing its most ambitious project to assign a number (UID) to every citizen without any feasibility study or public debate has raised many questions.

“It will empower all”, declared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he issued the first UID card to a villager from Tembhli village in Maharashtra. But as days pass and relevant issues come for public discourse, many people have begun to doubt prime minister’s assurance.

Unique identification number (UID), named Aadhaar is a 12 digit identification number that the government plans to issue to all citizens that will not only be an identity card but will also serve multiple purposes for its holder.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has been assigned the responsibility to execute this proposal as Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Mr Nilekani leads a team of 120 people having the task of assigning unique identities to 1.2 billion people. He plans to take Aadhaar beyond being just a 12-digit identification number for every Indian. This ambitious and mammoth project is pitched to handle projects as diverse as a national-highway toll-collection system, a technology backbone for the forthcoming Goods and Services Tax (GST) and reform of the vast public distribution system (PDS) for subsidized foodgrains.

Government plans to cover 60 per cent of the nation’s population under this project in the next three years starting October this year. This project is intended to collect identification data about all residents in the country. It is said that it will impact the PDS and NREGA programmes, and plug leakages and save the government large sums of money.

But the UID will not replace ration cards and passports, and is not mandatory as of now. No questions would be asked related to language, caste or religion of the person applying for UID.

The UID number is linked to the fingerprints and the pattern of the eyes of the person assigned that number. This inimitable biometric data ensures that any given number is linked to only one person. So there is hardly a chance of any misgiving or stealing of rations and wages from the holder. It is believed that soon banks, insurance companies, cell phone providers and hospitals will demand UID number before doing business with you.

In short, in the future our name, address, bank account numbers, personal information and identity as a whole will be solely linked and governed by those 12 digit number we hold.

Critics say that there has been no feasible study conducted about UID project, neither has there been a cost benefit analysis done. To add to it, there are serious concerns about data and identity theft.

But apart from the buzz about this new project, there is an air of suspicion surrounding it too.

The launch of the UID has led to a flurry of debate amongst policy-makers, legal experts and civil society at large. In response, Mr Nilekani claims the UID to be “a foolproof project implemented at a low cost”.

However, some critical issues remain unanswered.

One of the major objections about UID is that there has been no feasible study conducted, neither has there been a cost benefit analysis done. There is no project document as such.

To add to it, there are serious concerns about data and identity theft.

In a world where cyber terrorism is the new threat, and the countries are gearing themselves to protect against such a threat, projects like UID come as an open invitation to terrorist outfits to infiltrate their defences.

The UID number is linked to fingerprints and the patterns of the holder’s eye. But medical studies show that our eye's iris patterns can change due to aging, disease or malnourishment. More over the government has no alternative option for many millions who fall outside this pattern of identification owing to callused hands, corneal scars and cataract induced by malnourishment. Even as enrollment is poised to begin, authentication is still an unstudied field. Fake fingerprints can very easily be made. Hence, the unique element of these numbers can be tampered.

Recently, Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society has remarked, “If I leave my fingerprints around, my identity can be stolen and transactions done on my behalf. They could use that number, to share information about anybody.”

A cyber-criminal having access to any person’s identification number can virtually control that person. Telephone numbers, addresses, family history can all be tracked down. Bank accounts can be manipulated and transactions done without the person knowing. Since these days, a lot of money transactions are done through internet, a cyber criminal can easily steal few UID numbers and impersonate those persons to manipulate the bank or credit card accounts.

In an even uglier scenario, where people might be tracked and judged by their numbers, a criminal’s fingerprints left behind on a scene of crime can be mixed with some one else through a slight manipulation and exchange of UID numbers, making an entirely innocent person a suspect in the eyes of law. Some incompetent or revengeful government officials can also frame innocents for a crime one never committed.

Human rights activists claim that a tech-savvy person can hack into the system and gain any person’s information from the servers unless the government tightens the defenses. A reminiscence of the Bruce Willis starrer Hollywood blockbuster Die Hard 4, a bunch of techno geeks operating from trailer truck hold the entire United States hostage as they hack into every main frame computing network from transportation, communication, power, defence and individual accounts.

The number can also be used for real time tracking, profiling, mounting surveillance and ‘convergence’ of information. Apart from the concerns about identity theft, the number can also invade our private space. If in the future insurance companies and hospitals merge their databases, the insurance companies can increase premium, or simply refuse insurance cover to a person who is not keeping well.

Poor labourers and immigrants who are on the move in search of work could also be the victims of the ‘Aadhaar’. In future, in case of card being lost or misplaced, poor labour would be threatened with financial and welfare exclusion. Where being a legal resident is to be closely tied in with having a UID number, it could render the poor vulnerable to exclusion and expulsion by exploitative employers and others.

Interestingly, few months back in June, UK government scrapped the plans for the controversial 5 billion pounds National Identity Card scheme. The UK government now plans to destroy all information held on the National Identity Register, effectively dismantling the whole system.

Though Mr Nilekani claims that UID would be a cost effective project, however deeper analysis throws a different story. It is reported that the UIDAI project will cost Rs 45,000 crores to the exchequer in the next 4 years. This does not seem to include the costs that will be incurred by Registrars, Enrollers, additional costs on the PDS system to connect it to the UID, the estimated cost to the end user and to the number holder.

Defending himself from the flurry of queries, Mr Nilekani has stressed that the identification number is not mandatory for everyone and only those interested can enroll. The project aims to first enroll the poor and uneducated masses promising them better wages and ration schemes. As was reported, the first villager to get the UID card was ‘happy but did not know its benefits’. Critics allege that the reason why Aadhaar is selling itself to millions of poor in the country is to create a foundation of legitimacy to deflect concerns over its possible misuse, unsafe technology and huge costs. Later, with a larger foundation, the UID can be enforced upon all citizens in the near future as the apex identity proof, making everyone vulnerable to several risks described above.

The UIDAI project has proceeded so far without any legal authorization. There has been no feasibility study or cost-benefit analysis preceding the setting up of such a pervasive project. All calculations are of the back-of-the envelope variety. Data theft is a very serious threat to every individual and the country as a whole. There are deeply disconcerting facts about the project that should make even a die-hard UID supporter worry about its long term implications.

This article has been written by Sushant Sharma. He is a college fresher and avid reader.

Interestingly, few months back in June, UK government scrapped the plans for the controversial 5 billion pounds National Identity Card scheme. The decision came after about 15,000 citizens had already been enrolled and given their numbers. The UK government now plans to destroy all information held on the National Identity Register, effectively dismantling the whole system.

The UK system like the Indian UID had also started with much fanfare, claiming to save nearly 900 million pounds for the taxpayers. While the project was axed, UK’s Home Secretary Theresa May stated - “It (the identity card project) is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive. It is an assault on individual liberty that does not promise a great good.”

The same logic implies to the India as well. But instead of scraping this over-hyped-failure-in-the-making project, our Prime Minister claims the UID project “will empower all”. But will it actually? That is for us to decide now.

Read the original article here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/identity-crisis

Criminal Defamation: The Urgent Cause That has United Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Subramanian Swamy

praskrishna — 2015-07-16T13:45:04Z

Three years ago when the then Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy accused Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and his mother of misappropriation of funds while trying to revive the National Herald newspaper, the Nehru-Gandhi scion threatened to sue him.

The article by Betwa Sharma was published in Huffington Post on July 15, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Swamy's response was characteristic: "Grow up and file a defamation case".

In a strange turn of events, the matter of criminal defamation has brought together an unlikely cast of characters in an ongoing petition in the Supreme Court--Swamy, Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who knows a thing or two about making allegations.

They are petitioning the Apex Court to strike down penal provisions criminalising defamation, which they argue, has a "chilling effect" on the fundamental right to free speech. Opinion is divided around the world on whether or not defamation ought to be a criminal offence. Because some jurisdictions have stricter defamation laws, some indulge in a practise known as 'forum shopping', or suing in jurisdictions with harsher views on libel and slander.

The three leaders have filed separate petitions that are now being jointly heard by the court. They are challenging the constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code which make defamation a criminal offence punishable with up to two years in prison.

A verdict striking down the colonial-era S. 499, used by the British to suppress those opposing their rule, could prove to be a huge victory for free speech in India. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down the draconian Section 66A of the Information Technology Act as "unconstitutional and void".

There is cause for optimism. The Supreme Court has already said that the validity of criminal defamation laws must be tested against the free speech guarantees of the constitution. The bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant have observed that political debates maybe excluded as a criminal defamation offence.

While Gandhi, Subramanian and Kejriwal have been slapped with defamation suits by political rivals, there have been long-standing concerns over the threat posed by these provisions to the media and those who use social media to express their opinions against the rich and the powerful.

The government of the day is keen to maintain the status quo. In a recent submission, it has argued that S.499 is now the only provision to deal with defamation on social media and the only protection for reputation of citizens. But free speech activists say there is no evidence to show that a defamation law deters a person who is out to spread lies.

The questionable utility of S.499, the scope for its abuse and the culture of self-censorship, they argue, removes it from the ambit of "reasonable restrictions" which the state can impose on free speech under article 19 (2) of the constitution.

"Hardly a day goes by in India without some rich and powerful person initiating or threatening to initiate defamation suits against rivals or traditional media or ordinary citizens on social media," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society. "It is unclear how much self-censorship is going on because Indians fearing jail terms avoid speaking truth to power.

On the issue of protecting people's dignity, Abraham said there is no prima facie evidence in India that criminalising defamation in India has resulted in the protection of the reputations of citizens from falsehoods.

"On the the other hand every other national media house and quite of few investigative journalists have been and continue to be harassed by criminal suits filed by the powerful," he told HuffPost India. "The chilling effect on speech is a disproportionate price for citizenry to pay for what is only a personal harm."

Under the leadership of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, the Tamil Nadu government filed 125 defamation cases against The Hindu and other publications between 2001 and 2004. On Tuesday, she filed a defamation suit against news portal Rediff.com for running two articles related to speculations about her health.

In the United States, defamation claims by public officials and public figures were severely curtailed after its Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that the complainant needs to prove actual malice with "clear and convincing" evidence. Further, truth is an absolute defence against defamation in the U.S.

On Tuesday, Swamy and Gandhi also argued that truth should be defence in defamation suits. “Truth is not a complete defence in criminal defamation. For a nation with a national motto of Satyameva Devata it is ironic," Swamy said.

BJP leader Swamy is of the view that defamation should only be subject to a civil suit which can be redressed by payment of monetary compensation. But the central government has argued that a defamer could be too poor to compensate the complainant.

"I am not saying there is no such thing as defamation. You can sue someone for defamation, but you cannot deprive someone of his liberty," he said in a recent interview with The Sunday Guardian.

Jayalalithaa filed a defamation suit against the senior BJP leader who alleged that most of the boats of Indian fishermen captured by Sri Lanka belong to the AIADMK chief, her close aide Sasikala and DMK leader TR Baalu.

The suit against the Congress Vice President was filed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for allegedly blaming the Hindu right-wing organisation for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

BJP leader Nitin Gadkari sued Kejriwal after his name was included in AAP's list of "India's most corrupt."

"The accused is in the habit of making false and defamatory statements without any basis. The statements made by the accused and his party members have damaged and tarnished my image in the eyes of the people," Gadkari told the court, last year.

Legal analysts also find it hard to predict just how far the Supreme Court will go to protect free speech. Its judgment against S.66A of the IT Act is regarded as one of the biggest victories for free speech in India. Justice Misra was on the bench that struck down the provision for being “open-ended and unconstitutionally vague," and not fit to be covered under Article 19 (2).

But last month, in a judgment regarded as a blow to free speech, it was Justices Misra and Pant who ruled that freedom of speech is not an absolute right.

Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium had argued, "Freedom to offend is also a part of freedom of speech.”

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