Centre for Internet and Society

COAI, Centre for Internet & Society to hold pan-India meetings on privacy issues

praskrishna — 2014-07-07T07:37:34Z

In order to discuss possible legal frameworks to enable surveillance of voice and data communications in India, the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) along with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) will hold seven roundtable meetings across the country in the coming weeks on privacy and surveillance issues.

Originally published by IANS on July 4, 2014 the news was mirrored in the Times of India, NDTV, Business Standard, Economic Times, and World News on the same day. Bhairav Acharya gave his inputs.

The recommendations and dialogues from each of these roundtables will be compiled and submitted to the relevant ministries of the government, a statement issued by COAI said here on Friday.

The roundtable meetings will take place in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and twice in New Delhi.

These roundtables are closed-door meetings involving multiple stakeholders such as the industry leaders, policy makers, and experts from the legal fraternity and civil society.

In the era of freedom, when data connectivity via the internet, has emerged as one of the most powerful tools for communications, infringement of customer privacy by government agencies through telecom networks have forced the industry to initiate discussions on the international best practices on communications privacy and surveillance, and the relevant Indian jurisprudence.

"COAI, with the Centre for Internet and Society has taken this initiative by bringing the relevant stakeholders on a common platform to discuss the matter to arrive at an acceptable conclusion," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

According to Bhairav Acharya, who advises the CIS: "Legal reform is necessary to identify the limits of permissible surveillance, the protection of privacy, the procedure of intercepting communications, the expectations of service providers, and freedom of all Indians. The law must keep up with technological advancements to create a balanced, proportionate and fair mechanism to enable and regulate surveillance. This will serve India’s national interest."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ians-july-4-2014-coai-cis-to-hold-pan-india-meetings-on-privacy-issues

cnn

praskrishna — 2013-09-20T07:44:05Z

bus drivers protest

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CMAI-TEMA

praskrishna — 2016-04-26T01:40:05Z

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cluster

praskrishna — 2012-06-25T04:21:24Z

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CLP Developer Certificate

praskrishna — 2014-01-20T05:22:59Z

CLPR Developer Certificate

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Cloudy Jurisdiction: Addressing the thirst for Cloud Data in Domestic Legeal Processes

praskrishna — 2012-12-09T01:00:49Z

Elonnai Hickok was a panelist at this workshop held at the IGF in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 7, 2012. The workshop was co-organised by Electronic Frontier Foundation (Peru) and University of Ottawa.

The use of cloud services is rising globally. Cloud computing and storage are uniquely tailored to take full advantage of our increasingly networked environment. However, a move to the cloud also entails tangible challenges as vast repositories of information once kept within the sacrosanct safety of the home computer are placed on a remote server in the control of a third party. While the protections of home storage and processing can be replicated in the cloud, legal norms have been slow to adopt. Jurisdiction, the classic internet governance question, is raised in particularly stark contrast in the move to the cloud, as placing user data can subject that data to the legal access laws of any (or even many) jurisdictions in the world.

While there are indicators that such data is being accessed at increasing and alarming rates, globally, yet even the dimensions of the problem remain obscure. What is needed is a set of shared international norms relating to transparency, data sovereignty and lawful access to private information. In recent years, however, International forums have appeared much more eager to adopt international standards for data access (be it to combat cybercrime, secure critical infrastructure, or help intellectual property holders uncover alleged infringers of their rights) than for data sovereignty. Standards need to be developed that will provide a basis for the special challenges to cross-jurisdictional privacy that the move to the cloud highlights. This panel will examine the need for such a cross-jurisdictional framework, what one might look like, and, importantly, how one might bring such a framework about where the issue appears to be a low priority for many national governments.

Agenda
The objective of this panel is to attempt to resolve some of the trans-border threats to civil liberties that are posed by the move to the cloud. If a baseline of privacy protection can be assured at the international level, concerns over limiting data flows on the basis of jurisdiction will be alleviated. This panel will be divided into two parts. The first part will discuss some of the challenges raised by the cloud environment for traditional civil liberties paradigms. The discussion in part two will be solution-driven—what rules can be put in place at the international level to alleviate the heightened risk to privacy and other civil liberties raised by a cloud-centric model.

Part 1: Cloud-based threats to cross-border civil liberties (45 mins)
This part will discuss some of the challenges to civil liberties arising from a cross-border cloud-based environment. The panel will be further sub-divided into 25-30 minutes of panelist input, followed by 15-20 minutes of general discussion. Panelists will be asked to spend 3-5 minutes highlighting what they view as the most pressing of these challenges may be.

This might include specific recurring problems that have arisen in many comparable online contexts, as they relate to the cloud such as, for example:

legal obligations to build in intercept capacity into Internet services (compare CALEA 2.0 efforts in US, Lawful Access in Canada, and domestic server obligations such as those imposed on RIM by India and others in order to facilitate access to data that is encrypted in transit).
Concerns that many legal regimes permit voluntary conduct without adequate safeguards for political pressure on companies, particularly smaller businesses, to comply with requests.
Inability to challenge surveillance laws because the programs are shrouded in secrecy, because individuals are never made aware they have been surveilled, because of standing issues, etc.
Ability for ‘one-stop access’: cloud centralizes mass amounts of data in one place. This concentration as well as a general erosion of traditional criteria designed to ensure surveillance is targeted in a way that impacts minimally on the general populace.
Nascent suggestions of informal information sharing arrangements through MLATs and less transparent more informal arrangements.

Part 2: Adopting protections at the International level (45 mins.)
The discussion in Part 2 will focus on how some of these problems can be addressed at the international level by adoption of a set of principled protections designed to meet the realities of online and specifically cloud services. The focus is on problem resolution.

Format for Part 2 will mirror that of Part 1. Panelists will be provided with 3-5 minutes each and asked to present their views on one or two solutions that can be adopted at the international level to the problems presented in part 1. The remainder (20-25 minutes) will be dedicated to general discussion.

It is hoped that the discussion will explore specific protections that might be adopted at the international level, how to advance those solutions, and what strategies can generally advance these objectives, on the advocacy front, by use of transparency tools to increase awareness of some of the issues.

Questions to think about:

Historically, interception of communications received the strongest protection at law, but it relied to a great extent on the act of interception coinciding with the communication itself. Should we be expanding this to other means of communications?
Do we have effective mechanisms to immunize private organizations from political pressure to voluntarily share information? Particularly, a lot of small companies can now have a lot of information. Are they well equipped to resist political pressure
Does the content/traffic data distinction still hold? Do we need a new framework for analysing the types of data produced as a natural byproduct of our online activities?
Can the MLAT regime form the basis for ensuring fundamental rights are respected in legitimate cross-border surveillance activities? If so, what would it take to have it reflect a baseline of protections?
Is it feasible to develop and formally adopt detailed limitations on state access at the international or regional level?
Is cloud-based info susceptible to unauthorized state access in new ways? Is this something the law can fix (mandate encryption in storage or other safeguards)? Social engineering concerns?

Background Reading:

The Draft International Principles on Surveillance & Human Rights: http://necessaryandproportionate.org/
Global Network Initiative, "Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy", http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/sites/default/files/GNI_-_Principles_1_.pdf
I. Brown & D. Korff, “Digital Freedoms in International Law”, GNI 2012, http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/sites/default/files/Digital%20Freedoms%20in%20International%20Law.pdf
J. McNamee, “Internet Intermediaries: The New Cyberpolice?”, GIS Watch, http://www.giswatch.org/sites/default/files/gisw_-_internet_intermediaries_-_the_new_cyber_police_.pdf
A. Escudero-Pascal & G. Hosein, "The Hazards of Technology-Neutral Policy: Questioning Lawful Access to Traffic Data", (2004) 47(3) ACM 77, http://web.it.kth.se/~aep/PhD/docs/paper6-acm-1905-reviewed_20021022.pdf
HRC, “Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights”, April 2008, A/HRC/8/5, http://198.170.85.29/Ruggie-report-7-Apr-2008.pdf
HRC, “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework”, March 2011, A/HRC/7/31, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/A-HRC-17-31_AEV.pdf
ACLU, “New Justice Department Documents Show Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance”, Sept 2012, http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/new-justice-department-documents-show-huge-increase

Organiser(s) Name:

Katitza Rodriguez, International Rights Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Peru)
Tamir Israel, Staff Lawyer, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), University of Ottawa (Canada)

Previous Workshop(s):

Submitted Workshop Panelists:

Chair: Katitza Rodriguez, International Rights Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation; (US/Peru) (Civil Society) / Confirmed

Ian Brown, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute (EU) (Academic) / Confirmed
Bertrand de la Chapelle, Program Director at International Diplomatic Academy (EU) (Civil Society) / Confirmed
Marc Crandall, Global Compliance, Google (US) (Private Sector)
Elonnai Hickok, Policy Associate, Centre for Internet & Society (India) (Civil Society) /Confirmed
Sophie Kwasny, Head of Data Protection Unit, Data Protection & Cybercrime Division, Council of Europe (IGO) / Confirmed
Bruce Schneier, Chief Security Technology Officer of BT (US) (Private Sector) / Confirmed
Wendy Seltzer, Policy Counsel, W3C (US) (Technical Community) / Confirmed

Name of Remote Moderator(s): Paul Muchene, iHub Nairobi (Kenya) (Private Sector) Assigned Panellists: de La Chapelle - Bertrand Rodriguez - Katitza Brown - Ian Schneier - Bruce KWASNY - Sophie Seltzer - Wendy Crandall - Marc

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/cloudy-jurisdiction-addressing-the-thirst-for-cloud-data-in-domestic-legeal-processes

Climate change will be a priority in talks with Modi: U.S.

praskrishna — 2016-07-02T05:08:51Z

Mr. Modi will have a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama on Tuesday and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

The article was published in Hindu on June 6, 2016

“Advancing the ambitious climate change and clean energy agenda” and “further enhancing our security and diplomatic cooperation across the Indo-Pacific region,” would be the focus of discussions between India and the U.S during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit this week, a State Department official told The Hindu.

Mr. Modi is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Monday evening on a three-day tour.

Mr. Modi will have a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, to be followed by a lunch at the White House on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he will address a joint session of Congress, which will be a demonstration of the bipartisan support that the India-US relationship has acquired.

“Since 2014, there have been six meetings and countless phone calls between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi, and this visit reflects the significance that the two leaders place on our natural alliance,” the official said.

Wooing investors

Mr. Modi will interact with U.S CEOs and investors at the annual meeting of the U.S – India Business Council (USIBC) on Tuesday. USIBC President Mukesh Aghi said the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Obama, “a PM who has not even completed half his term and a President who has only a few months left in office will be to strengthen the foundations of the relationship further and ensure continuity.”

Mr. Modi is visiting the U.S - the fourth time since he took over as PM in 2014 – at Mr Obama’s behest.

Mr. Aghi said the USIBC event would have CEOs of 25 Fortune 500 companies attending it. The event will also honour Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and Founder and Managing Director of Sun Pharmaceuticals Dilip Shanghvi with the Global Leadership Awards. “The PM’s interactions with U.S business leaders will be aimed to get more investment and technology to India,” Mr. Aghi said.

USIBC is also lobbying with the U.S and Indian governments to restart the negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). In a letter to the U.S government last week, Mr. Aghi said: "While both governments took a break from the negotiations on account of revising the model BITs, it is important for us to come back to the negotiating table to develop a way-forward on concluding a high-quality BIT.” USIBC also sought U.S initiative to nominate India for membership of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

IPR, Human Rights

Mr. Modi is facing protests from groups in India on the intellectual property rights policy that his government announced recently. The government has claimed the new policy does not compromise the country’s ability to ensure affordable drugs, but several campaign groups believe the Modi government is coming under U.S pressure on the issue.

Seeking a White Paper in parliament on the government’s engagement with the U.S on IPR issues, 11 civil society groups in India urged Mr. Modi “to withstand the pressure from the US government and corporations and to defend the people’s interests,” during his talks in Washington.

“We understand the primary intent of the (recent) policy is to respond to the aggressive demands of United States government, backed by the corporate interests especially the pharmaceutical companies, to amend India’s IP laws that include several safeguards to protect the public interest. The government of India should remain committed to the welfare of its people’s interest and should not succumb to the pressures that it is being subjected to,” the groups said, demanding to reconsider the “implementation of the National IPR Policy and send the policy back to the drawing board.” The statement was signed by Forum Against FTAs, Lawyers Collective, All Indian Drug Action Network, Initiative for Health & Equity in Society, Third World Network, National Working Group on Patent Laws, Gene Campaign, New Trade Union Initiative, Navdanya, Software Freedom Law Centre and Centre for Internet and Society.

In the U.S Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) has expressed “grave concerns about the increasing intolerance and violence against India's Christian communities.” Recalling President Obama’s statement in Delhi in January 2015 on religious freedoms, the group said “the concerns he raised in that speech are very important for the future of US-India relationship.” “While President Obama’s comments have raised the level of attention paid to this issue globally, there are several cases of Mr. Modi’s government officials continuing to protect local groups loyal to him from prosecution. The general socio-political environment created by Mr. Modi and his party has only caused greater damage to the Union of India,” John Prabhudoss, FIACONA president said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hindu-varghese-k-george-june-6-2016-climate-change-will-be-a-priority-in-talks-with-modi-us

Climate Change and Controversy Mapping

praskrishna — 2012-02-27T04:10:30Z

A three-day workshop with Professor Bruno Latour, Dean for Research at Sciences Po, Paris. The workshop is being organised in collaboration with the Devechia Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore from March 19 to March 21, 9.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

The development of ecological crisis creates problems for political representation. Because of the scale of the phenomena to be considered, the esoteric character of the scientific knowledge necessary to apprehend them, the intensity of the conflicts of values that they generate, there is no assembly to handle those crises. The workshop will explore digital tools that might allow citizens to get a grasp of ecological crisis by drawing ''cartographies of scientific and technical controversies'' a necessary preliminary for political assemblies.

The workshop is opened to PhD students from all academic fields doing empirical work in various types of ecological crisis. The participants will experiment some of the digital tools and methods developed within the "mapping controversies" consortium (MACOSPOL, demoscience and other sources of "science studies"). It requires students to devote three full days to the study. A background in Science and Technology
Studies and some grasp of digital data analysis are preferable.

Eligibility criteria:

To be a doctoral student or at the post doctoral level
To have a general interest or research connexion with ecological/climate change issues
Familiarity with digital data analysis

Candidates must send their CV and a short synopsis of their doctoral or postdoctoral research before Sunday March 4, 2012, to:
jayes@caos.iisc.ernet.in & gilles.verniers@sciences-‐po.fr

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/climate-change-and-controversy-mapping

Click, Play, Watch

praskrishna — 2012-03-20T12:52:44Z

Filmmakers are casting the net for viewers and opting for online releases to reach out to a wider audience, finds Rinky Kumar in this article published in MidDay on March 18, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this.

Till some time ago, the movie-going experience was a means for people to spend quality time with their loved ones. An evening planned in detail (right from booking the tickets to buying snacks), followed by dinner was de rigueur. Today, however, that has been replaced by an evening indoors where you can watch a commercial film or a critically-acclaimed documentary within the confines of your home, thanks to online releases.

A growing phenomenon

Take the case of Marathi movie Jana Gana Mana, which released online as well as in theatres on January 26. It wasn't the only one. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ashvin Kumar released his documentary Inshallah, Kashmir: Living Terror free of charge on YouTube on the same day. The very next month, debutant director Adeeb Rais released his film Kuch Spice To Make It Meetha, starring Purab Kohli, online on February 29.

Jana Gana Mana was the first commercial Marathi film to see an online release

Director Amit Abhyankar's Jana Gana Mana, which revolved around a teacher's relationship with the kids of the Faasi Pardi tribe in rural Maharashtra, garnered as many as 2,000 views within four days of its online release. He says, "We tied up with geodesi.com, which owns filmorbit.com, and ensured that viewers could log on to the site, select Jana Gana Mana and watch the film. While Indian viewers were charged Rs 30, people abroad had to pay $2.99. Surprisingly, only 30 per cent of the audience comprised Indians, the remaining 70 per cent were expatriates from far-flung countries like Tanzania and Israel."

A still from Inshallah, Kashmir: Living Terror, which was released online by director Ashvin Kumar to bypass censorship that his previous two films faced

In fact, Abhyankar has been flooded with requests to screen his movie abroad. He claims that apart from the Maharashtra Mandal of Los Angeles, which approached him to screen the film, 28 shows of the movie have been lined up in various parts of the world till May 5.

Kuch Spice To Make It Meetha recently received the YouTube Bronze Award for Most Trending Video

Likewise, Kumar's documentary, which sees Kashmiris open up about the brutality they suffer at the hands of militants and the Indian state alike, was supposed to become pay-per-view after the first 24 hours. "But when I saw the overwhelming response (over 50,000 views in three days), we kept it free for over a week. These figures are quite impressive since it's an 80-minute film and it's a known fact that India doesn't boast speedy Internet connections. But the fact that people had the patience to watch the film is heartwarming. Also, we didn't promote the film at all, I only posted about it on Facebook," enthuses Kumar.

Rais's film got as many as 1 million hits within three days of its release. Recently it also received the YouTube Bronze Award for the Most Trending Video. This medal is given to videos that have gained huge attention over a certain span of time and are currently seeing exceptional growth in viewership.

A new medium

Why are filmmakers choosing the online medium to release their movies? Some say it gives them an opportunity to showcase their work to the audience without shelling out a lot of money, while for others it is a way of making a statement. After his two earlier films, Inshallah Football and Dazed in Doon were banned, Kumar chose the Internet to screen Inshallah Kashmir to bypass the censor authorities, take a stand against them as well as give viewers the real picture of what is happening in the strife-torn valley. "There were several reasons why I uploaded the film online. Firstly, I wanted to make a statement that pre-censorship of any art form is unnecessary in this age of the Internet when everything can be accessed easily online. Secondly, viewers didn't have to pay for watching it, and that way more people saw what was actually happening in Kashmir," he explains.

For Abhyankar, the primary motive was to reach out to a larger audience. "It's well-known that distribution of Marathi films isn't great. I was very clear that my movie should reach out to more people and shouldn't just be limited to a theatrical release." Twenty-something Rais realised that releasing Kuch Spice To Make It Meetha on the Internet was the only way for him to showcase his work as well as reach out to a large audience. "Since it is a 25-minute short film, I didn't have the option of releasing it commercially. Either I could release it online or screen it at film festivals. The movie is a quirky take on a young commitment-phobic man, so I didn't think it was a good fit for the festival circuit."

According to Rais, he understood that it wasn't an easy task to make an impact in the online world, given the sea of videos that are uploaded every minute. So he decided to market his film well. He explains, "Because the movie was made on a limited budget, I had to seek sponsorship. I tied up with around 17 or 18 brands, including Tata Housing, Bharat Matrimony.com, Miss Malini.com and Upper Crust to market the film through online contests."

Sociological change

What has led to this phenomenon? Sunil Abraham, Executive director of Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, explains, "The times are changing. Earlier, creative artistes depended on intermediaries like studios, TV channels and theatres to screen their work and connect with viewers. Now, they are looking at the online medium to connect with the audience directly."

Kumar couldn't agree more. He opines that he had uploaded Inshallah Kashmir with an open mind and accepted the bouquets and brickbats with equal aplomb. "The Internet is a fairly democratic medium. Your audience shares views, opinions and abuses. While some loved the movie, others called me an Islamic fundamentalist. But I didn't mind as it was their honest opinion."

According to Abhyankar, the online medium is a boon for filmmakers as it is the only way for them to earn a considerable profit individually without sharing it with other entities. "When your movie is screened at theatres, apart from paying the satellite agencies for beaming the film, you have to incur expenses for screen prints and advertising. Later, you have to recover your money from exhibitors, which can be a long-winded process. In case of an online medium, the money is transferred directly to your account. Apart from converting the film into a format that can be viewed by everyone, you don't have to invest too much money."

Filmmakers also love that there is no pre-screening process involved online. "Only after the movie is uploaded and a user comments against objectionable or defamatory content, can it be removed from the website," informs Abraham.

Looking ahead

With the expanding reach of the Internet, filmmakers believe this trend will only grow. On their part, they are looking to explore it further. Enthused by the response to Jana Gana Mana, Abhyankar is now planning to make it available offline too. He shares, "Right now we are in talks with a company that has a unique technology whereby you don't have to visit the site and stream the movie. The technology enables viewers to get offline copies of the movie, which you can copy onto your pen drive. Once you connect your pen drive to the computer, the software will automatically connect you to the site and you have to just make the payment. In a few months time, we are also looking at releasing ad-supported versions of the film wherein viewers don't have to pay to watch the movie but will have to see it along with all the ads." As Rais, who is working on another project, Beyond Hatke, which will have an online release in October this year, says on a parting note, "Today people no longer have to go to theatres to watch a film, they can see movies on their laptops, mobile phones, while doing household chores and travelling to work. The Internet is definitely a boon for everyone."

The history of online releases

Rajshri Films released its Shahid Kapoor-Amrita Rao-starrer Vivah simultaneously in cinema halls and on the production company's official site -- Rajshri.com in 2006. The site served one million streams within seven days of its release. Each stream was priced at $9.99 approximately and the company managed to earn Rs.4.5 crore in the first week itself.
Siddharth-starrer Striker had a theatrical release in India and premiered exclusively for its foreign audiences through YouTube in 2010. While the movie was available for rent on YouTube in the US, in other foreign countries, people could view it for free on Studio18's YouTube channel.
After selling the film's soundtrack exclusively through the digital medium, the makers of F.A.L.T.U, released their movie simultaneously in Indian theatres and on the online medium for foreign audiences in 2011. Viewers had to pay a booking fee of $2.89 in order to watch the stream on www.zeetv.com/faltu.

Read the original published in MidDay

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Clear and Present Danger: Attempts to Change Internet Governance and Implications for Press Freedom

praskrishna — 2012-06-29T03:59:39Z

The event was organised by National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2012. Emma Llansó, Rebecca MacKinnon, Emin Milli, Susan Morgan and Katitza Rodriguez were the speakers.

Pranesh Prakash participated in the event. Susan Morgan from Global Network Initiative was the moderator.

More details are published on the National Endowment for Democracy website.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/clear-and-present-danger

classroom

praskrishna — 2011-12-06T10:33:27Z

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Classroom

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T09:07:06Z

Classroom at IIM, Bangalore

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Clash of the cyberworlds

praskrishna — 2013-01-15T06:57:48Z

In an increasingly digital world, the issue of Internet freedom and governance has become hugely contested. Censorship and denial of access occur across the political spectrum of nations, even in liberal democracies.

The article by Latha Jishnu, Dinsa Sachan and Moyna was published in Down to Earth magazine's January 15, 2013 issue. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In run-up to the just-concluded World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, there was a frenzied campaign to ensure that governments kept their hands off the Internet. It was feared the International Telecommunications Union, a UN body, was aiming to take control of the Internet. That hasn’t happened. But the outcome in Dubai has highlighted once again the double speak on freedom by countries that claim to espouse it and by corporations interested in protecting their interests, says Latha Jishnu, who warns that the major threat to the Internet freedom comes from the wide-ranging surveillance measures that all governments are quietly adopting. Dinsa Sachan speaks to institutions and officials to highlight the primacy of cyber security for nations, while Moyna tracks landmark cases that will have a bearing on how free the Net remains in India.

For months now a little-known UN agency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has been looming large in cyberspace, portrayed as an evil force plotting to take over the Internet and threatening to destroy its freedom by rewriting archaic regulations. ITU, set up in 1865, is primarily a technical body that administers a 24-year-old treaty, International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), which are basic principles that govern the technical architecture of the global communication system.

	How did the 193-nation ITU, which regulates radio spectrum, assigns satellite orbits and generally works to improve telecom infrastructure in the developing world, turn into everyone’s favourite monster in the digital world? The provocation was ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, where ITRs were proposed to be revised. Leaked documents of the proposals made to ITU had shown that statist countries like Russia and China, known for their crackdown on Internet freedom, had put forward proposals to regulate digital “crime” and “security” aspects that are currently not regulated at the global level for want of consensus on balancing enforcement with protection of individual rights.

Other proposals were about technical coordination and the setting up of standards that enable all the devices, networks and software across the Internet to communicate and connect with one another. Although ITU secretary general Hamadoun I Touré had emphasised that the Dubai WCIT was primarily attempting to chart “a globally agreed-upon roadmap that offers future connectivity to all, and ensures sufficient communications capacity to cope with the exponential growth in voice, video and data”, there was widespread scepticism among developed countries.

Online subversion in India AT the seventh annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, last November, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal was a star turn. He made an elevating speech about the need to put in place a “collaborative, consultative, inclusive and consensual” system for dealing with policies involving the Internet. India, with 125 million Internet users—a number that “is likely to grow to about half a billion over the next few years”—would be a key player in the cyberworld of tomorrow, he promised. According to the minister, Internet governance was an oxymoron because the concept of governance was for dealing with the physical world and had no relevance in cyberspace. These were high sounding words that crashed against the reality of India’s paranoia over online subversion. For starters, Sibal flew into a media blitz over Google’s transparency Report which ranked India second globally in accessing private details of its citizens. Even if it was a far second behind the US, it was an embarrassing revelation for the government which appears to have been rather enthusiastic in seeking information on the users of its various services. Such user data would include social networking profiles, complete gmail accounts and search terms used. In the first half of 2012, India made 2,319 requests related to 3,467 users compared with 7,969 requests by the US. Globally, Google clocked a total of 20,938 requests for user data. A few days down the line there was a public explosion over the arrest of two young women in Palghar, near Mumbai, for posting a prosaic comment on Facebook over Bal Thackeray’s death. Thanks to the deliberately vague wording of Section 66A of the IT Act, such arrests have become common and Rajya Sabha devoted a whole afternoon to discuss the impugned legislation and seek its withdrawal. Sibal’s response has been to issue guidelines on the use of this Section which civil society organisations say will do nothing to sort out matters. Then there are the IT (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, issued under Section 79 of the IT Act, which have been used indiscriminately by business interests to shut down websites, resulting in unbridled censorship of the Internet time and again. Although a motion for its annulment was moved in Parliament by Rajya Sabha member P Rajeeve, it was withdrawn after Sibal promised to talk to all stakeholders. A host of MPs have termed the rules a violation of right to freedom of speech besides going against the laws of natural justice. The promised meeting of stakeholders has not yielded any results and censorship on grounds of possible online piracy continues. In this regard, India is more restrained than the US which has pulled down huge numbers of domains on the ground they were violating intellectual property by selling pirated goods.

Western global powers, behemoth Internet companies, private telecom corporations and almost the entire pack of civil liberties organisations came together in a frenzied campaign to ensure that ITU kept its hands off the Internet. Massive online petitions were launched, backed by Internet companies such as search engine Google and social networking service Facebook. The Internet, they said, should not become an ITU remit because it would change the multi-stakeholder approach, which currently marks the way the Internet is governed, and replace it with government control that would curb digital freedom. Not only did the US administration oppose the revision of ITRs, the US Congress also passed a rare unanimous resolution against the WCIT proposals.

In the end, it was an anti-climax: nothing much came of these proposals. Although WCIT was marked by high drama—a walkout by the US and six European countries, a show of hands on a contested but innocuous resolution and an unexpected vote—the “final acts” (http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Documents/final-acts-wcit-12.pdf) or the changes in ITRs make no mention of the I word. Not once. The 30-page document states at the outset that “these regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications” —an indirect reference to the Internet.

	Ultimately, it was a triumph of the US-led position even if 89 of the 144 eligible countries signed it. Most of the developed countries refused to sign it. Nor, unexpectedly, did India, and thereby hangs a curious tale. Officials who were privy to the negotiations told Down To Earth that India was all set to sign the new ITRs when its delegation got last-minute instructions from Delhi not to endorse them. “It was unexpected and a let-down for India and our global allies,” confesses an official of the Ministry of Communications & IT. “There was nothing in the final document that we had objections to.” According to the grapevine, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal was facing pressure from two sides: the US Administration and domestically from civil society, Internet service providers and the private telecom players who had objected to India’s proposals on ITRs. The US is known to be keeping a close eye on what India decides to do on the new treaty which it can still ratify. In the Dubai treaty, the only ITR that does impinge on the Net is (Article 5B) on unsolicited bulk electronic communications or spam. But even here, what it merely states is that member-states should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the “propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services.”

In many ways, what took place during the hectic days before and during the December 3-14 WCIT was in a broad sense a replay of the Cold War scenario of the good (freedom-loving countries) versus evil (authoritarian or autocratic regimes), although alliance may have shifted in the two blocs. What is clear is that a larger geopolitical fight is playing out with the Internet as disputed terrain. American analysts themselves have pointed out that the “US got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff.”

Even the innocuous Article 5A, which calls on members “to ensure the security and robustness of international telecommunication networks”, was interpreted by US delegation head Terry Kramer as a means that could be used by some governments to curb free speech!

As an outraged Saudi delegate said, “It is unacceptable that one party to the conference gets everything they want and everybody else must make concessions. And after having made many concessions, we are then asked to suppress the language which was agreed to. I think that that is dangerous. We are on a slippery slope.” The final outcome: all the contentious issues were relegated to resolutions, which have no legal basis.

Indeed, the US has managed to get its way on most issues: protecting the mammoth profits of its Internet companies and ensuring that control of the Internet address system, now done by a group based in the US, will not be shared with other ITU members. And, the likes of Google (2011 profit: $37.9 billion) and Facebook will not have to pay telecom companies for use of their networks to deliver content.

Challenges of securing cyberworld

E-commerce in India, where every tenth person is online, is on the rise—and, consequently, crime on the Internet. In 2011, the country’s nodal agency for handling cyber crime, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, tackled 13,301 incidences of security breach. The incidents ran the gamut from website intrusions, phishing to network probing and virus attacks. Further, in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (until October), there were 201, 303, 308 and 294 cyber attacks respectively on sites owned by the Indian government. Most notably, hacker group Anonymous defaced the website of Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal.

To beef up cyber security, the Union ministry plans to pump in Rs 45 crore in 2012-13. It also put up a draft cyber security policy for public comments in 2011. Currently, cases involving cyber security and crime are handled under the IT Act of 2000 (Amendment 2008) and the Indian Penal Code.

But will the government go about its business of securing the Net in a responsible manner? There is scepticism. Section 69 of the Act gives any government agency the right to “intercept, monitor or decrypt” information online. Chinmayi Arun, assistant professor of law at National Law University in Delhi, said at the Internet Governance Conference held at FICCI in October that crimes like defamation are not on the same page as cyber terrorism, and “we have to question whether they warranty invasion of privacy”. She added that the workings of the surveillance system has to be made more open to build public trust.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bengaluru, draws attention to a fundamental flaw in the section. “Government is allowed to wire tap under the Telegraph Act, 1885. But the Act lays out specific guidelines for such an action. For example, you can only tap phones in the case of a ‘public emergency’ or ‘public safety’ situation. The IT Act does not put such limitations on interception of information,” he says.

Cyber security and ITU

A few months prior to the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, countries, including Russia and Arab states, had proposed measures that would, through International Telecommunication Union (ITU), grant disproportional power to countries to control the Internet in the name of security measures. Several proposals, most notably those of India and Arab States, explicitly stated in the proposed Article 5A that countries should be able to “undertake appropriate measures, individually or in cooperation with other Member States” to tackle issues relating to “confidence and security of telecommunications/ICTs”. It raised alarm among civil society. US-based think tank Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said in its report dated September, 2012, that cyber security does not fall under the ambit of International Telecom Regulations, and some countries would misuse such privileges for “intrusive or repressive measures”.

The proposal by African member states recommended that nations should “harmonise their laws” on data retention. In other words, intermediaries would have to retain public data for a long period so that governments can access it whenever they please. With regard to this, CDT noted, “Not only do national laws on data retention vary greatly, but there is ongoing controversy about whether governments should impose data retention mandates at all.”

A clause in the Arab proposal on routing said, “A Member State has the right to know how its traffic is routed.” Currently, the way Internet works, senders and recipients do not know how data between their computers travels or is routed. However, enabling countries to have control over routing has its dangers. CDT notes, “(This) would simply not work and could fundamentally disrupt the operation of the Internet.” Internet traffic travels over an IP network. While travelling, it is fragmented into small packets. Packets generally take a different path across interconnected networks in many different countries before reaching the recipient’s computer. CDT notes providing routing information to countries would require “extensive network engineering changes, not only creating huge new costs, but also threatening the performance benefits and network efficiency of the current system”. Although routing was not part of India’s proposal, Ram Narain, deputy director general at the department of telecommunications, told Down To Earth it was one of the country’s concerns.

However, to civil society’s partial relief, such draconian cyber security clauses were not adopted in the new itr treaty. Two clauses added to the treaty, Article 5A and 5B, address some cyber security concerns. Titled “Security and robustness of networks”, Article 5A urges countries to “individually and collectively endeavour to ensure the security and robustness of international telecommunication networks”. Article 5B talks about keeping tabs on spam.

Prasanth Sugathan, senior advocate with Software Freedom Law Centre, an international network of lawyers, says while he would have preferred that the two clauses were kept out of the new treaty, they do not seem harmful. “They are a much toned down version of what Arab states and Russia had suggested,” he says.

This is one reason India, Brazil and other democracies from the developing world also want a change in ITRs. They want the Internet behemoths to pay for access to their markets so that such revenues can be used to build their own Internet infrastructure.

In the furious debate on keeping the Net free of international control even hawk-eyed civil society organisations prefer to ignore the monetary aspects of Net control. Some analysts believe that maintaining the status quo is not so much about protecting the values of the Internet as about safeguarding interests, both monetary and hegemonistic. Such an assessment may not be wide of the mark if one joins the dots. Google, says a Bloomberg report of December 10, “avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before”. It also said that the French, Italian, British and Australian governments are probing Google’s tax avoidance in its borderless operations.

	What is clear, however, is that a number of countries for reasons springing from different motivations, appear determined to undermine America’s control of the outfits that now define how the Internet works. Although the US maintains that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a private, non-profit corporation, it is overseen by the US Commerce Department. According to People’s Daily, what the US spouts about Net freedom is so much humbug. In an August 2012 report, the leading Chinese daily claimed the US “controls and owns all cyberspaces in the world, and other countries can only lease Internet addresses and domain names from the US, leading to American hegemonic monopoly over the world’s Internet”. It also highlighted a fact that has slipped below the radar. During the Iraq invasion, the US government asked ICANN to terminate services to Iraq’s top-level domain name “.iq” and thereafter all websites with the domain name “.iq” disappeared overnight. It charges the US with having “taken advantage of its control over the Internet to launch an invisible war against disobedient countries and to intimidate and threaten other countries”. While this may be true, the irony is that China, with its great firewall of censorship, is in no shape to position itself as a champion of freedom. Like other authoritarian countries, it will do everything to police the Net and control it.

The right of countries and peoples to access the Net was highlighted in Dubai when some African countries raised the issue of US control of the global Internet. Some of these, such as Sudan, have long been complaining about Washington’s sanctions that entail denial of Internet services. ITU officials point out that Resolution 69, first passed in the 2008 meeting, invoked again in 2010 and dusted off once again for the WCIT negotiations, invoked “human rights” to argue for “non-discriminatory access to modern telecom/ ICT facilities, services and applications”. Says Paul Conneally, head of Communications & Partnership Promotion at ITU, “The real target of these resolutions are US sanctions imposed on nations that are deemed bad actors. These sanctions mean that people in those countries—not just the government, mind you, but everyone, innocent and guilty alike—are denied access to Internet services such as Google, Sourceforge, domain name registrars such as GoDaddy, software and services from Oracle, Windows Live Messenger, etc.”

The catalogue of Sudan’s complaints shows at least 27 instances in 2012 when companies from Google to Microsoft and Paypal to Oracle cut off their services to the African country. This might explain why major companies would be opposed to the resolution on a right to access Internet services. Such a right would allow countries to use ITRs to compel them to provide services they might otherwise have preferred not to. But so far all such sanctions appear to have been a decision of the US Administration.

The problem of the digital divide, in fact, did not get the headlines it should have. Africa accounts for just 7 per cent of the 2.4 billion people who use the Net worldwide and penetration in the region is just 15.6 per cent of the population. Compare this with North America where over 78 per cent are linked to the digital world and Touré’s logic about the ITU’s mandate appears reasonable.

When Apple censors the drone war NETIZENS know that the Internet suffers from the depredations of government, hackers and viruses. But not many are aware that companies are as prone to taking legitimate stuff off the Net on the flimsiest grounds. In the case of Apple it could have been misplaced patriotism or plain business sense that prompted it to block an app which monitors drone strike locations in November last year. The App Store rejected the product, calling it “objectionable and crude”. Drones+ (see photo) is an application that simply adds a location to a map every time a drone strike is reported in the media and added to a database maintained by the UK’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Josh Begley, a graduate student at New York University, who developed the app, says it shows no visuals of war or classified information. All it does is to keep its users informed about when and where drone attacks are taking place in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “This is behavior I would expect of a company in a repressive country like China, not an iconic American company in the heart of Silicon Valley,” says a petition to the company CEO. Did Apple’s censorship have anything to do with the fact that it received huge contracts from the Pentagon? US legislators have joined the protests against Apple. The most brazen act of corporate censorship occurred in August 2012 with NASA’s livestream coverage of the Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars in the space agency’s $2.5 billion mission. A news agency, Scripps, coolly claimed as its own the public domain video posted on NASA’s official YouTube channel that documented the epic landing (see our opening visuals). “This video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds. Sorry about that,” said a message on NASA’s blackened screen. So much for the strict US laws aimed at curbing online piracy!

Touré noted that the revised ITRs would see greater transparency in global roaming charges, lead to “more investment in broadband infrastructure” and help those with disabilities. But he was hopeful that the new treaty signed in Dubai would make it possible for the 4.5 billion people still offline to be connected. “When all these people come online, we hope they will have enough infrastructure and connectivity so that traffic will continue to flow freely,” Touré said.

But should ITU govern the Net? Not in its entirety, according to experts. For one, ITU until the Dubai meeting was far from being transparent and does not allow participation of civil society or other stakeholders in its negotiations unless they are part of the official delegation of the member-states. In fact, even critics of the current system, who think the system is lopsided and hypocritical, believe ITU needs to reform itself and confine to the carrier/infrastructure layer of the Internet. Nor should it get into laying down standards which is done by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the naming and numbering that is managed by ICANN.

But Conneally counters this by asking what would happen if the US decided to deny domain name root zone to Iran because of its bad human rights record. “Suppose it ordered Verisign to remove .IR from the DNS root and make it non-functional. Would we want ICANN/the Internet governance regime to be used as a political/strategic tool to reform Iran? What happens to global interoperability when the core infrastructure gets used in that way?”

Who then should ensure that the Internet is run in a free and open manner? Should it be the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)? But IGF is to be an open consultative forum that cannot by itself govern. It brings in participation for any or all Internet-related policy processes but it by itself was never supposed to do policy or governance.

Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director of ItforChange, says whoever governs is the government for that purpose. “This truism is significant in the present context, because there is an attempt by those who really control/ govern the Internet at present, largely through illegitimate and often surreptitious ways, to confuse issues around Internet governance in all ways possible, including through abuse of established language and political principles and concepts.”

ITforChange is a Bengaluru institution working on information society theory and practice, especially from the standpoint of equity, social justice and gender equality, and it is that perspective which informs Singh’s suggestions. “What we need are safeguards as, for instance, with media regulation. The Internet, of course, is much more than media. It is today one of the most important factors that can and will influence distribution of economic, social and political power. Without regulation it will always be that those who currently dominate it will take away the biggest pie.

Surveillance club

Eight Indian companies are among the 700 members of European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The group works with government and law enforcement agencies to integrate surveillance capabilities into communications infrastructure. It also hosts regular meetings on lawful interception

Wipro Technologies	Associate Service Providers
• HCL Technologies Limited	• Associate Consultancy for Co./Partnership
• Accenture Services Pvt Ltd	• Observers
• CEWiT	• Associate Research Body
• Saankhya Labs Pvt Ltd	• Associate Manufacturers
• Sasken Communication	• Associate Manufacturers
• Technologies
• SmartPlay Technologies	Associate Consultancy for Co./Partnership
• TEJAS NETWORKS LTD	• Associate Manufacturers

Other critics of the current system concede that bringing governments on board, especially authoritarian and statist powers which the digital world threatens, would give them perverse incentives to control it. But this threat should be met not by insisting that the Internet needs no governance or regulation, but by safeguards that ensure equitable access and benefits, Singh stresses.

While the jury is out on the question whether the new ITRs will make any material difference to the way, and if at all, the Net will come under added government oversight and intervention, developments elsewhere show that ITU is not the main threat to digital freedom.

The irony is that while cyber security is contentious in ITU, other international organisations, such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and a clutch of influential telecom industry associations, are pushing for surveillance programmes that ensure policing of a high order with sophisticated infrastructure to monitor online communications. A host of countries already have such systems in place and are pressuring countries like India to fall in line.

A UNODC report, titled ‘The use of the Internet for terrorist purposes’, has detailed how countries can and should use new technology for online surveillance—all in the name of anti-terrorism. The report discusses sensitive issues such as blocking websites and using spyware to bypass encryption and also urges countries to cooperate on an agreed framework for data retention.

At the same time, powerful industry bodies, such as ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), are reported to be working with government and law enforcement agencies to integrate surveillance capabilities into communications infrastructure, according to Future Tense, a project which looks at emerging technologies and how these affect society, policy and culture. It says India is under pressure from another industry organisation, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), “to adopt global standards for surveillance”, calling on the country’s government to create a “centralized monitoring system” and “install state-of-the-art legal intercept equipment”.

TIA is a Washington-based trade group which brings together companies such as Nokia, Siemens Networks and Verizon Wireless, and is focused on issues related to electronic surveillance and is developing standards for intercepting VOIP and data retention alongside with ETSI and ATIS. At least seven Indian companies are members of ETSI, which is said to hold international meetings on data interception thrice a year.

Add to this chilling list the International Chamber of Commerce. It is reported to be seeking the establishment of surveillance centre hubs of several countries to help governments intercept communications and obtain data that is stored in cloud servers in foreign jurisdictions. Given this backdrop why are the US and its cohorts creating a ruckus on ITRs?

It would also mean that by focusing on ITRs and ITU as a major threat to Internet freedom civil society may be jousting at windmills.

Malice and freedom of speech

Two suits highlight the challenge of treading between the two

Among the many legal cases in India related to the use and misuse of the world wide web, two stand out for involving web giants and provoking sharp reaction. These are the cases registered in Delhi district courts in December 2011, objecting to chunks of content—portraying prominent political figures and religious places among others in a certain light—hosted on websites. One was filed by a Delhi journalist, Vinai Rai, requesting the court to press criminal charges against 21 web agencies, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo! India. The other, filed by a social activist, M A A Qasmi, was a civil suit requesting action against 22 web agencies. Both mentioned that the content on the websites was inflammatory, threat to national integrity, unacceptable, and created enmity, hatred and communal discord.

A year on, tangible impact has not been much. The number of accused in the civil case has come down to seven web agencies and in the criminal case the government is yet to issue summons to the companies concerned (see ‘The case so far’). However, these litigations are seen as landmarks in the recent history of the Internet and its interaction with societies and governments. The cases—especially off-the-record comments by the judiciary suggesting blanket ban and pre-screening of all content—provoked a debate on the freedom of expression and Indian cyber laws.

The case so far

JANUARY 13, 2012: Delhi High Court dismisses petition by Google and Facebook asking to be absolved of criminal charges filed in district court

JANUARY 20: High Court asks for reply from Delhi Police in response to plea by Yahoo! India challenging district court summons

FEBRUARY 16: Court refuses to stay proceedings against Facebook and Google but allows them to be represented by counsel

MARCH: Court dismisses criminal charges against Yahoo! India and Microsoft but says the charges can be revived if new evidence comes to light. Sets aside summons

Malicious content exists on the web and may even need to be taken down, but the laws used to remove malicious content can also be used to curb political speech, thus, infringing on the right to freedom of expression, says Prasanth Sugathan, senior advocate with Software Freedom Law Centre, an international network of lawyers.

Some like Pranesh Prakash of non-profit Centre for Internet and Society believe the IT Rules are at odds with the IT Act and give powers for censorship. He explains that the IT Act, 2000, provides for protection of intermediaries; web browsers, social networking sites and websites cannot be held responsible for what a third party publishes on their forums—“similar to the way in which we cannot sue a telephone agency or a post office for someone else making use of these platforms to harass or defame another person”. But the IT rules of 2011 watered down this protection.

Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert Pavan Duggal explains how. The Act states once a complaint is made against certain content, the web agency hosting it must notify the person who put up the content, verify the content and judge whether it needs to be removed. But the rules state that once the web agency is notified it must remove the content within 36 hours or it could be prosecuted for not acting on the complaint. The rules have gone beyond the Act’s scope, especially vis-a-vis privacy and data protection, leaving no scope for hearing out the accused, he says.

The disjunct between the Act and the rules is being contested in various spheres, including Parliament. But there is a bright side too. Duggal believes the cases have brought pertinent issues, like free speech and privacy concerns, into the public domain. Ramanjeet Chima, policy adviser for Google, says freedom of expression is paramount for Google but the recognition of local sentiments is also being given equal weightage.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, who was representing Facebook in the Delhi High Court, wonders whether the existing Indian laws are in tune with the ever-changing online world. Unwilling to comment on the case, he says the law is limited in its scope, while technology is not. Refusing to comment on the cases, the Google adviser emphasised the need to use the existing provisions of big web agencies to address grievances regarding content.

The Internet “is not the wild wild west”; all content, users and viewers can be traced, Duggal cautions. Since the Internet can impact political issues government is increasingly looking for ways to control it. “There is no ideal solution but it is evident that some monitoring and regulation are required, and in all parts of the world all regimes are in the process of addressing this,” he says.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/down-to-earth-latha-jishnu-dinsa-sachan-moyna-january-15-2013-clash-of-the-cyber-worlds

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt.

praskrishna — 2013-04-03T10:02:33Z

In the wake of concerns that the government is increasingly using ambiguously-phrased terms in legal codes to crack down on online speech, the Parliament’s Committee on Subordinate Legislation has asked for greater clarity and definition on terms which can serve as grounds for restrictions.

The article by Prashant Jha was published in the Hindu on April 1, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In 2011, the government issued Intermediary Guidelines under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Rule 3 requires intermediaries – including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), web hosts, cyber cafes, blogging platforms, search engines and others – to inform users not to ‘host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit or share information’ that is ‘grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatsoever.’ Any person aggrieved by the content can ask intermediaries to take it down, and if they do not do so within 36 hours, they can be legally liable.

‘Remove ambiguities’

The committee has heeded the views of NGOs that these terms have not been defined either in the IT Act or the rules. In a report submitted on March 21, it has drawn the attention of the Ministry of Communication and IT to the ‘reported misuse’ of Section 66A of the IT Act in the absence of precise definitions, and said it was important to remove ‘ambiguities/misgivings in the minds of people.’

In its report, the committee, chaired by MP P. Karunakaran, suggested that the definition of those terms in other laws be incorporated in one place for the ‘convenience of reference’ of intermediaries and general public. It has added that those terms not mentioned in other laws be defined in a way that ‘no new category of crimes or offences is created in the process of delegated legislation.’ The committee said it expected the Ministry to have a fresh look at the guidelines and ‘make amendments to ensure there is no ambiguity.’

Highlighting the significance of the committee’s directive not to create new offences, Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society said that this was recognition that ‘many categories of speech prohibited by the Intermediary Guidelines Rules are not prohibited by the statute, and hence cannot be prohibited by the government through these rules.’

‘Conflicting picture’

The committee has also pointed out that there was a ‘conflicting picture’ regarding the ‘legal enforceability’ of these guidelines. In its response, the Ministry told the committee that these are of ‘advisory’ nature; it is not ‘mandatory’ for the intermediary to disable information and this does not amount to ‘censorship.’ But the rules state the intermediary ‘shall act’ within 36 hours of complaint.

The committee said there was a need for ‘clarity on the aforesaid contradictions,’ particularly on the process of ‘take down of content,’ and install ‘safeguards to protect against any abuse during such process.’

Mr. Prakash of CIS said that this had exposed the ‘government’s Janus-faced stance on the issue of mandatory nature of these rules.’

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-april-1-2013-prashant-jha-clarify-and-define-terms-in-it-rules-panel-tells-govt

Clarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report

praskrishna — 2017-05-16T16:41:58Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/clarification-on-the-information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-report