Centre for Internet and Society

22 nieuwe leden voor Partnership on AI

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T06:54:20Z

Partnership on AI, een non-profit organisatie ter bevordering van het algemeen begrip van kunstmatige intelligentie en de ontwikkeling van best practices, heeft 22 nieuwe leden aangekondigd.

The news was published by Telecom Paper on May 17, 2017.

Tot de nieuwe leden behoren eBay, Intel, McKinsey & Company, Salesforce, SAP, Sony, Zalando, Cogitai, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, AI Forum of New Zealand, Center for Democracy & Technology, Centre for Internet and Society – India, Data & Society Research Institute, Digital Asia Hub, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Future of Humanity Institute, Future of Privacy Forum, Human Rights Watch, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, UNICEF, Upturn, en de XPRIZE Foundation. Partnership on AI werd vorig jaar september opgericht. Tot de oprichters behoren onder meer Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, Google DeepMind en Apple.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/telecom-paper-may-17-2017-22-nieuwe-leden-voor-partnership-on-ai

22 companies join Partnership on AI, begin to study AI's impact on work and society

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T05:26:09Z

The non-profit artificial intelligence organization added new groups into its fold, and announced initiatives on developing AI best practices and harnessing the technology for social good.

The blog post by Alison DeNisco was published in TechRepublic on May 17, 2017.

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly enters every part of our lives, from chatbots to self-driving cars to office data analysis programs, questions remain about how this technology will impact our future in terms of jobs, safety, and society.

In September 2016, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and Google announced the creation of a "Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society" (Partnership on AI), a nonprofit formed to "study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public's understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society." Apple joined the partnership as a founding member in January 2017.

On Tuesday, the Partnership on AI shared a blog post with updates on the group's progress. Some 22 new organizations are joining the partnership, and more are expected to join in the future, according to the post. Eight are for-profit partners: eBay, Intel, McKinsey & Company, Salesforce, SAP, Sony, Zalando, and Cogitai.

Meanwhile, 14 are non-profits: The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, AI Forum of New Zealand, Center for Democracy & Technology, Centre for Internet and Society-India, Data & Society Research Institute, Digital Asia Hub, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Future of Humanity Institute, Future of Privacy Forum, Human Rights Watch, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, UNICEF, Upturn, and the XPRIZE Foundation.

"Together with the founding companies and our existing non-profit Partners (AAAI, ACLU, and OpenAI), these new Partners strengthen and broaden our representation, helping to fulfil our goal to build a diverse, balanced, and global set of perspectives on AI," the post stated.

Notable representatives from these organizations include Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, head of Sony Computer Science Laboratories and a world expert on AI robotics and human-AI collaboration, and Chris Fabian of UNICEF's Office of Innovation, who leads a group of technologists who apply machine learning, data science, and AI to societal problems.

Partnership on AI also announced plans to launch a set of initiatives based on its thematic pillars: Safety-critical AI; fair, transparent, and accountable AI; collaboration between people and AI systems; AI, labor, and the economy; social and societal influences of AI; AI and social good; and special initiatives. These early programs will focus on:

Topic-specific and sector-specific Working Groups to research and formulate best practices
The creation of a Civil Society Fellowship program aimed at assisting people at non-profits and NGOs who wish to collaborate on topics in AI and society
The formation of a cross-conference "AI, People, and Society" Best-Paper Award
The start of an AI Grand Challenges series to stimulate aspirational efforts in harnessing AI to address some of the most pressing long-term social and societal issues

The partners will work together to shape each initiative, and the group will share more information about each project soon, according to the blog post. The group also announced that it is in the process of appointing an executive director, who will oversee the organization's day-to-day operations.

Partnership on AI is not the only group examining the impact AI will have on our world. Elon Musk founded an $11 million AI safety program for funding researchers, and Eric Horvitz of Stanford University is leading the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence. The White House released two reports in 2016 on preparing for the future of AI, and the effect of AI and automation on the economy. And a US Senate Committee also met last year to discuss the current state of AI, and its potential impact on policy and commerce.

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

The nonprofit Partnership on AI, founded by Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Google, and Apple, recently announced that it was adding 22 new organizations to its ranks to research AI and formulate best practices around the technology.
The partnership also announced several initiatives, including working groups to research and create best practices, and a challenge series to inspire people to use AI to address social issues.
Partnership for AI is expected to release more information on each initiative soon, as well as appoint an executive director.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/tech-republic-may-17-2017-22-companies-join-partnership-on-ai

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praskrishna — 2012-12-02T11:50:36Z

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13 crore Aadhaar numbers on four government websites compromised: Report

praskrishna — 2017-05-03T15:19:52Z

The lack of information security practices in key government websites which hosts Personally Identifiable Information (PII) has left citizens of the country more vulnerable to identity theft and financial fraud, a research paper has argued.

The article by Akram Mohammed was published by the New Indian Express on May 2, 2017.

A paper by Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali of Centre for Internet and Society analysed four government websites and found that more than 13 crore Aadhaar numbers with related PII were available on the websites, exposing lax security features.

The paper published under Creative Commons is titled ‘Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar Numbers with sensitive personal financial information’ and was released on Monday.

Sinha and Kodali looked at databases on four government portals -- National Social Assistance Programme, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Chandranna Bima Scheme, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh and Daily Online Payment Reports website of NREGA, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh.

“We chose major government programmes that use Aadhaar for payments and banking transactions. We found sensitive and personal data and information accessible on these portals,” the report said.

Leaked through portals

“Based on the numbers available on the websites, estimated number of Aadhaar numbers leaked through these 4 portals could be around 130-135 million and the number of bank account numbers leaked at around 100 million.

While these numbers are only from two major government programmes of pensions and rural employment schemes, other major schemes, that have also used Aadhaar for DBT, could have leaked PII similarly due to lack of information security practices,” it said.

They fear that data of over 23 crore beneficiaries under DBT of LPG subsidies could be leaked also. Identity theft and financial fraud “risks increase multifold in India...,” they said.

Aadhaar payments unsafe

In case a financial fraud takes place through Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS), the consumer may not be able to assert his claims for compensation due to the terms and conditions around liabilities.

“These terms force the consumer to take liabilities onto oneself than the payment provider..... Regulations and standards around Aadhaar are at a very early and nascent stage causing (an) increase in financial risk for both consumers and banks to venture into AePS,” they added. The authors also pulled up UIDAI for their inability in providing strong legislation against such leaks.

Leaky govt portals

National Social Assistance Programme

PII available - Access to Aadhaar no., name, bank account number, account frozen status 94,32,605 bank accounts linked with Aadhaar

14,98,919 post office accounts linked with Aadhaar numbers.

Though total Aadhaar number is 1,56,42,083, not all are linked to bank accounts

NREGA

PII Details available: Job card no., Aadhaar number, bank/postal account number, no. of days worked, registration no., account frozen status

78,74,315 post office accounts of individual workers seeded with Aadhaar numbers,

8,24,22,161 bank accounts of individual workers with Aadhaar numbers.

10,96,41,502 total number of Aadhaar numbers stored by portal

Other websites

Chandranna Bima Scheme, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh

Daily Online Payment Reports website of NREGA, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/new-indian-express-may-2-2017-akram-mohammed-13-crore-aadhaar-numbers-on-four-government-websites-compromised

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11th Meeting of Information Systems Security Sectional Committee (LITD 17)

praskrishna — 2017-04-19T02:57:03Z

Udbhav Tiwari represented CIS at this meeting organized by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) at Manak Bhavan, New Delhi on April 13, 2017.

The meeting was the national mirror meeting for the 28th ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 Plenary and Working Group Meetings being held at Hamilton, New Zealand between the April 18 and 25, 2017. The meeting provided a fascinating insight into the government and industry viewpoints on key cyber security and privacy issues, especially on the Aadhaar.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/11th-meeting-of-information-systems-security-sectional-committee-litd-17

11th India Knowledge Summit 2013

praskrishna — 2013-09-26T07:15:29Z

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (ASSOCHAM) is organizing the 11th Knowledge Summit 2013 in Hotel Shangri-La, New Delhi on October 14 and 15, 2013. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.

Click to read the original published by ASSOCHAM here , read the tentative agenda here and the event brochure here.

The lack of a national-level doctrine has created an environment where we are entirely reactive in our cyber posture. Indeed, battlefield transcends physical borders and boundaries. The power of a nation-state is not required to inflict widespread damage to critical infrastructure systems; a single malicious actor can wreak havoc. The starkest difference, however, is that today both the private sector and individual citizens have unprecedented access to a myriad of infrastructure systems that can provide entry into sensitive systems – yet they are largely unaware of, and unaccountable for, their responsibilities in defending them.

As cyber networks rapidly transition from a mere utility to the undercurrent of our entire societal infrastructure, this reliance becomes a vulnerability. The modern Cyber Era demands a national-level doctrine that can be adopted by government agencies, armed forces, private sector organizations and individual citizens alike to establish a collective sense of purpose for our Cyber Security.

The Chamber is providing a forum to bring executive leaders, policymakers and academia together with the scientists and practitioners that intimately understand cyber technology to collaborate and begin a debate about the complex issues.

The time has come when we should consider not only the military impact of the new cyber world, but also what role cyber defense will hold in shaping the future of our country’s economy, education, foreign affairs policies and critical infrastructure initiatives. Only then can our government, industry, and private citizens align under common goals to shape a safe and prosperous future.

ASSOCHAM India's Apex Chamber for Commerce & Industry was set up in 1920. Today the Chamber is proud to have more than 450,000 Companies as it's esteemed Member which includes many of the big global technology companies.

ASSOCHAM is privileged to be a Member of the “Cyber Regulation Advisory Committee” set up by Ministry of Communications and IT, and the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Cyber Security set up by the National Security Council Secretariat, Government of India.

The ASSOCHAM’s flagship program the Annual INDIA KNOWLEDGE SUMMIT, organized since 1999 has been Addressed in the past by Noble Laureates, as the Distinguished ‘Key Note Speaker’ including – Dr. Craig Venter, Sir Harry Kroto, Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Dr. Raj Reddy, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, Dr. Kirsty Duncan, Prof. John A Pickett to name a few.

This year the 11th INDIA KNOWLEDGE SUMMIT is being organized from 14-15 October, 2013 in Hotel Shangri-La, New Delhi.

The Theme for this year’s Summit is “Cyber Era - Securing the Future”.

Registration Fees:

International Delegates: $ 200/- for both days
Indian Delegates: Rs. 5,000/- per day
Students: Rs. 2,000/- per day
The Delegate Registration Fee include:
Tea & Coffee
Copy of Background Paper /
Copy of Workshop Study Material

For more details please contact:

Ajay Sharma, Senior Director, M: 9899188488 , eMail: ajay.sharma@assocham.com
Varun Aggarwal, Joint Director, M: 9910613815 , eMail: varun.aggarwal@assocham.com
Himanshu Rewaria, Executive, M: 9654251077 , eMail: himanshu.rewaria@assocham.com
Sahil Goswami Executive, M: 9871962311 , eMail: sahil.goswami@assocham.com

Corporate Office
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India
ASSOCHAM Corporate Office, 5, Sardar Patel Marg
Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021
Phone: 46550555 (Hunting Line)
Fax: 01123017008/9

Email: assocham@nic.in

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/eleventh-india-knowledge-summit-2013

11th DSCI-NASSCOM Annual Information Security Summit 2016

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:14:15Z

Udbhav Tiwari participated as a panelist in the 11th DSCI-NASSSCOM Annual Information Security Summit 2016 in New Delhi on December 14, 2016. The event was organized by DSCI and NASSCOM.

The Panel was on "Designing Privacy in Data Centric Business Architectures - Designing Privacy in Product, Services & Operations". Udbhav's co-panelists were: Gowree Gokhle, Partner, Nishith Desai Associates - Moderator; Sachin Lodha, Principal Scientist, TCS Innovation Labs; and Ankur Jain, Director IT & CISO, PayU.

The discussion primarily focused on:

Core Principles - Privacy should not solely be governed by laws, regulations and industry codes but should instead be guided by a core set of principles that companies choose to follow uniformly across their international presence. In fact, laws and regulations should form a basic, minimum standard of requirements and actual practice should attempt to follow these principles to ensure true compliance to the ideals of privacy. These core, minimal principles are: Notice, Transparency, Accountability, Security and Use Limitation.
Privacy as an Incentive - Privacy should be looked at not as a isolated right or legal compliance but an inclusive outlook which can be economically beneficial to both consumer and enterprise facing companies. Customers are increasingly starting to value privacy and providing it in an transparent manner (along with ensuring sufficient modern technical infrastructure) to ensure reliable protection can distinguish business in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Sound Technological Bedrock - Privacy as a notion in data (and now big data) centric architectures can only be enforced with modern, secure and open technological processes that ensure policy compliance and provide a clear audit trail for any breaches. Measures such as Homomorphic encryption, Multi-party computation, K-anonymity and Identity Management systems must be explored, tested and implemented according to need and requirements of businesses to ensure adequate privacy protection.
Need for a clear Indian legal framework - India's current legal framework with regard to privacy ranges from scattered to non existent, so there is a strong need for their to be a strong, clear and uniform legal framework to govern privacy for both Indian citizens as well as interactions with data from other jurisdictions. This will ensure that organisations will have a clear standard to follow, will have an easier time implementing privacy policies avoid sectoral clashes and can be held accountable for any breaches of legal standards. A large part of the work required for this has been done by the Justice AP Shah Committee on Privacy as well.

For more info see this page

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-nasscom-annual-information-security-summit-2016

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10th NLSIR Symposium - Regulating E-Commerce in India

praskrishna — 2016-12-06T15:48:25Z

Vidushi Marda participated in a panel at the "10th NLSIR Symposium on Regulating E-Commerce in India" at NSLIU on November 27, 2016 in Bengaluru.

The topic for my session was "Liability Regimes - Ensuring Compliance". I spoke about the various kinds of E-Commerce businesses to consider (from aggregators to platforms to the sharing economy) and focussed on issues surrounding intermediary liability and data protection. The panelists were:

Pranav Mehra, Snapdeal
Vidushi Marda, Centre for Internet Society
Arun Prabhu, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
Arun Binoy Mattamana, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Aditya Mudgal, Hindustan Unilever Ltd

Click to see more info

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/10th-nlsir-symposium-regulating-e-commerce-in-india

10th International ISTR Conference

praskrishna — 2012-08-05T08:03:28Z

The 10th international ISTR conference was organised by ISTR at Universita Degli Studi Di Siena in Italy from July 10 to 13, 2012. Nishant Shah gave a lecture on Beyond Normative Citizenships: Exploring the ‘New’ in Digital Activism.

Nishant Shah spoke as a panelist in the panel "Theoretical Grounding of Civic Driven Change".

This Tenth International Conference of ISTR marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of this global community of scholars and interested others dedicated to the creation, discussion, and advancement of knowledge pertaining to the Third Sector and its impact on human and planetary well-being and development internationally.

In this era of far-reaching changes in the way that societies are organized, the Third Sector is playing a critical role and has significantly gained importance in many countries. Democratization and the role of civil society in social integration and participation are in the spotlight with recent mobilizations particularly in the Middle East and ongoing suppression of civil society under authoritarian regimes in parts of the world. New media, social networks and other technological innovations raise new opportunities and challenges for organizing collective action and the diversity of civil society. Marketization and its impact on the Third Sector is attracting renewed research interest as welfare budgets are cut and the role of nonprofits is called into question in difficult fiscal times in many nations. A second type of marketization is also attracting attention particularly the growth of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the emergence of social enterprises and changing philanthropic paradigms. International research toward a better understanding of the implications of these changes continues to gather momentum.

ISTR’s Tenth International Conference in Sienna, Italy offers an excellent opportunity for further dialogue on these and other changes in an environment of rigor, reflexivity, authenticity and creativity. Siena encapsulates a mix of tradition and innovation that is woven from ancient webs of social engagement and enduring beliefs in justice through periods of peace and conflict. It provides an excellent setting to explore the role of third sector studies as an integrative science with short and long term objectives geared towards understanding and addressing societal concerns. Three exciting plenary sessions will canvas major theoretical and practice developments in the Third Sector and highlight the rich history and accomplishments of the host nation’s Third Sector.

See the event details on ISTR website
Read the program supplement for ISTR's 10th International Conference

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/istr-conference

10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T09:03:30Z

Kannada wikipedia is celebrating its 10th anniversary on November 17.

The article by ND Shiva Kumar was published in the Times of India on November 15, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is quoted.

Kannada wikipedia has 15,369 articles (as of September 2013) and attracts 14 lakh visitors a month. It undergoes 2,000 edits a month.

The wikipedia boom among the Indian languages started in 2003. Initially, the growth was very slow and it reached 1,000 articles only by 2006. Even today, the situation isn't great.

Among the Indian languages, Hindi tops the list with one lakh articles, Tamil has 56,000, Telugu 53,000 and Marathi 40,000. Kannada is ahead of only Oriya and Punjabi.

Kannada has a total of 400 editors, of which 41 are active and 7 very active. The two highest contributors are non-techies and they are around 80 years - H R Lakshmivenkatesh from Mumbai and B S Chandrashekar from Sagar.

Wikipedian U B Pavanaja says it has gained momentum recently and the future looks bright.

The 10th anniversary programme on November 17 will be held from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm at H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore. Guests of honour will be Dr U R Ananthamurthy and Prof G Venkatasubbaiah.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-november-15-2013-nd-shiva-kumar-tenth-anniversary-of-kannada-wikipedia

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praskrishna — 2012-11-23T08:10:52Z

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10 years of Kannada Wikipedia: Many more miles to go!

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T07:40:24Z

Kannada Wikipedia community had a celebration that was introspective as well. Plans were chalked out on adding more content.

This blog post by Pavithra Hanchagaiah was published in CitizenMatters Bangalore on November 18, 2013.

Just two months away to welcome a New Year, Kannada Wikipedians celebrated the completion of 10 years of journey towards building a free encyclopedia for Kannada. Wikipedians from different part of the state gathered today at H Narasimhaiah Hall, National College, Basavanagudi to witness the event.

The stage was adorned by the father of the modern Kannada dictionary, Nadoja Prof G Venkatasubbaiah, the chief guest, along with T R Anantharamu, Senior Scientist (retd), Geological Survey of India, Abhaya Simha, National Award fame Cinema Director and U B Pavanaja from A2K (Access To Knowledge).


Prof Venkatasubbaiah handing out mementos to Wikipedia editors during the 10th anniversary celebrations of Kannada Wikipedia. Pic: Pavithra Hanchagaiah

Wikipedia has been the key source of knowledge for a kid to complete its assignments to a research activity for a scientist. It has been one of world’s 5th topmost accessed website. Various languages across the world made a way to emerge language-specific Wikipedias and Kannada has been one of them.

In the 10 years of its inception, Kannada Wikipedia has grown up to accumulate around 13000 articles and still a long way to go in terms of building a language which has around 2000 years of history. U B Pavanaja shared his opinions on importance of building Kannada Wikipedia along with his stands on upcoming areas for development. He said that informative articles are less at the moment and it should be the focus going forward.

Nadoja Prof G Venkatasubbaiah addressed the audience wishing Wikipedians and insisting youth to participate more with Kannada Wikipedia. He felt that completing 10 years isn’t sufficient but the growth should continue by participating more.

T R Ananthramu said being a scientist, he understands the challenges in research activities to dig the accurate information for a particular topic. He thinks the need for domain experts to actively participate in Kannada Wikipedia to add the right content which will in turn help everyone to get correct information.

Abhay Simha, Cinema Director, said that having his father Ashoka Vardhana who runs a book publication and a book stall and grandfather, GT Narayan Rao who was a science writer, he knows the need for timely updation with respect to reprinting science books. Realising the benefits of Creative Commons introduced by Omshivaprakash H L, SIG Chair, Kannada Wikipedia, Abhay has released the science-related books written by his Grandfather under CC License. He wished that all these books get added to Wikipedia and the knowledge is shared with everyone.

The celebration continued with demonstration on editing Wikipedia by Omshivapraksh followed by a session on Creative Commons licenses by Kiran Ravi Kumar, who is an engineering student from Mysore. The event was ended by an Edit-o-thon for the Wikipedians to add new articles.

On marking the 10th year completion, the active users of Kannada Wikipedia who have been editing and adding articles from years were given mementos as appreciation to acknowledge their contribution. Harish M G, Tejas Jain, Pramod R and a few of them recieved the token of appreciation during the event. A few of the Wikipedians shared their experience briefing difficulties that a user faces at the beginning and how to overcome all the barriers to involve in editing Wikipedia.

It was a fruitful event that made the participants understand and realise the need for exponential growth of Kannada Wikipedia and moving forward to make a rich and free Encyclopedia for the Kannada community.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-citizenmatters-november-18-2013-10-years-of-kannada-wikipedia