Centre for Internet and Society

Surveillance Graph

praskrishna — 2013-05-07T10:20:42Z

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Surveillance Camp: Privatized State Surveillance

praskrishna — 2013-01-29T06:51:39Z

This is the second in a series of posts mapping global surveillance challenges discussed at EFF’s Surveillance Camp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Katitza Rodriguez's blog post was published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on their website on January 28, 2013. Elonnai Hickok is quoted.

In December 2012, EFF organized a Surveillance and Human Rights Camp in Brazil that brought together the expertise of a diverse group of people concerned about state electronic surveillance in Latin American and other countries. Among other concerns, participants spotlighted the many ways in which the private sector is increasingly playing a role in state surveillance. Here are a few examples:

Voluntary Agreements Between Law Enforcement and Private Companies

Often law enforcement agencies will approach companies asking for voluntary disclosure of information for investigative purposes. Those requests may look and sound more like threats, with a great deal of moral pressure applied on the companies.

This voluntary assistance remains out of the public eye and shrouded in secrecy, as notification of state access is never given to the individual concerned, is not codified in law, and is not clearly disclosed in the company's terms of service or user agreement. Currently there is minimal, if any, oversight over such voluntary cooperation, so the scope of assistance provided is not well-documented.

Canada

Canadian ISPs have jointly decided to provide identifying data about Canadian Internet users to law enforcement in child exploitation investigations. In fact, several Canadian ISPs have developed a formal protocol in conjunction with various law enforcement agencies to be used when those authorities are seeking identification information associated with a given IP address at a specific date and time. Since the adoption of this protocol, some ISPs have expanded their information sharing practices to cover customer identification data in other contexts, such as online harassment cases.

Law Enforcement Approaching Service Providers Without Legally-Required Authorization

A growing concern is the number of law enforcement officers skirting the law by asking service providers to simply fork over information without any sort of search warrant. Even when legal procedures, such as a search warrant, exist, police increasingly request information without obtaining a legal authorization. Nevertheless, they often expect full compliance from service providers.

Chile

In 2008, a Chilean website called Huelga.cl (“strike” in English) was approached by the Cyber Crime Section of the Chilean Police. The site is an online space for coordinating union actions. The agency demanded that the webmaster hand over data related to pseudonymous user accounts, such as IP addresses, records of previous connections, real names, and physical addresses. The targeted users had left comments on a website about an ongoing strike.

In this case, because police did not have a court order to back up the request for information, Huelga.cl took a stand by resisting police pressure and refusing to hand over the data without a fight. For legal assistance, they turned to Derechos Digitales, a Chilean online human rights nonprofit organization, and managed to resist the request.

In another case, the Regional Director of the Chilean Department of Labor, the agency responsible for ensuring the enforcement of labor laws, sent a letter to Huelga.cl simply demanding the removal of “inappropriate content” from their website along with the disclosure of user information, but it was only for administrative purposes as opposed to serious criminal investigations. Huegal.cl again refused to comply and instead, made the director’s demands public.

It is not always the case that service providers can resist extralegal government requests, find legal advice or have enough economic resources to fight against those demands as Huelga.cl did. Huelga.cl should be praised for speaking up and managing to make the request from law enforcement public.

Governments Pressure Private Sector

Governments frequently impose heavy fines for non-compliance with their requests for data access. This form of coercion acts as a mechanism of enforcement over service providers and can raise serious concerns for free expression. The service provider is left with little incentive or option to resist illegitimate requests from the government when they are threatened with heavy fines.

Brazil

In 2012, a judge from northern Brazil froze Google's accounts and imposed a fine on the company for refusing to remove three anonymous blogs or reveal contact details of the bloggers. The content of the blogs state d the mayor of Varzea Alegre of corruption and embezzlement.

While some companies might be able to withstand governmental pressure, alarms were raised that this won’t be the case for smaller companies that lack resources and influence. This is particularly true in contexts where heavy fines for noncompliance are written into legislation, and companies are not given legal avenues to appeal or fight the fine.

Foreign Governments Access To Individuals’ Data in the Cloud

Governments are increasingly seeking to negotiate access or interceptation capabilities to user data with companies that do not lie within their jurisdictions. This form of access is complicated because it is not always clear which country’s laws apply or to what extent. Because of the complex nature of these requests, governments often look for "easy" solutions that call for voluntary disclosure of information or simply allow full access to the user data.

For example, government officials in India have been pushing for real time interception capabilities for all BlackBerry services. In response to the demands from the Indian Government, after a number of unsatisfactory proposals, in 2012 RIM set up a NOC in Mumbai, providing security agencies with access to BlackBerry Messenger services, and created a solution for access to Blackberry Internet Services. In addition to asking RIM for real time access to communications, the Government of India had required Service Providers in India to adopt the solution provided by RIM by end of 2012 or risk being shut down.

According to Elonnai Hickok from the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, the discussions between RIM and the Indian Government is just one example of how governments are trying to negotiate their interests in light of the challenges posed by communications stored in the cloud and in multiple jurisdictions.

While the Internet is technically borderless, in reality, state actors impose their sovereignty onto online environments with increasing frequency. The exercise of sovereignty over shared spaces can subject individuals to the laws of another country without any awareness on their part that this has happened. This in effect transforms the surveillance efforts of one country into privacy risks for all the world’s citizens.

Conclusion

State agencies and law enforcement are increasingly outsourcing investigations to private companies who are not under the same sort of judicial oversight as official law enforcement entities would be. The increasingly close and non-transparent connection between the private sector and law enforcement needs to be addressed, as it poses a risk to the rights and freedoms of the individual. Of major concern to all Camp participants was the notion that private companies are routinely complying with the requests of law enforcement in the absence of due process. We encourage further research and documentation of this phenomenon. To highlight on this issue, we will be blogging next about the privatization of public security in Latin America.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/electronic-frontier-foundation-january-28-2013-katitza-rodriguez-surveillance-camp-privatized-state-surveillance

Surveillance and Privacy Law Roundtable Invite

praskrishna — 2014-08-25T09:24:31Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-privacy-roundtable-invite.pdf

Surveillance and Privacy Law Roundtable

praskrishna — 2014-08-25T15:08:33Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, COAI and Vahura invite you to a privacy roundtable at the India International Centre in New Delhi on September 1, 2014.

Download the Invite (PDF, 1207 Kb)

Recent legislative developments regarding privacy law in India
In 2010, the European Union commissioned an assessment of the adequacy of Indian data protection laws in light of the transfer of personal data of European data subjects into India for processing. That assessment made adverse findings on the adequacy and preparedness of Indian privacy law to safeguard personal data. Consequently, in 2011, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) proposed draft privacy legislation called the ‘Right to Privacy Bill, 2011’. The DoPT Bill contained provisions for the regulation of personal data, interception of communications, visual surveillance and direct marketing. Simultaneously, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 to give effect to section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The Justice Shah Group of Experts on Privacy and the National Privacy Principles
Aware of the need for privacy laws to enable economic growth, the Planning Commission constituted a Group of Experts under the chairmanship of Justice Ajit P. Shah to make specific proposals for future Indian privacy law. The Group of Experts submitted its Report to the Planning Commission in October 2012 wherein it proposed the adoption of nine National Privacy Principles. These are the principles of notice, choice and consent, collection limitation, purpose limitation, disclosure of information, security, openness, and accountability. The Report recommended the application of these principles in future privacy law.

Surveillance law in India
The cases of Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1963) and Gobind v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1975) first brought the questions of permissibility and limits of surveillance to the Supreme Court for judicial review. The regime governing the interception of telecommunications is contained in section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951. The Telegraph Rules were twice amended to give effect to certain procedural safeguards laid down by the Supreme Court in PUCL v. Union of India (1996). In addition, further subordinate legislation issued to fulfil the provisions of sections 69(2) and 69B(3) of the Information Technology Act permit the interception and monitoring of electronic communications to collect traffic data and to intercept, monitor, and decrypt such communications.

About these roundtable consultations
These roundtable consultations are hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), COAI and Vahura. They are a series of national roundtables to focus on surveillance regulation and interception of communications in relation to telecom service providers, internet service providers, internet access providers, and internet-based service providers. These roundtables are designed to elicit comments on legal proposals to regulate surveillance. The text of these legal proposals has been drafted at CIS and continues to be modified to reflect the opinions and consensus at each roundtable consultation. The objective of these meetings is gain a stakeholder-based, participatory, and democratic consensus on the future of Indian surveillance and privacy law.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/surveillance-privacy-roundtable

Surveillance and Privacy

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T06:02:27Z

Presented by Sunil Abraham at LirneAsia event on March 9, 2014 in Gurgaon.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-privacy.pdf

Surveillance

praskrishna — 2022-04-28T02:19:59Z

Surveillance

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Surfing at Liberty

praskrishna — 2010-10-13T10:39:58Z

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Section 66A Of IT Act

praskrishna — 2015-03-25T16:43:53Z

In a major boost to freedom of speech online in India, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, reading down a draconian law that was poorly conceived, tragically worded and caused ordinary citizens to be jailed for so much as a comment on Facebook that annoyed just about anyone.

The article by Indrani Basu and Betwa Sharma published in the Huffington Post on March 24, 2015 quotes Sunil Abraham.

In its 122-page judgment, the court struck down the entire section, refusing to heed the government's plea that it will not be misused.

"The apex courts in India have consistently protected the rights of its citizens. And the Supreme Court has once again upheld that great tradition with this decision. There are constitutional exceptions to free speech that exist.

But this judgment will protect against the abuse of this vague and badly drafted law," said Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society.

The section was passed without discussion in Parliament by the UPA government in 2008, adding an amendment to the original 2002 Act. While Narendra Modi supported the repealing of the Act during his prime ministerial campaign, after the BJP came to power, the government defended the provision, even while admitting it was draconian.

The government argued that the provision was necessary to prevent people from posting inflammatory content offending religious or political sentiments, leading to violence.

"I''m so happy with the decision. They have completely struck down the whole section. This is a victory for the country," said Shreya Singhal, the 24-year-old law student on whose petition the Supreme Court was hearing the case. "I don't have a political agenda — both the Congress government and the BJP have misused the section earlier. Section 66A was a blanket provision which was very vague. There are many IPC sections that could be used in its place."

"No one should fear putting anything up on the internet. It is very important for us to protect this right today," she said.

But there are sections in the Indian Penal Code that can deal with such situations.

And the broad and vague wording of 66A meant that it effectively became a tool that muzzled all speech online.

In 2012, Shaheen Dada, a 21-year old Mumbai girl, posted on Facebook comments about Shivsena leader Bal Thackerey. Annoyed party members went to the cops and Dada was arrested. Her friend Rinu Srinivasan, who had 'liked' the comment on Facebook, was also arrested.

The same year, Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested for sharing a cartoon poking fun at West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Mumbai cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was also arrested under the provision for his cartoons during the Anna Hazare anti-corruption agitation.

Here is what the section said:

66A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.
Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or
(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages,
shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-indrani-basu-betwa-sharma-march-24-2015-supreme-court-strikes-down-section-66a-of-it-act

Supreme Court sets up constitution bench to hear Aadhaar privacy issues

praskrishna — 2017-07-14T10:55:04Z

The Supreme Court ‘s five-judge constitution bench will also decide if the Aadhaar privacy issue should be heard by a larger bench.

The article by Priyanka Mittal was published in Livemint on July 12, 2017. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

A five-judge constitution bench will hear arguments on 18-19 July as to whether Indian citizens have the right to privacy, and whether the Aadhaar unique identity project breaches the right.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) J.S. Khehar on Wednesday set the dates for the hearing by the constitution bench, which will decide whether the issue should be heard by a larger bench.

Should the five-judge bench decide to rule on the case itself and not refer it to a larger bench, it will decide the future of Aadhaar, which has become the backbone of government welfare programmes, the tax administration network and online financial transactions.

This will be based on whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right of Indian citizens.

Privacy rights activists argue that personal data gathered under the Aadhaar programme, aimed at giving a unique 12-digit identity number to every Indian, is vulnerable to abuse. Then attorney general Mukul Rohatgi told the Supreme Court in 2015 that Indian citizens don’t have a fundamental right to privacy under the Indian Constitution—an argument he repeated subsequently.

“In the two-day hearing, the court is not going to decide the full issue of privacy,” said Alok Prasanna Kumar, a lawyer and visiting fellow at think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, explaining how the Constitution bench is likely to proceed. “They are going to take a call on whether, in light of precedents, there is a need to refer the issue to a larger bench. There are past judgements and the court will have to look at the scope of privacy under each to decide the number of judges.”

He added: “If the five-judge bench agrees with the precedents, then it would continue to address the angle of privacy; if not, then it would be referred back to the CJI to constitute a larger bench of nine judges.”

All cases related to Aadhaar, including the right to privacy, will be heard by the constitution bench; the court decided to set up the constitution bench to hear the privacy case in August 2015.

The CJI’s decision came on a plea by advocate Shyam Divan, who has appeared in several cases opposing Aadhaar, and attorney general K.K. Venugopal seeking the speedy creation of a Constitution bench. It came a week after justice J. Chelameswar said that all matters related to Aadhaar should be addressed by a constitution bench.

“I see it as a step in the right direction. Personally, I hope that the privacy issue is heard by a five-judge bench as against a larger bench as that can bring more disagreement,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research think tank Centre for Internet and Society.

Last month, the Supreme Court court upheld the government’s decision to link Aadhaar with the permanent account number (PAN) for filing of income-tax returns but ruled that non-compliance with the law will carry no retrospective consequences.

Under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, the unique identity number is mandatory only to receive social welfare benefits.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-priyanka-mittal-july-12-2017-supreme-court-sets-up-constitution-bench-to-hear-aadhaar-privacy-issues

Supreme Court provides partial relief for Aadhaar

praskrishna — 2015-10-18T05:01:49Z

In a small but significant win for the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the use of the Aadhaar number for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, pensions by central and state governments, and the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, in addition to its current use in the public distribution system (PDS) and the distribution of cooking gas and kerosene.

The article by Apurva Vishwanath and Saurabh Kumar was published in Livemint on October 15, 2015. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

In an interim order on 11 August, the apex court had restricted the use of Aadhaar, the unique identity number, to the PDS and the distribution of cooking gas and kerosene.

Subsequently, several state governments, government departments and regulatory agencies put up a joint defence seeking a modification of the interim order. They included the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the governments of Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, and industry body Indian Banks’ Association, along with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the issuer of Aadhaar.

A five-judge constitutional bench comprising Chief Justice H.L Dattu and justices M.Y Eqbal, C. Nagappan, Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy said in an order on Thursday: “We are of the opinion that in para 3 of the interim order, we can include schemes like MGNREGS, pensions by state and central government, Jan Dhan Yojana and Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme along with PDS and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas).”

Para 3 of the 11 August interim order had allowed the voluntary use of Aadhaar only for direct benefit transfer in foodgrain, kerosene and cooking gas schemes.

The court’s interim order threw an element of uncertainty around flagship government programmes such as biometric attendance for government employees; the Jan Dhan Yojana, the Prime Minister’s ambitious financial inclusion initiative; digital certificates, and pension payments.

It also threatened to derail India’s progress towards a cashless economy where payments banks are expected to play an important role.

All of these depend on linking accounts to individuals electronically, and are dependent on the Aadhaar number.

“The government was able to convince the court on the utility of Aadhaar which is critical to provide services to the most vulnerable section of the society,” said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The apex court, however, did not allow the use of Aadhaar for the e-know-your-customer (e-KYC) specifically, which would have helped banks, including payments banks, to enrol new customers and telecom operators for issuing SIM cards. However, it is noteworthy that while obtaining bank accounts under the Jan Dhan scheme, banks use e-KYC. The clarification that RBI sought from the court, on whether the Aadhaar number can be used as proof of identification to open a bank account, still remains uncertain.

This will affect banks, mutual funds and companies that have won in-principle payments bank licences such as Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd (from the stable of Bharti Airtel Ltd, which had a customer base of 231.6 million as of July) and Vodafone m-pesa Ltd (a part of Vodafone India Ltd, which had a customer base of 185.4 million as of July).

The licensees also include the department of posts, which has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas. The sheer reach of these entities is unrivalled. These entities hope to ride on the technology platform to reach customers, and e-KYC is critical to the process.

“The reason why the court has allowed use of Aadhaar for Jan Dhan Yojana and not other banking services is perhaps because the government made a humanitarian argument that the poorest will be able to avail banking services. It is, however, a technologically flawed argument, deeply so,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society.

The bench ordered the Union government to follow all earlier interim orders issued by the Supreme Court starting September 2013. Some of these orders include restrain on sharing of biometrics and keeping Aadhaar voluntary.

As of now, 920 million Indian citizens have been allotted Aadhaar numbers. The interim stay was affecting beneficiaries of the MGNREGS (91.7 million), pensioners (27.1 million) and recipients of scholarships (25.7 million), among others, according to data from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Till now, 187 million bank accounts have been opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.

The apex court made the interim ruling in an ongoing hearing where several pleas related to Aadhaar were clubbed together. Some relate to Aadhaar numbers being made mandatory to enable people to avail of certain government benefits and services. Others deal with the number being a violation of privacy, especially in the absence of any backing regulation or oversight, and yet others deal with possible misuse of the information.

However, the constitution bench had clarified on Wednesday that only pleas seeking clarification and modification of the interim order will be decided, and the issue concerning the right to privacy will be heard subsequently by another constitution bench.

“I am very disappointed with the court’s order. The government claims that Aadhaar is voluntary, but actually it will not be till it is delinked from all government schemes. This way, people who do have Aadhaar are excluded and will have to run from pillar to post to receive benefits if they do not have the number,” said Kamayani Bali Mahabal, a Mumbai-based lawyer, human rights activist and a petitioner in the UIDAI case. She added that the order may increase the incidents of fake Aadhaar numbers as ineligible people choose to gain from all schemes, depriving the poor and aged of real benefits.

The attorney general, Mukul Rohatgi, on Wednesday assured the court that the government has issued advertisements in over 20 languages that Aadhaar is a voluntary scheme.

On 14 Wednesday, PTI reported that a Right to Information application has showed that the UIDAI has identified more than 25,000 duplicate Aadhaar numbers till August.

Mathew Thomas, one of the petitioners challenging the use and validity of the Aadhaar scheme, also expressed disappointment at the court’s ruling today. “Aadhaar is a case of great importance to the billion citizens of India. It is unfortunate that the constitution bench spent only a few hours in hearing the issues,” he said.

The Supreme Court will appoint a larger bench of at least nine judges to hear the privacy issue. The court in 1954, in the case of M.P. Sharma vs Satish Chandra, ruled that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right recognized by the Constitution. This case was decided by an eight-judge bench of the apex court, and only a bench of equal or larger strength will be able to override that decision.

The Chief Justice in the order on Thursday said that the larger bench, with nine or 11 judges, will be constituted at the earliest to hear the matter on Aadhaar potentially violating privacy and other intervening applications.

The petitioners have argued that UIDAI was approved only by an empowered group of ministers during the United Progressive Alliance tenure and has no statutory authority to collect biometrics of residents. Senior counsel for the petitioners, Shyam Divan, said: “The only law in India which allows the government to collect fingerprints is the Prisoner’s Act of 1920, which is a colonial enactment.”

The UIDAI does not have any legislative backing and was constituted by notification in 2009 by the erstwhile Planning Commission. Divan, however, said that the Planning Commission notification has no effect since the body itself has ceased to exist, and added that the centre is not introducing a legislation empowering the Aadhaar scheme as it realizes the vulnerability of the entire exercise.

The National Identification Authority of India Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2010.

In 2012, the centre was mulling a privacy law that could be enacted to support the UIDAI scheme and, in connection, the Planning Commission then formed an expert committee on privacy under A.P Shah, a former chairperson of the Law Commission.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-october-15-2015-apurva-vishwanath-saurabh-kumar-supreme-court-provides-partial-relief-for-aadhaar

Supreme Court issues notice to WhatsApp, Centre on data privacy

praskrishna — 2017-01-17T15:06:08Z

Analysts said India lacked data protection laws.

The article by MJ Antony, Ayan Pramanik and Apurva Venkat was published in the Business Standard on January 17, 2017. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and WhatsApp over an appeal alleging the instant messaging service did not ensure the privacy of its users and seeking regulations to protect personal information.

Chief Justice J S Khehar granted urgent hearing when Harish Salve, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the service provided free by the platform to 155 million subscribers violated constitutional provisions protecting privacy.

The government and WhatsApp would file their replies within two weeks, the court directed after Salve sought its intervention to protect consumer data till India enacted data protection laws.

The Supreme Court heard the petition after the Delhi High Court in September directed WhatsApp not to share its users’ data with its parent Facebook and asked it to provide users with the option to opt out. The court was hearing a public interest litigation over a change in WhatsApp’s user policies that explicitly allowed Facebook to access to WhatsApp users’ data.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company could not comment immediately.

Analysts said India lacked data protection laws that prohibit global Internet firms from harvesting user data for their business. “We used to think that we had some privacy jurisprudence in the country. If you asked a lawyer 1.5 years ago, he would say privacy in India was a constitutionally guaranteed right,” said Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet Society. “It is not explicitly referenced into the law.”

Saroj Kumar Jha, partner, SRGR Law Offices, said, “Along with the lack of policies and laws, there are very few judgments on privacy issues based on constitutional rights. Thus, it makes it very difficult to judge a case.”

Salve argued that till the government enacted legislation to protect user data, the court should provide protection. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India should introduce a clause in telecom licences that if calls were intercepted the licence would be cancelled, he said.

The court sought the assistance of Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi to sort out the issues.

Rohatgi, while arguing an earlier case related to alleged violation of privacy, had taken the stand that the Constitution did not protect the right to privacy. According to him, neither the fundamental rights nor Supreme Court judgments recognises a citizen’s right to privacy. The bench hearing that case referred the question to a constitution bench last year.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-mj-antony-ayan-pramanik-apurva-venkat-supreme-court-issues-notice-to-whatsapp-centre-on-data-privacy

Super

praskrishna — 2012-11-08T06:50:35Z

Super Wifi

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Sunny Vaghela

praskrishna — 2012-06-26T03:38:37Z

Sunny Vaghela

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sunilkumar

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T05:08:15Z

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Sunil Abraham: Honorary steward September 2017

praskrishna — 2017-04-20T13:30:23Z

Shuttleworth Foundation has announced Sunil Abraham as Honorary Steward for its September 2017 fellowship round.

Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of Bangalore based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

“I have admired the stewardship of the Shuttleworth Foundation towards the access to knowledge and free culture movements ever since I interviewed Mark Shuttleworth at WSIS 2005. Many of my personal heroes have become Fellows over the years and it is therefore my privilege to contribute a southern perspective to this fellowship round.” – Sunil Abraham

Applications close 15 May 2017 for a 1 September 2017 fellowship start date. Read the original post on Shuttleworth Foundation website here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/shuttleworth-foundation-april-19-2017-sunil-abraham-honorary-steward-september-2017