Centre for Internet and Society

Sub Tracks

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T10:08:35Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sub-tracks.pdf

Study Tour on Big Data and Privacy

praskrishna — 2016-09-22T23:23:04Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/study-tour-big-data-privacy.pdf

Study of Privacy Policies of Indian Service Providers

praskrishna — 2014-12-21T15:09:49Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/study-of-privacy-policies-indian-service-providers.pdf

Students lead the way with apps for ideas

praskrishna — 2014-05-28T09:24:30Z

At 1am, the lights are still on in 15-year-old Pratik's room at his house on 80 Feet Road, Indiranagar. The NPS-Koramangala student is busy typing code on his laptop for his latest app called Resolve.

The article published in the Times of India on May 21, 2014 quotes Nishant Shah.

Pratik epitomizes Gen X. Coding and decoding, these school children, barely into their teens, are developing apps drawing attention worldwide.

"I learnt coding by myself with the help of the internet. The world wants things simplified and that's why apps are a hit. The first app I made was a calculator because my dad was unhappy with the one on his phone. My work was initially rejected, but I knew that would happen. But I continued working. When I went to a Microsoft conference, they told me youngsters have ideas to change the world and we have the time," said Pratik.

He was felicitated with a Nokia Lumia 1520 at the Windows Azure Conference 2014 for his work in developing apps for Windows and Windows Phone store.

Rahul Yedida, a Class 12 student at the National Centre for Excellence, has around 18,000 downloads for the app he and his friend created. "I wasn't too happy with the amount of Maths homework. I started wondering whether an app could do it. At the same time, I had learnt a new language and wanted to test my skills. That's how I started working on it," said Rahul.

"Programming is fun. Seeing a computer work the way you want it to gives you special joy," said Vaisakh M, Rahul's co-developer. They sent a letter to Bill Gates about the app and got a reply lauding their achievement.

Quote hanger
* During my free time, I read about programming which helps me when I write programs. My friends in the colony join me when I watch videos about it. They do programs in other languages. I play games and used to wonder how they're made. My dad promised to get me a laptop if I start programming and that's how it started.

Thrisha Mohan| 12, Vidyashilp Academy, now working on a jewellery app

* Apps are the cool things to do now. With the kind of access possible thanks to smart phones, they have gone to the masses. I wouldn't be surprised at the number of apps being created. When an app is created in a college dormitory, 1,000 students in the college will download it. That's instant gratification. The ecosystem is such that with social networking sites, you become an instant hero. The question is: How many can be successful and have a long life?

S Sadagopan | director, IIIT-B

* Apps are more relevant for those growing up with interfaces which are mobile and wearable. We also need to realise there is a growing generation of people whose first point of access to the digital as well as to the connected worlds of the internet is through mobile devices. And apps are a natural way of interaction. It is a positive trend because it allows users to think of themselves not only as 'users' but as active producers of the digital world. They look beyond platforms made available by multi-national companies or private enterprises, and it allows them to build communities of interaction and learning between them. We need to make sure they are safe and not susceptible to invasive presence of others who might exploit their presence on the web.

Nishant Shah | director- research, The Centre for Internet and Society

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-may-21-2014-sruthy-susan-ullas-students-lead-the-way-with-apps-for-ideas

Students

praskrishna — 2016-04-05T15:51:23Z

Students

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Students.jpg

students

praskrishna — 2014-12-30T00:44:49Z

students

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/students.png

Strowger Switch

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T16:14:11Z

Strowger Switch

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/StrowgerWatch.png

Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-08-02T06:27:52Z

A workshop to be held on CPDPS premises on August 6.

This article by R Krishna Kumar was published in the Hindu on August 2, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is quoted.

For those with knowledge of Kannada and basic computer skills, here is an opportunity for posting articles in Kannada on the collaborative and free Wikipedia and facilitate the growth of Kannada online.

To help interested people learn the process of posting their articles on Wikipedia, the Centre for Proficiency Development Placement Service (CPDPS) of the University of Mysore will conduct a one-day workshop on August 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The workshop will be conducted on the CPDPS premises, Manasagangotri, and is being conducted by U.B. Pavanaja of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Niranjana Vanalli, Director, CPDPS, told The Hindu that though Kannada has got the classical language tag and several Kannada writers have got the Jnanpith, Kannada is among the least represented language on Wikipedia in terms of articles in Indian languages, and this workshop is a small step towards correcting these lacunae.

According to Mr. Pavanaja of CIS, Bangalore, though Kannada Wikipedia was launched in June 2003 and this year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the website, there are only 14,500 articles in Kannada.

This is in contrast to nearly 1,00,000 Hindi articles, 52,000 Telugu articles about 52,000 articles in Tamil, 25,000 in Bengali and 30,000 articles in Malayalam in the Wikipedia. There are over 4.6 million articles in English. German and French are close to English and so it is not merely Kannada but all Indian languages that are lagging behind, said Mr. Pavanaja.

However, there is scope for improvement as 13 lakh people visit the Kannada Wikipedia website every month. It definitely means that many people are interested in reading articles in Kannada online, so there is scope for posting more articles for their benefit.

Interestingly Wikipedia, which was launched in January 2001, has articles in 22 Indian languages and 256 languages around the world. There are over 3 crore articles and the number is growing by the day.

There are other significant aspects to the contribution of Indians to the development of Wikipedia. While Kannadigas have taken to the enrichment of Wikipedia in English their contribution to the enrichment of the Kannada section has been abysmal. Incidentally, there are nearly 16 lakh editors of Wikipedia all over the world of which about 5,500 are Indians and of them 3,300 edit and contribute regularly in English. The remaining 2,200 contribute in Indian languages.

According to Mr. Pavanaja, roughly 2 crore Indians regularly visit the Wikipedia site but very few are either contributing or editing.

“Indians were definitely taking advantage of Wikipedia as it gets more than 2 crore hits every year. But the number of Indians contributing to enrich the content is less, more so for Kannada”, he added. Mr. Vanalli, who is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Mysore, pointed out that it was ironical that the Kannada was the only Indian language to have an encyclopaedia of its own – Kannada Vishwakosha – published by the University of Mysore. But when it comes to the online collaborative project of Wikipedia, Kannada is lagging behind and this should be reversed.

The workshop will introduce to the participants the features of Wikipedia, and give hands-on demonstration on how to edit and contribute articles. Participants can bring articles of their choice for editing and posting on Wikipedia. For details, contact Director of CPDPS on 0821-2419337/405 or email omegauom@gmail.com for registration.

The workshop will introduce participants to features of Wikipedia, and give demonstration on how to edit and contribute articles

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia

Strengthening Privacy Protection through Co-Regulation

praskrishna — 2013-04-15T09:20:30Z

Prepared by Data Security Council of India.

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

Strategy Meeting on Global Copyright Policy and Advocacy

praskrishna — 2016-01-31T10:00:18Z

Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash participated in the meeting held on December 14, 2015 at National Law School in Delhi.

Earlier this year, the Open Society Foundations convened a two-day meeting on access to knowledge strategy. Copyright emerged as a major issue and many of the attendees focused on a next-generation copyright reform strategy. The discussion included identifying best user practices, capacity building, WIPO, and risk management. By the end of the two-days, there was strong support to continue the dialogue with a further one-day meeting at the Global Congress.

Agenda overview and guidelines

The agenda is being designed as a combination of planned sessions and participant-driven discussions, and specific topics will be placed into time slots based on input from the participants. Sessions will be dialog- and outcome-oriented rather than presentations or lecture format.

14 December 2015

The Meeting will take place at:

Room 102

National Law University, Delhi

Sector 14, Dwarka

New Delhi – 110078

9:00 Interactive Plenary

This session will provide a collaborative opportunity for participants to share some of their thoughts on the issues relevant to copyright reform strategies, priorities, and directions.

10:00 Identify opportunities for advocacy

Participants will break out into small groups to discuss opportunities for advocacy both internationally and domestically. Some possibilities include:

Limitations and exceptions/user rights
Remedies/damages/risk
Intermediaries
International – WIPO
International - trade agreements (TPP, TTIP, CETA, etc.)

10.45 Break

11.00 Deeper discussion of identified opportunities

In small groups, participants will have the opportunity to discuss the opportunities which have been identified. (5 x 30 min = 2.5 hours)

12.30 Lunch Break

13:30 Deeper discussion of identified opportunities, cont.
Small group discussion continues.

15:00 Report back
Each group will have an opportunity to report back.

15:30 Best of the best
In the full group, the participants can discuss the best opportunities, biggest risks, and the best models to follow.

16.30 Closing

This session will invite participants to weigh in on what has been most useful during the course of the day.

17.00 Adjourn

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/strategy-meeting-on-global-copyright-policy-and-advocacy

Stop the Haphazard Internet Shutdown Says MP Jay Panda

praskrishna — 2017-04-27T16:44:27Z

In just one year India lost $968M due to Internet shutdowns; “Cops may not be the right decision makers when it comes to imposing what is a digital curfew,” added an entrepreneur journalist.

The article by Regina Mihindukulasuriya was published in the Businessworld on April 26, 2017.

An entrepreneur from the troubled state of Kashmir, Muheet Mehraj, is cofounder and CEO of Kashmirbox.com. He said that businesses that run on the Internet are crippled by Internet shutdowns. “A lot of people's livelihood depends on the Internet. If you shut down the Internet, you shut down their lives. Also, hospitals and academic institutes need constant Internet access and a way must be found to ensure they are never impacted by a shutdown.”

In 2016, Brookings Institution released a survey of 19 countries and the Internet shutdowns each of them experienced. India was in that list and according to the century old research institute, suffered the biggest economic loss to GDP at 968 million dollars all due to Internet shutdowns.

The general secretary of Maha Gujarat Bank Employees Association was quoted in 2016 as saying that an Internet shutdown for 6 days across Gujarat culminated in a loss of rupees 7000 crore for banks in the state.

The Brookings survey recorded the maximum number of disruptions in India at 22. According to IndiaSpend.org, The Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University of Delhi counts 37 shutdowns across 11 states since 2015 and 22 of them happened in the first 9 months of 2016.

The Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) claims there have been 72 instances of Internet shutdown in India since 2012 and that not all of them are justified.

The SFLC.in along with other civil society organizations addressed the increasing frequency of Internet shutdowns in the country. Baijayant 'Jay' Panda, Member of Parliament said that India needs effective checks and balances on the process and power to order Internet Shutdowns in India. He added that, “The power to shut Internet should be exercised by the district's Superintendent of Police only in rare cases when there is imminent threat to breakdown of law and order, and risk of loss of life and property".

He was speaking at a public discussion organized by SFLC.in, in association with Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF); IT for Change, Internet Democracy Project (IDP); Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), and Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP).

Mr Panda remarked that this power should be limited to 24 or 48 hours. “If Internet must be shut down for a longer duration, the decision must be taken by Director General of Police or the chief secretary of state”, he said.

Abhinandan Sekhri, cofounder and CEO of Newslaundry raised concerns that there is a fundamental flaw in how Indians approach law making, in that they first look at the worst case scenario before taking a liberal and democratic point of view. “Cops may not be the right decision makers when it comes to imposing what is a digital curfew,” Mr. Sekhri said.

Snehashish Ghosh, associate manager for public policy at Facebook said, “Even though we may not have ready data to measure the impact of shutdowns, there is no denying that businesses suffer.” The Facebook Inc. – owned, WhatsApp is often reported as one of the most missed services whenever the Internet is shutdown in Kashmir during days of social unrest.

Mishi Choudhary, president and legal director of SFLC.in said, “According to our Internet Shutdown Tracker, India has experienced at least 72 instances of Internet Shutdowns since 2012. Several communities and states have suffered irreversible socioeconomic losses because they were denied Internet access for extended durations.”

Mishi continued, “The shutdown of Internet not only restrains basic human rights such as the right to freedom of speech and expression, but also cripples activities like e-commerce, e-governance, e-health and e-learning, entirely reliant on the Internet.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-world-regina-mihindukulasuriya-april-26-2017-stop-the-haphazard-internet-shutdown-says-mp-jay-panda

Stop Press Carousel

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T04:27:15Z

The silent blocking of URLs by the DoT assaults freedom of expression.

Arindam Mukherjee's article was published in the Outlook on February 22, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Five Questions

On what grounds did the DoT ask for a ban on the 55 Facebook URLs pertaining to Afzal Guru?
Why did the Gwalior court rush into blocking of 73 URLs related to IIPM even though the content was very old and clearly some of it was even prima facie non-defamatory?
Why is the Gwalior court order not being made public?
Why doesn’t DoT keep the whole process transparent by putting up all its block orders on its website, giving reasons in each case?
How many URLs in all has the DoT asked for a ban on so far?

***

It’s the perfect recipe for a potboiler—a sudden, mysterious and arbitrary blocking of web pages, sparked off by an irate ‘educationist’; several upset publications (Outlook included); a government department with a blocked web page; a ministry trying to figure out how to react to a court order that is at the root of all the action, but which no one has been able to see.

As the cliche goes, truth is often stranger than fiction—as the affected parties discovered on February 15. That’s when it became known that the government had sought to block 78 web pages, reportedly following an order from a court in Gwalior. Around 73 of these articles sought to be blocked are on the controversial Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), promoted by self-styled management guru Arindam Chaudhuri.

What has taken everyone by surprise is how the blocks were executed—in a clandestine manner, without informing the affected parties, without serving them a notice or a copy of the order, or giving them a chance to react or defend themselves. The enormity of the ban is evident from the list of websites targeted, which include The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wall Street Journal, FirstPost, Careers360, Rediff.com and Caravan. When it came to Outlook, there was a clear case of overreach, as not just the web pages, but the entire blogs area was blocked for more than eight hours (see Jump Cut).

What is even more surprising is the smokescreen that is being maintained over the Gwalior court order that has caused this consternation on the Internet. At the time of going to print, no one—the affected websites, authors, lawyers or activists—had access to the order or had seen it, and the government was evading media queries on details of the order and the case. Despite repeated requests, the head of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Gulshan Rai, did not speak to Outlook.

So, in the absence of the order, no one even knows who the complainant is. Significantly, IIPM’s Chaudhuri has said that one of his ‘channel partners’ approached the court, though he clearly is the chief beneficiary of the episode. What this entire episode serves up is a blatant use of the law to muzzle press criticism while the government and official machinery have been willy-nilly forced to become mute players.

This surreal, Kafkaesque scenario continues apace at Outlook’s website, where on protesting the block on its blogs, the ISP said, “As only some of the URLs are mentioned in the DoT letter, we have reactivated the website and requested you to delete the mentioned contents,” adding that they had “attached the DoT instructions alongwith”. What they had attached was not one but two DoT orders, both dated February 14. One was, of course, the order about the 78 URLs. The other order came as news: an order on 55 Facebook URLs on Afzal Guru that the DoT wanted blocked.

As expected, internet activists and advocates of freedom of speech are livid. Shivam Vij, founder of kafila.org, one of the blogs that was blocked in the IIPM matter, says, “We were never given a chance to defend or explain. If only the DoT had put up the notice on their website, there would have been a healthier debate on regulation or censorship. But this was done in an opaque and arbitrary manner. If a book is banned, everyone gets to know. Why was there so much secrecy here?”

The arbitrariness of the twin government action also stems from the new IT Act which authorises the government or a competent authority to block or take down content considered “harmful”. And, according to the law, there is no obligation on the authorities’ part to inform the defendants. Cyber law expert Apar Gupta says, “Under the blocking rules, there is nothing that says that a copy of the court order has to be given to the affected parties. The rules also do not talk about the authors being given a chance to explain. It permits ad interim injunction to block content.”

Says Nikhil Pahwa, internet activist and editor of Medianama, which first reported about the IIPM blocks, “It is not clear why the DoT has taken this cloak-and-dagger approach. These are legitimate issues being raised by people regarding IIPM and its students. This is an infringement on the freedom of speech and expression. The DoT should have executed the blocks in a transparent manner by sending the affected parties a copy of the court order and making it public.”

That’s important, because legal experts feel that full facts may not have been considered in the IIPM case. “For this kind of a blocking order, the content should have come to the notice of the plaintiff recently. In this case, most of the content was much older. But sometimes plaintiffs also do not provide full details in a case,” says Gupta. Lawyers also feel that the Gwalior court may not be equipped to deal with litigation on new technologies.

There are other issues. In the IIPM case, the issue is primarily of defamation. But it is not clear whether defamation was established in all the articles that were sought to be taken down, especially a University Grants Commission (UGC) notice. Thus, the evidence that was presented to the court is important. Once again, till the court order becomes public, no one will know who the complainant was or what evidence was presented. The temporary ban on UGC’s web page is particularly surprising—and this has been noted by Shashi Tharoor—considering it is an independent regulator. “The regulatory body’s job is to regulate and nobody considers its notice as defamatory,” says Parminder Jeet Singh of IT for Change, an organisation dealing with internet issues.

The real purpose of such exercises, say experts, is to create a scare and embroil people in the legal process so that the process itself becomes a punishment and acts as a deterrent to others to engage in such writing. And that is why such cases are filed in remote and unusual destinations like Gwalior, Silchar, Dehradun and Guwahati. “There is a concept of forum shopping and forum shifting where cases are filed at remote destinations and by asking for huge damages, an attempt is made to scare people away from free speech. There are also many bullies who use defamation to create a scare effect. IIPM seems to have pioneered forum shopping in India,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

The problem, everyone agrees, stems from the faulty nature of the Information Technology Act, which is open to interpretation and misuse. Says Singh, “The law tries to cover everything under a single head. It does not look specifically at the nuances of new media and give an appropriate response. So it is misused.” It is time that DoT became transparent and stopped its arbitrary, covert war against freedom of expression.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/outlook-feb-22-2013-arindam-mukherjee-stop-press-counsel

Stockholm Internet Forum 2017

praskrishna — 2017-06-06T13:43:25Z

Elonnai Hickok participated in the Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 held in Stockholm from May 15 to 18, 2017. She spoke on the panel "Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online". The event was organized by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

Pre-SIF 15 May at Sida HQ

Welcoming and informal lunch at Sida 12.00 – 14.00 (Location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF regional sessions: 14.00 – 17.00 (breaks included)

MENA: Access, power and gender (Location: Hörsalen)

AFRICA: Inequality and the digital revolution in Africa (Location: Oasen)

LATIN AMERICA: Human rights and technology in Latin America: Where to from here? (Location: Room 19, Asante)

EURASIA: Media freedom and fact checking practices (Location: Room 18, Djenné)

SOUTH EAST ASIA: Regional internet freedom unconference (Location: Room 23, Quirigua)

STUDY VISIT: Kista Science City

Mingle: 17.00 – 18.00

Dinner: 18.00 – 20.00

Pre-SIF 16 May at Sida HQ

Welcome and framing access and power 09.00 – 11.30 (break included, location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF Parallel sessions: 11.30 – 13.00

1A From divides to dividends – DDP and SDG17 (Location: Oasen)

1B Online threats: Operational response and kick-ass solutions (Location: Hörsalen)

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 15.00 (Location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF Parallel sessions: 15.00 – 17.00

2A Financial services in a digital era: Development, livelihoods and privacy (Location: Oasen)

2B Responsible data forum: Open source investigation for human rights (Location: Hörsalen)

Mingle: 17.00 – 18.00

Dinner: 18.00 – 20.00

SIF 17 May at Münchenbryggeriet

Opening and main session 1: 9.00 – 11.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

Welcoming remarks by Sida Director General Lennart Båge

Speech by Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke

Main session 1: Equal access – Distributed power

The theme of SIF 2017 is “Access and Power” – a duality that can be analysed in many different ways. It is not enough to have access to the Internet, ICT’s and digital tools to achieve social justice and development outcomes. The question of what people have access to and what possibilities access gives also needs to be addressed. Access to the Internet is more than technical aspects and solutions – there are also dimensions related to rights, policy and power that need to be addressed.

At SIF we are keen on framing the current struggles and challenges in order to formulate possible ways ahead. One way to approach this is to discuss the co-relation between access and power. The first main session on the various aspects of access and power, is designed to get the conversation started.

Speech by State Secretary Annika Söder 11.00 – 11.15 (Location: Mässhallen)

Coffee break 11.15 – 11.45

Parallel sessions: 11.45 – 13.00

#SIF1A Digital Identity (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF1B Community access – Helping the last 4 billion get connected (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF1C Gender based violence online: levelling the discussion (Location: Riddarsalen)

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 14.00

Parallel sessions: 14.00 – 15.30

#SIF2A OPEN SIF (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF2B The promises and risks of the platform economy (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF2C The global shut down epidemic – From rights, tech and economic perspective (Location: Riddarsalen)

Coffee break 15.30 – 16.00

Breakout sessions: 16.00 – 17.30

#SIFB1 The (alternative) truth is out there (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIFB2 Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online (Location: Galleriet)

#SIFB3 Access and human rights in the smart city (Location: Riddarsalen)

#SIFB4 Empowering technologies in hostile environments (Location: Milles)

#SIFB5 Freedom Online Coalition: Open forum (Location: Fogelström)

Reflections and highlights from the day: 17.45 – 18.45

(Location: Mässhallen)

Mingle and Dinner: 19.00 – 21.00

SIF 18 May at Münchenbryggeriet

Welcome and keynote: 09.00 – 09.30 (Location: Mässhallen)

Parallel sessions: 09.30 – 11.00

#SIF3A OPEN SIF (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF3B Digital rights 2.0: challenges and opportunities to empowerment (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF3C Safe media in conflict and chaos (Location: Riddarsalen)

Coffee break: 11.00 – 11.30

Main session 2: 11.30 – 13.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

A positive outlook: Leave no one offline

Half of the world’s population — specifically women, the poor and marginalised populations in developing countries — are still being left offline. What is needed to reach those still offline?

Beyond access, there are still many obstacles to achieving a digital inclusive society. Access to the Internet, ICT’s and digital tools is not only a catalyst for economic growth but increasingly a means for people to participate in today’s society. Too often access is measured by number of subscribers. This session will address access and power from a multidimensional approach – including infrastructure, affordability and contextual factors such as regulation and social and power structures.

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 14.00

Closing session: 14.00 – 15.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

This session will focus on summarizing knowledge and experiences shared at SIF17 and mapping the road ahead – identifying constraints but also opportunities for equal access and Internet freedom in the strive for global development and a digital inclusive society. The closing session will be interactive with the participants being the centre of the discussion.

Side happenings

During breaks you will have the opportunity to develop your digital skills, participate in discussions and expand your knowledge at this year’s side happenings.

16 May at Sida HQ

11.00 – 17.30

New media documentation clinic with Witness

(Location: Room 19 Asante)

11.00 – 17.00

Developing Internet universality indicators with UNESCO and the APC Internet indicators consortium

(Location: Room 21 Tsodilo)

14.30 – 17.30

Local access and community based networks with APC and ISOC

(Location: Djenné)

17 – 18 May at Münchenbryggeriet

All day

Digital security clinic with Access Now

(Location: Mässtorget)

Healing justice pod with Astraea Foundation

(Location: Bergrummet)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/stockholm-internet-forum-2017

still

praskrishna — 2012-03-20T12:43:36Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/still.jpg

Stiff Resistance Dogs India's ID Plan

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T09:59:06Z

An article about the UID project by Indrajit Basu in Asia Times Online.

Tembhali is little known beyond its neighborhood in northern Maharashtra. Yet, as Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi descended by on Wednesday, the tiny hamlet with less than 1,500 residents suddenly became the center of attraction in the global arena of e-governance.

India's prime minister and the ruling Congress party's leader were helicoptered in to officially flag India's most ambitious attempt to transform the way the state reaches its citizens - and also the world's largest identity program.

The so-called Unique Identification (UID) mission, which has been dubbed locally as "Aadhar" ("foundation"), the project will create unique biometric identification numbers for each and every one of India's 1.2 billion people.

Ambitious yet highly controversial, UID numbers will be linked to fingerprints, iris scans, personal information, a microchip for easy scanning, and more. Led by a new government agency called the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the project is spearheaded by Nandan Nilekeni, one of India's most famous techie-entrepreneurs as the co-founder of Infosys, who has been given ministerial powers and a magnanimous (rumored to be US$3 billion or more) budget to implement the grand plan.

According to Nilekeni, among the scores of advantages for the country's people, the millions of India's poor who are without access to the government's plethora of welfare schemes would benefit the most from the new identification system. Much like the mobile telephony, the UID number would connect the poor to the broader and advancing economy of India, he says.

"The government has taken up this project for two reason; one is there are large number of Indians specially those who are urban migrants and rural poor who do not have any form of acknowledged existence by the state and therefore they face the challenge of harassment in their lives. They do not get access to public services either. So the one of the main purposes of this program is to make life easier for the millions of poor, migrants and marginalized (expected to be over 300 million) people. As well as to give inclusion to them," said Nilekeni.

The other is to make all government welfare schemes far more efficient by ensuring that they reach "each and every deserving poor", he says.

Even as the impoverished tribal farming community in Tembhali - many of whom do not even own the land they till - wonder how a unique identity, as Manmohan declared on Wednesday, "can change their lives", UID is meeting stiff resistance from civil liberties groups, privacy advocates, and legal eagles.

Critics condemn the UID as a blatant intrusion to privacy, a tool that will increase bureaucracy and corruption, and say that in addition to being hugely expensive and even illegal, the UID goes against basic human values.

"This project, has been initiated without any prelude: there is no project document; there is no feasibility study; there has been no cost-to-benefit analysis and there are serious concerns about data and identity theft," said Gopal Krishna, Member Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties.

Worse, Krishna added, a project "that could change the status of the people in this country, with regard to security and constitutional rights has been initiated without any legal authorization; just on the basis of an executive order".

The strongest opposition to the project has been generated by the fact that it aims to create a huge digital database containing sensitive personal information in one central location. This is a security risk of "immense" proportions, according to critics.

"Given that the country has hardly any capability in securing its digital database, and an absence of privacy laws, UID's plans of storing its data in one centralized database is an immense risk," said Sunil Abraham, an activist at the People Union for Civil Liberties. "The trouble with a centralized infrastructure is that if it is compromised, then all of it will be compromised, which can result in the collapse of the country's information systems."

Nilekeni deflects these criticisms, saying that the UID Authority will use "the best expertise for security and we also have a policy of proactively publishing strategy policy report and committee reports on our website as well." But arguments against the project stretch on.

"The other opposition is the use of biometrics for ID," says Abraham. "Our fear is that most parts of the country do not have power and if the system mandates that every time a rural resident has to prove his identity biometrically for say collecting subsidized food, chances are that the process will be slower and more prone to failure because of lack of infrastructure."

That, according to critics, could give rise to newer complication or even manipulation of the biometric data - and hence an additional opportunity for corruption.

"A typical unlettered person does not understand the complexities of biometric data collection and verification," says Jiti Nichani, a researcher and an advocate, Alternative Law Forum. "Given the rampant bureaucracy and corruption in the country, this would give yet another reason for the corrupt to siphon off the largesse of a welfare scheme elsewhere; corruption will increase manifold as a consequence."

Still, its flip side is not really devoid of selling points; some of UID's beneficial characteristics are undeniable.

For one, experts say, for every rupee spent on the government's welfare schemes, lack of identity of a poor Indian results in just 15 paisa reaching them. UID then can really revolutionize the way government services are delivered.

Besides, inability to prove identity is not only one of the biggest barriers that prevent the poor from accessing benefits and subsidies, or stymie the government from reaching out to the deserving. It also stops the government formulating appropriate welfare polices, plugging leakages, and above all, eliminating fraud and duplicate identities.

UID, say its proponents, will no longer allow someone to represent themselves differently across a number of agencies, which could solve a lot these problems.

"A UID will enable the poor grab the right to education, get jobs on migration, get medical benefits and even open a bank account and get a mobile phone connection," said Nilekni. "The transformative capability of the UID scheme can be enormous."

Nevertheless, providing an identity to one billion plus Indians in a country so devoid of basic infrastructure is a Herculean task.

Its real challenge may not lie in the concerns that critics have raised, but perhaps in the politics of governance and its reforms. Experts say the success of the project depends on the effective use of political authority, and how Nilekeni and Manmohan manage to address corruption in the political and official systems.

Nilekeni though is undaunted. "I am aware that there are a lot of challenges and this is a humongous project," he said. "But there is a lot of political will and support, and the government is firmly convinced that this project could change the face of India."

Read the original in Asia Times Online

Note: Sunil Abraham does not work for People's Union for Civil Liberties

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/stiff-resistance