The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 91 to 105.
FinTech in India: A Study of Privacy and Security Commitments
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments
<b>The unprecedented growth of the fintech space in India has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns. This report studies the privacy policies of 48 fintech companies operating in India to better understand some of these concerns. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Access the full report: <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/Hewlett%20A%20study%20of%20FinTech%20companies%20and%20their%20privacy%20policies.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<p>The report by Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas was edited by Elonnai Hickok. Privacy policy testing was done by Anupriya Nair and visualisations were done by Saumyaa Naidu. The project is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.</p>
<hr />
<p>In India, the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 (subsequently referred to as SPD/I Rules) framed under the Information Technology Act, 2000 make privacy policies a ubiquitous feature of websites and mobile applications of firms operating in India. Privacy policies are drafted in order to allow consumers to make an informed choice about the privacy commitments being made vis-à-vis their information, and is often the sole document that lays down a companies’ privacy and security practices.In India, the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices andProcedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 (subsequently referred to as SPD/I Rules) framed under the Information Technology Act, 2000 make privacy policies a ubiquitous feature of websites and mobile applications of firms operating in India. Privacy policies are drafted in order to allow consumers to make an informed choice about the privacy commitments being made vis-à-vis their information, and is often the sole document that lays down a companies’ privacy and security practices.</p>
<p>The objective of this study is to understand privacy commitments undertaken by fintech companies operating in India as documented in their public facing privacy policies. This exercise will be useful to understand what standards of privacy and security protection fintech companies are committing to via their organisational privacy policies. The research will do so by aiming to understand the alignment of the privacy policies with the requirements mandated under the SPD/I Rules. Contingent on the learnings from this exercise, trends observed in fintech companies’ privacy and security commitments will be culled out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Shweta MohandasFeaturedHomepageInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-05-02T11:20:30ZBlog EntryData for Development: Mapping key considerations for policy and practice in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-for-development-mapping-key-considerations-for-policy-and-practice-in-india
<b>On 24 April 2019 Arindrajit Basu delivered a talk at an event titled at Data for Development:Mapping key considerations for policy and practice in India at Azim Premchand University. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Arindrajit presented some of CIS's work on artificial intelligence and its work on privacy and the SriKrishna Bill, some of the constitutional contours of India's data governance policies and some of the larger implications on India's foreign policy vision as an emerging economy.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-for-development-mapping-key-considerations-for-policy-and-practice-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-for-development-mapping-key-considerations-for-policy-and-practice-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-04-25T15:17:55ZNews ItemProgramme Officer - Privacy
http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-privacy-2019
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is seeking applications for the position of Programme Officer, to undertake public policy research on privacy and related themes. For this position, we will hire one full time researcher, to be based in the Delhi office of CIS, for the duration of one year.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>To apply for this position please write to amber@cis-india.org along with a CV, two writing samples and contact details of two references, Interested candidates are invited to send their applications at the earliest — latest by April 30th.</h4>
<hr />
<h3>Organisation Profile</h3>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. Through its diverse initiatives, CIS explores, intervenes in, and advances contemporary discourse and practices around internet, technology and society in India, and elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Privacy Research at CIS</h3>
<p>While privacy has been a key subject of study for digital rights and development organisations in India for the last decade, recent and ongoing legal and policy developments have placed this issue at the forefront of human rights and regulatory research. CIS has conducted extensive research into the areas of privacy, data protection, data security, and was also a member of the Committee of Experts constituted under Justice A P Shah. CIS has also been cited multiple times in the Report of the Committee of Experts led by Justice Srikrishna. CIS values the fundamental principles of justice, equality, freedom and economic development and strongly advocates the right to privacy.</p>
<p>Over the next year, CIS intends to look at several research questions on data protection which may include the global experience with privacy enforcement, need for effective redressal mechanisms, documenting the design of business models and data flows, regulation of social media big data, how data of disadvantaged groups including children may be protected. Additionally, while we now have the Supreme Court’s unanimous and emphatic recognition of the fundamental right to privacy, there is a need for research enquiry into several issues such as a clarification of the scope of the Puttaswamy judgment, unpacking the different dimensions of privacy, how state actions interact with privacy.</p>
<h3>The Role</h3>
<ul>
<li>Research and analysis: Literature review, policy design, detailed analysis of research topics<br /><br /></li>
<li>Knowledge management: Staying up-to-date on developments of interest to the project, and sharing/debating these with the team. Contributing to documentary and knowledge management processes<br /><br /></li>
<li>Policy outreach and stakeholder engagement: Supporting the project manager in the dissemination of research findings in innovative formats. Attending, planning and executing events<br /><br /></li>
<li>Writing op-eds, short notes, policy briefs and longer form academic writing for a range of audiences<br /><br /></li>
<li>Presentations and formal discussions: Preparing and delivering presentations to various audiences<br /><br /></li>
<li>Helping manage communications with stakeholders including international experts, regulators and policy makers<br /><br /></li>
<li>Managing interns and team: Managing work outputs with our interns; coordinating research with team members and the project manager</li></ul>
<h3>Qualifications and Skills</h3>
<p>We are looking for professionals from law, regulatory theory and public policy backgrounds.</p>
<p>We are looking for candidates who are interested in studying the regulatory challenges of notice and consent, state capacity, how business models thwart privacy and the future of privacy post Puttaswamy.</p>
<p>This is a full-time position based out of Delhi. The position is for a duration of one year. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-privacy-2019'>http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-privacy-2019</a>
</p>
No publisheramberJobsInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-04-15T06:53:44ZBlog Entry(re) conference
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/crea-reconference
<b>From 10 to 12 April 2019, Aayush Rathi participated in a "reconference" a global conference designed to provoke conversations around the new possibilities and opportunities for feminist movements. It was held in Kathmandu, and was organised by CREA, a feminist human rights organisation based in New Delhi.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the (re)conference, Aayush Rathi spoke on a panel as a part of the technology track curated by Point of View. The research Ambika Tandon and Aayush have undertaken on reproductive health and its datafication in India, as a part of the BD4D project, was selected to be presented on the panel. The presentation can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/framing-reproductive-health-as-a-data-problem">found here</a>. The agenda and theme of the (re) conference can be <a class="external-link" href="https://reconference.creaworld.org/program/">found here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/crea-reconference'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/crea-reconference</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-05-02T02:01:48ZNews ItemThe Phantom Public: The Role of Social Media in Democracy
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-phantom-public-the-role-of-social-media-in-democracy
<b>Amber Sinha delivered an open lecture at Ambedkar University, New Delhi on 3 April 2019.</b>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify; ">India has over 500 million internet users — over a third of its total population — making it the country with the second largest number of Internet users after China. For the world’s largest democracy, the Internet should be a boon. After all, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, had envisioned the Internet to as an “open platform that allows anyone to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographical boundaries.” The democratization of information it facilitated should have led to a more informed citizenry, but instead what we have is the complete opposite. The average digital citizen in India maintains a near perpetual information illiteracy about where they receive news and information from, whether or not it is true and how it is intended to manipulate them. This is, in large part, because social media has become the primary source of information.</p>
<div id="_mcePaste"></div>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify; ">The problems of the public, how it may get access to meaningful information, how it organises itself, and how public opinion is shaped are now deeply impacted by the rise of social media and messaging platforms as political tools of targeting, gathering and organising. How this new media thwarts and enables the goals of the public in India at present is the primary subject matter of this talk. We will cover a range of issues such as fake news and hate speech on social media, the use Facebook by Cambridge Analytica in elections, and how online platforms are governed, particularly with a view towards elections.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-phantom-public-the-role-of-social-media-in-democracy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-phantom-public-the-role-of-social-media-in-democracy</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-05-01T05:09:19ZNews ItemIETF 104 Prague
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-104-prague
<b>Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in IETF 104 organized by IETF in Prague from 23rd March to 29th March 2019. </b>
<p>Karan Saini:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attended and scribed for the Privacy Enhancements and Assessments Proposed Research Group (PEARG) session.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attended and made interventions in the Stopping Malware and Researching Threats (SMART RG) research group session. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attended: DNS Over HTTPS (DOH), Domain Name System Operations (DNSOP), Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE WG) group sessions </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attended side meetings: Public Interest Technology (PITG) and Web Packaging (webpack)</li>
</ul>
<p>Gurshabad Grover:</p>
<div id="_mcePaste">
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attended and made interventions in the Captive Portals (capport) and <span>Registration Protocols Extensions (regext) working groups. Also attended </span><span>the meetings of the Transport Layer Security (TLS), DNS Privacy, and DNS </span><span>over HTTPS (DoH) working groups and the Privacy Enhancements and </span><span>Assessments Proposed Research Group (PEARG). Additionally, attended the </span><span>Public Interest Technology Group (PITG) and Centralisation of DNS </span><span>Services side meetings.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">At the meeting of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations (HRPC) <span>research group, I presented an update to draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines </span><span>('Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol and Architecture </span><span>Considerations'), which I am co-editing with Niels ten Oever. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>At the IETF Hackathon, I explored the use of differential privacy for </span><span>privacy-preserving latency measurement in the QUIC protocol (with Amelia </span><span>Andersdotter and Shivan Kaul Sahib). We will continue the research to </span><span>see whether differential privacy techniques are viable/useful for IETF </span><span>protocols.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>Attended and made interventions in the Captive Portals (capport) andRegistration Protocols Extensions (regext) working groups. Also attended the meetings of the Transport Layer Security (TLS), DNS Privacy, and DNS over HTTPS (DoH) working groups and the Privacy Enhancements and Assessments Proposed Research Group (PEARG). Additionally, attended the Public Interest Technology Group (PITG) and Centralisation of DNS Services side meetings. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>At the meeting of the Human Rights Protocol Considerations (HRPC)research group, I presented an update to draft-irtf-hrpc-guidelines('Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol and ArchitectureConsiderations'), which I am co-editing with Niels ten Oever. </span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>At the IETF Hackathon, I explored the use of differential privacy forprivacy-preserving latency measurement in the QUIC protocol (with Amelia Andersdotter and Shivan Kaul Sahib). We will continue the research to see whether differential privacy techniques are viable/useful for IETF protocols.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<hr />
<p>For more information visit <a class="external-link" href="https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/104/">IETF website</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-104-prague'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-104-prague</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-04-12T01:04:47ZNews ItemDSCI-Infosys Roundtable
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-infosys-roundtable
<b>Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting organized by Infosys in Bangalore on March 25, 2019 as a speaker.</b>
<p>AGENDA:</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">10:00-10:15 AM<b></b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Opening Remarks: Infosys <b></b></p>
<p>Context Setting: DSCI and Infosys</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">10:15- 11:00 AM</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Elements shaping Data Economy </b></p>
<p>§ Digitization: Personalization, Experience, Productivity & Possibilities</p>
<p>§ Global Internet Platforms: Transforming B2C and B2B</p>
<p>§ Phantomization of Technology & Business Models</p>
<p>§ Changing nature of Deliveries: value driven, subscription based and platform based</p>
<p>§ Product Economy: Data-centric Designs, Start-ups and Unicorn,</p>
<p>§ IOT and Industrialisation 4.0: Next generation service & business lines</p>
<p>§ Data flow and how it’s shaping trade of goods and services</p>
<p>§ Role of data in delivering the public service and improving public order</p>
<p>§ Artificial Intelligence: at specific product/service level and its ramification to industrial and national economy</p>
<p>§ Technology: role of data in developing next generation tech platforms</p>
<p align="right"><i>Discussion Facilitation: DSCI and Infosys</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">11:00- 11:45 AM</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Tech’s Dilemmas</b></p>
<p>§ Scale and reach of BigTech: Industrial Capitalism versus Internet Capitalism</p>
<p>§ Competition</p>
<p>§ Influence on personal, social, transactional, economic and political life</p>
<p>§ Stressed relations with values of modern value system</p>
<p>§ Ethical issues: human rights, social harmony, public space decency, health electoral processes, information warfare...</p>
<p>§ Data Privacy</p>
<p>§ Tech’s response: Locking down of data, editorial/ censorship controls...</p>
<p>§ Challenges of law enforcement, fraud management and supervision</p>
<p>§ Relevance to national security objectives</p>
<p>......</p>
<p>§ Principles of Responsible Innovation</p>
<p>§ Ideas under discussion/ experimentation<b></b></p>
<p align="right"><i>Discussion Facilitation: DSCI and Infosys</i><b></b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">11:45-12:15 AM<b></b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Shaping Data Economy</b></p>
<p>§ Structures and approaches: state controlled, private sector led, decentralized</p>
<p>§ Directions: legal/ policy, innovation, investments, architectures (like India Stack),</p>
<p>§ Searching the role of liberal economic principles</p>
<p>§ Open architectures and open data ecosystem</p>
<p>§ Positions, Obligations, Burdens and Liabilities for protecting rights, creating level playing field, ensuring competition...</p>
<p>§ Regulatory approaches: establishing supervisory controls</p>
<p>§ National security: Interventions, mandates and cooperation</p>
<p align="right"><i>Discussion Facilitation: DSCI and Infosys</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">12:15 to 12:30 PM</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Discussion Summary</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center">12:30 PM onwards<b></b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p align="center"><b>Lunch</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-infosys-roundtable'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-infosys-roundtable</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-04-05T02:06:00ZNews ItemData Privacy and Citizen's Rights' Symposium Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-privacy-and-citizens-rights-symposium-report
<b>The Technology Law Forum at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) has published the Report on Data Privacy and Citizen's Rights' Symposium. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This report is a compilation of all the speakers' speeches during the panel discussion. Shweta Mohandas <span>was one of the eight speakers at the panel and the excerpts from her presentation has also been covered in this report. Click to <a class="external-link" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3356776">read more</a></span></p>
<div></div>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-privacy-and-citizens-rights-symposium-report'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-privacy-and-citizens-rights-symposium-report</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-04-05T02:24:09ZNews ItemProposed Intermediary Liability Rules threat to privacy and free speech, global coalition tells MeitY
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-march-18-2019-zaheer-merchant-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules-threat-privacy-and-free-speech
<b>“We respectfully call on you to withdraw the draft amendments proposed to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules in December. As published, the draft amendments would erode digital security and undermine the exercise of human rights globally.”</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post by Zaheer Merchant was published by <a class="external-link" href="https://www.medianama.com/2019/03/223-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules-threat-to-privacy-and-free-speech-global-coalition-tells-meity/">Medianama </a>on March 18, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A global coalition of 31 civil society organizations and technology experts has called on MeitY to reconsider the proposed amendments to the Intermediary Liability Rules, terming them a threat to privacy and free speech. In a letter to the ministry dated March 15, the coalition said that the proposed amendments “would harm fundamental rights and the space for a free internet, without necessarily addressing the problems that the ministry aims to resolve.” Some of the signatories are Centre for Internet and Society, SFLC.in, Internet Freedom Foundation, Government Accountability Project and Human Rights Watch, among others (A copy of the letter is attached at the bottom). The letter breaks down its reasons for opposing the proposed amendments:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>1. Traceability would undermine security, lead to surveillance</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under the proposed guidelines, intermediaries would have to ensure ‘traceability’ of messages by providing information related to its originator and receivers. This, the letter argues, would force intermediaries to undermine the security of of their platforms and create a surveillance regime. “Undermining security features to ensure traceability would affect all users of that platform, not just those that are the subjects of the information request,” the letter reads. “… such wide and ambiguous powers… on interception of communications would directly harm the fundamental right to privacy of Indians and facilitate unchecked surveillance.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>2. Data retention antithetical to privacy, must go</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The letter also states that the data retention mandate included in the draft guidelines is antithetical to privacy. The guidelines state that intermediaries must preserve content requested by law enforcement for 180 days or longer. This open-ended data retention, the letter argues, contradicts the principle of ‘Storage Limitation’ recommended by the Srikrishna Committee. “Provisions regarding storage limitation and data retention must not be included within the fold of the Intermediary Guidelines, and should be subject to parliamentary law-making,” the letter reads.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>3. Proactive monitoring contradicts SC’s Shreya Singhal judgment, would result in censorship</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The letter also criticizes the requirement that intermediaries proactively monitor and automatically delete ‘unlawful content’. “[This] would directly conflict with the legal standard laid down by the Supreme Court of India in the Shreya Singhal judgment, which holds that intermediaries should only be legally compelled to take down content on the basis of court orders or legally empowered government agencies,” the letter reads. It could also cause intermediaries to err in favor of takedowns, resulting in unnecessary censorship.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“With the upcoming General Elections in India and the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct on new policy decisions in place, we urge the government to not push through these amended regulations given their impact on fundamental rights and secure communications,” the letter concludes.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">The proposed amendments to Intermediary Liability Rules <b><br /> </b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Released at the end of December 2018, the proposed amendments to the Intermediary Guidelines would modify guidelines under the Information Technology Act concerning intermediaries, ostensibly to prevent misuse of social media platforms and check the spread of fake news. Under India’s Information Technology Act, any entity, person or platform that receives, stores, processes, or transmits electronic information on behalf of another is considered an intermediary. These include social media platforms, cloud services, internet service providers, email service providers and more. For an intermediary to avoid liability for its users’ actions, it must comply with the proposed guidelines which are being amended to the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><b>Traceability, and information within 72 hours:</b> The new rules require platforms to introduce traceability to find where a piece of information originated. For this, platforms may have to break end-to-end encryption. The rules require the intermediary to hand over information or assistance to government bodies in 72 hours, including in matters of security or cybersecurity, and for investigative purposes. [Rule 3(5)]</li>
<li><b>Platforms with more than 50 lakh users are required to be registered</b> under the Companies Act, have a physical address in the country, have a nodal officer who will cooperate with law enforcement agencies, etc. [Rule 3(7)]</li>
<li><b>Platforms have to pull down unlawful content</b> within a shorter duration of 24 hours from the earlier 36 hours. They also have to keep records of the “unlawful activity” for 180 days – double the period of 90 days in the 2011 rules – as required by the court or government agencies [Rule 3(8)]</li>
<li><b>Platforms have to deploy tools</b> to proactively identify, remove and disable public access to unlawful information or content. [Rule 3(9)]</li>
<li><b>The new rules insert a monthly requirement on platforms</b> to inform users of the platforms’ right to terminate usage rights and to remove non-compliant information at their own discretion. [Rule 3(4)]</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-march-18-2019-zaheer-merchant-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules-threat-privacy-and-free-speech'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-march-18-2019-zaheer-merchant-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules-threat-privacy-and-free-speech</a>
</p>
No publisherZaheer MerchantFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-03-20T15:56:51ZNews ItemSeminar on “Evolution of communication: Social Media & Beyond”
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d
<b>Sunil Abraham will be a speaker at this event organized by TRAI on March 15 at Hotel Radisson Blu GRT, Near Airport, Chennai. Sunil will be speaking on How should Internet Giants- Social Media, Search engines and ad tech be Regulated.</b>
<p>Click to <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/seminar-on-evolution-of-communication">view the agenda</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-03-07T14:52:09ZNews ItemNullcon Security Conference
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/nullcon-security-conference
<b>On March 1 and 2, 2019, Karan Saini attended the Nullcon Security Conference organized by Nullcon at Holiday Inn Resort, Mobor Beach, Cavelossim, Salcette, Goa.</b>
<p>The schedule of the event can be <a class="external-link" href="https://nullcon.net/website/goa-2019/schedule.php">accessed here</a>. Videos of the talks can be <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/user/nullcon/videos">accessed here</a>. The event was:attended by:</p>
<div class="imglist">
<ul class="list-unstyled">
<li>Security Practitioners (Analysts, Testers, Developers, Cryptographers, Hackers)</li>
<li>Security Executives (CISOs, CXOs)</li>
<li>Business Developers and Venture Capitalists (Presidents, Directors, VPs, Consultants)</li>
<li>Vendor Companies and Sponsors (Hardware, Software, Services)</li>
<li>Career Seekers and Recruiters (Seasoned Veterans, Students, Expanding Companies </li>
<li>Academia (Professors, Students)</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">The nullcon conference is a unique platform for security companies/evangelists to showcase their research and technology. Nullcon hosts Prototype, Exhibition, Trainings, Free Workshops, null Job Fair at the conference. It is an integrated and structured platform which caters to the needs of IT Security industry at large in a comprehensive way.</div>
<ul class="list-unstyled">
</ul>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/nullcon-security-conference'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/nullcon-security-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-03-07T14:40:11ZNews ItemParticipation in the meeting of BIS LITD 17
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/participation-in-the-meeting-of-bis-litd-17
<b>Gurshabad Grover participated in the fifteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Sectional Committee (LITD 17) of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which was conducted online on February 26.</b>
<p>Some of the things we discussed included:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Participation of committee members at the ISO level in SC 27 'IT Security Techniques' working groups.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Update from the last SC 27 working group meetings (I updated the committee with some standards I was tracking and my participation as co-rapporteur in the 'Impact of AI on Privacy' study period).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Participation in the next SC 27 working group meetings, which will be held in April (where I will be participating in WG 1 'Information Security Management Systems' and WG 5 'Identity management and privacy technologies' meetings).</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/participation-in-the-meeting-of-bis-litd-17'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/participation-in-the-meeting-of-bis-litd-17</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-03-03T06:12:01ZNews ItemData Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-infrastructures-inequities-reproductive-health-surveillance-india
<b>In order to bring out certain conceptual and procedural problems with health monitoring in the Indian context, this article by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon posits health monitoring as surveillance and not merely as a “data problem.” Casting a critical feminist lens, the historicity of surveillance practices unveils the gendered power differentials wedded into taken-for-granted “benign” monitoring processes. The unpacking of the Mother and Child Tracking System and the National Health Stack reveals the neo-liberal aspirations of the Indian state. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>The article was first published by <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/data-infrastructures-inequities-why-does-reproductive-health-surveillance-india-need-urgent-attention" target="_blank">EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 6</a>, on 9 February 2019.</em></p>
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<h3><strong>Framing Reproductive Health as a Surveillance Question</strong></h3>
<p>The approach of the postcolonial Indian state to healthcare has been Malthusian, with the prioritisation of family planning and birth control (Hodges 2004). Supported by the notion of socio-economic development arising out of a “modernisation” paradigm, the target-based approach to achieving reduced fertility rates has shaped India’s reproductive and child health (RCH) programme (Simon-Kumar 2006).</p>
<p>This is also the context in which India’s abortion law, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, was framed in 1971, placing the decisional privacy of women seeking abortions in the hands of registered medical practitioners. The framing of the MTP act invisibilises females seeking abortions for non-medical reasons within the legal framework. The exclusionary provisions only exacerbated existing gaps in health provisioning, as access to safe and legal abortions had already been curtailed by severe geographic inequalities in funding, infrastructure, and human resources. The state has concomitantly been unable to meet contraceptive needs of married couples or reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in large parts of the country, mediating access along the lines of class, social status, education, and age (Sanneving et al 2013).</p>
<p>While the official narrative around the RCH programme transitioned to focus on universal access to healthcare in the 1990s, the target-based approach continues to shape the reality on the ground. The provision of reproductive healthcare has been deeply unequal and, in some cases, in hospitals. These targets have been known to be met through the practice of forced, and often unsafe, sterilisation, in conditions of absence of adequate provisions or trained professionals, pre-sterilisation counselling, or alternative forms of contraception (Sama and PLD 2018). Further, patients have regularly been provided cash incentives, foreclosing the notion of free consent, especially given that the target population of these camps has been women from marginalised economic classes in rural India.</p>
<p>Placing surveillance studies within a feminist praxis allows us to frame the reproductive health landscape as more than just an ill-conceived, benign monitoring structure. The critical lens becomes useful for highlighting that taken-for-granted structures of monitoring are wedded with power differentials: genetic screening in fertility clinics, identification documents such as birth certificates, and full-body screeners are just some of the manifestations of this (Adrejevic 2015). Emerging conversations around feminist surveillance studies highlight that these data systems are neither benign nor free of gendered implications (Andrejevic 2015). In continual remaking of the social, corporeal body as a data actor in society, such practices render some bodies normative and obfuscate others, based on categorisations put in place by the surveiller.</p>
<p>In fact, the history of surveillance can be traced back to the colonial state where it took the form of systematic sexual and gendered violence enacted upon indigenous populations in order to render them compliant (Rifkin 2011; Morgensen 2011). Surveillance, then, manifests as a “scientific” rationalisation of complex social hieroglyphs (such as reproductive health) into formats enabling administrative interventions by the modern state. Lyon (2001) has also emphasised how the body emerged as the site of surveillance in order for the disciplining of the “irrational, sensual body”—essential to the functioning of the modern nation-state—to effectively happen.</p>
<h3><strong>Questioning the Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) and Big Data for Development (BD4D) Rhetoric</strong></h3>
<p>Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and data-driven approaches to the development of a robust health information system, and by extension, welfare, have been offered as solutions to these inequities and exclusions in access to maternal and reproductive healthcare in the country.</p>
<p>The move towards data-driven development in the country commenced with the introduction of the Health Management Information System in Andhra Pradesh in 2008, and the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) nationally in 2011. These are reproductive health information systems (HIS) that collect granular data about each pregnancy from the antenatal to the post-natal period, at the level of each sub-centre as well as primary and community health centre. The introduction of HIS comprised cross-sectoral digitisation measures that were a part of the larger national push towards e-governance; along with health, thirty other distinct areas of governance, from land records to banking to employment, were identified for this move towards the digitalised provisioning of services (MeitY 2015).</p>
<p>The HIS have been seen as playing a critical role in the ecosystem of health service provision globally. HIS-based interventions in reproductive health programming have been envisioned as a means of: (i) improving access to services in the context of a healthcare system ridden with inequalities; (ii) improving the quality of services provided, and (iii) producing better quality data to facilitate the objectives of India’s RCH programme, including family planning and population control. Accordingly, starting 2018, the MCTS is being replaced by the RCH portal in a phased manner. The RCH portal, in areas where the ANMOL (ANM Online) application has been introduced, captures data real-time through tablets provided to health workers (MoHFW 2015).</p>
<p>A proposal to mandatorily link the Aadhaar with data on pregnancies and abortions through the MCTS/RCH has been made by the union minister for Women and Child Development as a deterrent to gender-biased sex selection (Tembhekar 2016). The proposal stems from the prohibition of gender-biased sex selection provided under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994. The approach taken so far under the PCPNDT Act, 2014 has been to regulate the use of technologies involved in sex determination. However, the steady decline in the national sex ratio since the passage of the PCPNDT Act provides a clear indication that the regulation of such technology has been largely ineffective. A national policy linking Aadhaar with abortions would be aimed at discouraging gender-biased sex selection through state surveillance, in direct violation of a female’s right to decisional privacy with regards to their own body.</p>
<p>Linking Aadhaar would also be used as a mechanism to enable direct benefit transfer (DBT) to the beneficiaries of the national maternal benefits scheme. Linking reproductive health services to the Aadhaar ecosystem has been critiqued because it is exclusionary towards women with legitimate claims towards abortions and other reproductive services and benefits, and it heightens the risk of data breaches in a cultural fabric that already stigmatises abortions. The bodies on which this stigma is disproportionately placed, unmarried or disabled females, for instance, experience the harms of visibility through centralised surveillance mechanisms more acutely than others by being penalised for their deviance from cultural expectations. This is in accordance with the theory of "data extremes,” wherein marginalised communities are seen as living on the extremes of data capture, leading to a data regime that either refuses to recognise them as legitimate entities or subjects them to overpolicing in order to discipline deviance (Arora 2016). In both developed and developing contexts, the broader purpose of identity management has largely been to demarcate legitimate and illegitimate actors within a population, either within the framework of security or welfare.</p>
<h3><strong>Potential Harms of the Data Model of Reproductive Health Provisioning</strong></h3>
<p>Informational privacy and decisional privacy are critically shaped by data flows and security within the MCTS/RCH. No standards for data sharing and storage, or anonymisation and encryption of data have been implemented despite role-based authentication (NHSRC and Taurus Glocal 2011). The risks of this architectural design are further amplified in the context of the RCH/ANMOL where data is captured real-time. In the absence of adequate safeguards against data leaks, real-time data capture risks the publicising of reproductive health choices in an already stigmatised environment. This opens up avenues for further dilution of autonomy in making future reproductive health choices.</p>
<p>Several core principles of informational privacy, such as limitations regarding data collection and usage, or informed consent, also need to be reworked within this context.<sup>[1]</sup> For instance, the centrality of the requirement of “free, informed consent” by an individual would need to be replaced by other models, especially in the context of reproductive health of rape survivors who are vulnerable and therefore unable to exercise full agency. The ability to make a free and informed choice, already dismantled in the context of contemporary data regimes, gets further precluded in such contexts. The constraints on privacy in decisions regarding the body are then replicated in the domain of reproductive data collection.</p>
<p>What is uniform across these digitisation initiatives is their treatment of maternal and reproductive health as solely a medical event, framed as a data scarcity problem. In doing so, they tend to amplify the understanding of reproductive health through measurable indicators that ignore social determinants of health. For instance, several studies conducted in the rural Indian context have shown that the degree of women’s autonomy influences the degree of usage of pregnancy care, and that the uptake of pregnancy care was associated with village-level indicators such as economic development, provisioning of basic infrastructure and social cohesion. These contextual factors get overridden in pervasive surveillance systems that treat reproductive healthcare as comprising only of measurable indicators and behaviours, that are dependent on individual behaviour of practitioners and women themselves, rather than structural gaps within the system.</p>
<p>While traditionally associated with state governance, the contemporary surveillance regime is experienced as distinct from its earlier forms due to its reliance on a nexus between surveillance by the state and private institutions and actors, with both legal frameworks and material apparatuses for data collection and sharing (Shepherd 2017). As with historical forms of surveillance, the harms of contemporary data regimes accrue disproportionately among already marginalised and dissenting communities and individuals. Data-driven surveillance has been critiqued for its excesses in multiple contexts globally, including in the domains of predictive policing, health management, and targeted advertising (Mason 2015). In the attempts to achieve these objectives, surveillance systems have been criticised for their reliance on replicating past patterns, reifying proximity to a hetero-patriarchal norm (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). Under data-driven surveillance systems, this proximity informs the preexisting boxes of identity for which algorithmic representations of the individual are formed. The boxes are defined contingent on the distinct objectives of the particular surveillance project, collating disparate pieces of data flows and resulting in the recasting of the singular offline self into various 'data doubles' (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). Refractive, rather than reflective, the data doubles have implications for the physical, embodied life of individual with an increasing number of service provisioning relying on the data doubles (Lyon 2001). Consider, for instance, apps on menstruation, fertility, and health, and wearables such as fitness trackers and pacers, that support corporate agendas around what a woman’s healthy body should look, be or behave like (Lupton 2014). Once viewed through the lens of power relations, the fetishised, apolitical notion of the data “revolution” gives way to what we may better understand as “dataveillance.”</p>
<h3><strong>Towards a Networked State and a Neo-liberal Citizen</strong></h3>
<p>Following in this tradition of ICT being treated as the solution to problems plaguing India’s public health information system, a larger, all-pervasive healthcare ecosystem is now being proposed by the Indian state (NITI Aayog 2018). Termed the National Health Stack, it seeks to create a centralised electronic repository of health records of Indian citizens with the aim of capturing every instance of healthcare service usage. Among other functions, it also envisions a platform for the provisioning of health and wellness-based services that may be dispensed by public or private actors in an attempt to achieve universal health coverage. By allowing private parties to utilise the data collected through pullable open application program interfaces (APIs), it also fits within the larger framework of the National Health Policy 2017 that envisions the private sector playing a significant role in the provision of healthcare in India. It also then fits within the state–private sector nexus that characterises dataveillance. This, in turn, follows broader trends towards market-driven solutions and private financing of health sector reform measures that have already had profound consequences on the political economy of healthcare worldwide (Joe et al 2018).</p>
<p>These initiatives are, in many ways, emblematic of the growing adoption of network governance reform by the Indian state (Newman 2001). This is a stark shift from its traditional posturing as the hegemonic sovereign nation state. This shift entails the delayering from large, hierarchical and unitary government systems to horizontally arranged, more flexible, relatively dispersed systems.<sup>[2]</sup> The former govern through the power of rules and law, while the latter take the shape of self-regulating networks such as public–private contractual arrangements (Snellen 2005). ICTs have been posited as an effective tool in enabling the transition to network governance by enhancing local governance and interactive policymaking enabling the co-production of knowledge (Ferlie et al 2011). The development of these capabilities is also critical to addressing “wicked problems” such as healthcare (Rittel and Webber 1973).<sup>[3]</sup> The application of the techno-deterministic, data-driven model to reproductive healthcare provision, then, resembles a fetishised approach to technological change. The NHSRC describes this as the collection of data without an objective, leading to a disproportional burden on data collection over use (NHSRC and Taurus Glocal 2011).</p>
<p>The blurring of the functions of state and private actors is reflective of the neo-liberal ethic, which produces new practices of governmentality. Within the neo-liberal framework of reproductive healthcare, the citizen is constructed as an individual actor, with agency over and responsibility for their own health and well-being (Maturo et al 2016).</p>
<h3><strong>“Quantified Self” of the Neo-liberal Citizen</strong></h3>
<p>Nowhere can the manifestation of this neo-liberal citizen can be seen as clearly as in the “quantified self” movement. The quantified self movement refers to the emergence of a whole range of apps that enable the user to track bodily functions and record data to achieve wellness and health goals, including menstruation, fertility, pregnancies, and health indicators in the mother and baby. Lupton (2015) labels this as the emergence of the “digitised reproductive citizen,” who is expected to be attentive to her fertility and sexual behaviour to achieve better reproductive health goals. The practice of collecting data around reproductive health is not new to the individual or the state, as has been demonstrated by the discussion above. What is new in this regime of datafication under the self-tracking movement is the monetisation of reproductive health data by private actors, the labour for which is performed by the user. Focusing on embodiment draws attention to different kinds of exploitation engendered by reproductive health apps. Not only is data about the body collected and sold, the unpaid labour for collection is extracted from the user. The reproductive body can then be understood as a cyborg, or a woman-machine hybrid, systematically digitising its bodily functions for profit-making within the capitalist (re)production machine (Fotoloulou 2016). Accordingly, all major reproductive health tracking apps have a business model that relies on selling information about users for direct marketing of products around reproductive health and well-being (Felizi and Varon nd).</p>
<p>As has been pointed out in the case of big data more broadly, reproductive health applications (apps) facilitate the visibility of the female reproductive body in the public domain. Supplying anonymised data sets to medical researchers and universities fills some of the historical gaps in research around the female body and reproductive health. Reproductive and sexual health tracking apps globally provide their users a platform to engage with biomedical information around sexual and reproductive health. Through group chats on the platform, they are also able to engage with experiential knowledge of sexual and reproductive health. This could also help form transnational networks of solidarity around the body and health (Fotopoulou 2016).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This radical potential of network-building around reproductive and sexual health is, however, tempered to a large extent by the reconfiguration of gendered stereotypes through these apps. In a study on reproductive health apps on Google Play Store, Lupton (2014) finds that products targeted towards female users are marketed through the discourse of risk and vulnerability, while those targeted towards male users are framed within that of virility. Apart from reiterating gendered stereotypes around the male and female body, such a discourse assumes that the entire labour of family planning is performed by females. This same is the case with the MCTS/RCH.</p>
<p>Technological interventions such as reproductive health apps as well as HIS are based on the assumption that females have perfect control over decisions regarding their own bodies and reproductive health, despite this being disproved in India. The Guttmacher Institute (2014) has found that 60% of women in India report not having control over decisions regarding their own healthcare. The failure to account for the husband or the family as stakeholder in decision-making around reproductive health has been a historical failure of the family planning programme in India, and is now being replicated in other modalities. This notion of an autonomous citizen who is able to take responsibility of their own reproductive health and well-being does not hold true in the Indian context. It can even be seen as marginalising females who have already been excluded from the reproductive health system, as they are held responsible for their own inability to access healthcare.</p>
<h3><strong>Concluding Remarks</strong></h3>
<p>The interplay that emerges between reproductive health surveillance and data infrastructures is a complex one. It requires the careful positioning of the political nature of data collection and processing as well as its hetero-patriarchal and colonial legacies, within the need for effective utilisation of data for achieving developmental goals. Assessing this discourse through a feminist lens identifies the web of power relations in data regimes. This problematises narratives of technological solutions for welfare provision.</p>
<p>The reproductive healthcare framework in India then offers up a useful case study to assess these concerns. The growing adoption of ICT-based surveillance tools to equalise access to healthcare needs to be understood in the socio-economic, legal, and cultural context where these tools are being implemented. Increased surveillance has historically been associated with causing the structural gendered violence that it is now being offered as a solution to. This is a function of normative standards being constructed for reproductive behaviour that necessarily leave out broader definitions of reproductive health and welfare when viewed through a feminist lens. Within the larger context of health policymaking in India, moves towards privatisation then demonstrate the peculiarity of dataveillance as it functions through an unaccountable and pervasive overlapping of state and private surveillance practises. It remains to be seen how these trends in ICT-driven health policies affect access to reproductive rights and decisional privacy for millions of females in India and other parts of the global South.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-infrastructures-inequities-reproductive-health-surveillance-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-infrastructures-inequities-reproductive-health-surveillance-india</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonBig DataData SystemsPrivacyResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceResearchBD4DHealthcareSurveillanceBig Data for Development2019-12-30T16:44:32ZBlog EntryDSCI's Bangalore chapter meet
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dscis-bangalore-chapter-meet
<b>On January 29, 2019, Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the Bangalore chapter meet organized by Data Security Council of India in Bangalore.</b>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/DSCI.png/@@images/5964984e-07ca-4be0-8a63-98b2490b5032.png" alt="DSCI" class="image-inline" title="DSCI" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dscis-bangalore-chapter-meet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dscis-bangalore-chapter-meet</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-02-02T01:47:51ZNews ItemConmen seed fake phone numbers in Google to trap people looking for customer care details
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-tushar-kaushik-january-30-2019-conmen-seed-fake-phone-numbers-in-google-to-trap-people-looking-for-customer-care-details
<b>Googling for anything might seem like a good idea, but searching for contacts of businesses and customer care numbers is landing people in the hands of conmen.</b>
<p>The article by Tushar Kaushik was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/conmen-seed-fake-phone-numbers-in-google-to-trap-people-looking-for-customer-care-details/articleshow/67751196.cms">Economic Times</a> on January 30, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many use Google or other search engines for specific contact numbers — the customer care numbers of a bank, for instance. The search results do not throw up bona fide numbers, but those of conmen waiting to lure a victim. The conmen, knowing what the caller is seeking, and on the pretext of helping, cunningly makes them part with information such as bank account, debit/credit card and even the OTP.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">About 20-odd people have been duped in this manner in the past month in Bengaluru, according to the city’s cybercrime police. About 20-30 victims have fallen prey in Gurugram in the last one-and-a-half months. In Maharashtra and Hyderabad, the trend of fake numbers being seeded on Google Maps and being used to dupe people is being observed since October 2018. The frauds are helped by the fact that any user can edit contact information on Google Maps. The Maharashtra cyber police reportedly notified Google authorities regarding this.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Inspector and in-charge of cyber police station at Gurugram, Anand Kumar, said another variant of such cases was on the rise. People searching for contacts to help them return products they bought from e-commerce websites have been led to fake numbers. “In the past one-and-half months, about 20-30 such complaints have been received,” Kumar said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Srinivas Kodali, a Hyderabad-based data security researcher, said similar incidents using fake numbers being uploaded on Google Maps had occurred in Hyderabad 2-3 months ago. He claimed Google had been informed of the incidents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Illustrating another instance of the way Google searches are misused, dairy brand Amul issued a legal notice to Google, alleging that a series of fake B2B campaigns regarding Amul Parlours and Distributors have started through fake websites using Google search ads since September 2018.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bengaluru-based app developer and co-founder of TBG Labs Harsha Halvi said it was fairly easy for any conman to seed his own number and masquerade as a contact number and make it appear in a Google search. He said all it takes is a very good understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gurshabad Grover, senior policy officer at The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, said, “The problem right now is Google is not making it clear whether something is verified information or is crowdsourced. On Google Maps, businesses can be claimed by legitimate owners. A suggestion is that Google verify the claimed entities,” Grover said. He added that people too should exercise vigilance while accessing information online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Additional commissioner of police (crime) at Bengaluru Alok Kumar said Google could not be held responsible for such incidents as individuals seeded the fake numbers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Reacting to the incidents, a spokesperson from Google India said, “Overall, allowing users to suggest edits provides comprehensive and up-to-date info, but we recognise there may be occasional inaccuracies or bad edits suggested by users.” The spokesperson said when such issues are reported to Google, the claims are investigated and action is taken in line with the findings.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-tushar-kaushik-january-30-2019-conmen-seed-fake-phone-numbers-in-google-to-trap-people-looking-for-customer-care-details'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-tushar-kaushik-january-30-2019-conmen-seed-fake-phone-numbers-in-google-to-trap-people-looking-for-customer-care-details</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernancePrivacy2019-02-01T15:22:27ZNews Item