September 2018 Newsletter
Dear readers,
Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.
Highlights
- Wikisource is one of the trending Wikimedia projects. Many new editors and new books to Indic language Wikisource's get added over a period of time. However, new editors as well as existing editors face numerous problems while working with the content online. The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team, to help the editors, has created a Wikisource Handbook for Indian communities. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook.
- Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) participated in the 5th Global Congress on IP and Public Interest held in Washington in a big way. CIS signed on as a supporting member to the Civil Society Proposal for a Treaty on Education and Research Activities.
- Sunil Abraham, in an article in the Hindustan Times, explores what leads to fake news. He has revealed that transparency regulations is the need of the hour especially for election campaigns and political advertising.
- Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok, Udbhav Tiwari and Arindrajit Basu co-authored a blog post which examines cross-border data sharing. The authors have argued that conventional methods of compelling the presentation of evidence available for investigative agencies often fail when the evidence is not present within the territorial boundaries of the state.
- Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok wrote a blog entry on usage of artificial intelligence in governance sector in India. As per research though artificial intelligence has the potential to ameliorate structural inefficiencies in governmental functions, the deployment of this technology across sub-sectors is still on the horizons.
- Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu produced a research paper on the implications of artificial intelligence in India in various sectors such as health, banking, manufacturing, and governance sectors.
- Artificial Intelligence in many ways is in direct conflict with traditional data protection principles and requirements including consent, purpose limitation, data minimization, retention and deletion, accountability, and transparency. Authors Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha have explained this in a blog entry.
- The researchers@work programme has selected 10 essays, based on an open call announced in August, engaging with the thematic of "offline". The abstracts of the selected essays have been published, and the final essays will be published on the upcoming r@w blog.
Articles
- India’s post-truth society (Swaraj Paul Barooah; Hindu Businessline; September 7, 2018).
- Digital Native: #MemeToo (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 9, 2018).
- The Right Words for Love (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 23, 2018).
- A trust deficit between advertisers and publishers is leading to fake news (Sunil Abraham; Hindustan Times; September 30, 2018).
- Digital Native: Hardly Friends Like That (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 30, 2018).
CIS in the News
- Can this curb your addiction? (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; September 5, 2018).
- 'Why should we talk to Dunzo?' State regulators fume at liquor delivery (Aroon Deep; Medianama; September 7, 2018).
- #NAMAprivacy: Data Protection Authority's regulatory and enforcement challenges (Rana; Medianama; September 9, 2018).
- 'What Security Breach?' The Unchanging Tone of UIDAI's Denials (Karan Saini; The Wire; September 12, 2018).
- Haryana Cops Say Internet Shutdowns Hurt Police Operations (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; September 19, 2018).
- Find ways to trace origin of messages: Government to WhatsApp (Surabhi Aggarwal; Economic Times; September 20, 2018).
- Net nanny meets muscular law (Laxmi Murthy; Himal South Asian; September 26, 2018).
- After Supreme Court Setback, Fintech Firms Await Clarity On Aadhaar (Nishant Sharma; Bloomberg Quint; September 27, 2018).
Access to Knowledge
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.
Copyright and Patent
Participation in Event
- 5th Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest (Organized by PublicCitizen, Washington College of Law, American University, O'Neill Institute and the American Assembly, Columbia University; Washington D.C.; September 24 - 29, 2018). Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha and Swaraj Paul Barooah were panelists at the event.
Wikipedia
Publication
- Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities (Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V.; September 19, 2018).
Blog Entry
- Christ (DU) students enrolls for 3rd Wikipedia certificate course (Ananth Subray; September 23, 2018).
Events Organized
- Copyright Workshop (CIS; New Delhi; September 1 - 2, 2018).
- Meeting on Digitization and Content Donation (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute; Pune; September 6, 2018).
- Orientation session on Sanskrit Wikipedia (Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth; Pune; September 6, 2018).
- Workshop on FOSS, Unicode & Wikimedia Projects for Publishers, Printers, Designers and Writers (Fergusson College; Pune; September 7, 2018).
- Workshop in MKCL regarding Vanbodh Project with TRTI (Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited; Mumbai; September 11, 2018).
Internet Governance
As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.
Privacy
Research Papers
- The Srikrishna Committee Data Protection Bill and Artificial Intelligence in India (Amber Sinha and Elonnai Hickok; September 3, 2018).
- AI in India: A Policy Agenda (Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu; September 5, 2018).
- Artificial Intelligence in the Governance Sector in India (Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; edited by Amber Sinha, Pranav MB and Vishnu Ramachandran; ecosystem mapping by Shweta Mohandas and Anamika Kundu; September 14, 2018).
- Cross-Border Data Sharing and India: A study in Processes, Content and Capacity (Amber Sinha, Elonnai Hickok, Udbhav Tiwari and Arindrajit Basu; September 27, 2018).
Participation in Events
- Online Cogitatum on AI and Ethics in India (Organized by Takshashila; Takshashila Institution; August 27, 2018). Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.
- Conference on Data Protection (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; September 4, 2018). Sunil Abraham and Amber Sinha were discussant in the session Disclosures in Privacy Policies: Does Consent Work?
- Symposium on Data Privacy and Citizen's Rights (Organized by Tech Law Forum of NALSAR University of Law; Hyderabad; September 9, 2018).
- Gender and Privacy: Countering the Patriarchal Gaze (Organized by Privacy International; United Kingdom; September 13 - 14, 2018).
- Meeting of Information Systems Security and Biometrics Sectional Committee (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; September 14, 2018).
- Forecasting the Implications of the CLOUD Act Around the World (Organized by Global Network Initiative; Russell Senate Office Building, Washington D.C.; September 18, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
- Networked Economies and Gender Action Learning (Organized by IDRC and facilitated by Gender at Work; Ottawa; September 20 - 21, 2018). Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Ambika Tandon participated in the meeting. Sunil Abraham, Swaraj Paul Barooah and Ambika Tandon also attended a workshop on Gender Action Learning on September 24 - 25, 2018, which discussed strategies to work on gender under a grant for Cyber Policy Centres.
- Round Table Discussion on Personal Data Protection Bill (Organized by SFLC; Bengaluru; September 25, 2018). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event and moderated the first session on Data Protection Principles (Rights and Obligations).
Cyber Security
Event Organized
- Symposium on India’s Cyber Strategy (India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; August 31, 2018).
Participation in Event
- Cyber-Security in the Age of Smart Manufacturing (Organized by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & industry (FICCI) in association with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society, and Government of Karnataka; The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru; September 26, 2018). Arindrajit Basu attended the event.
researchers@work
The researchers@Work (r@w) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.
Blog Entry
- Essays on 'Offline' - Selected Abstracts (P.P. Sneha; September 6, 2018).
- Digital Native: #MemeToo (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 9, 2018).
- The Right Words for Love (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 23, 2018).
- Digital Native: Hardly Friends Like That (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; September 30, 2018).
Participation in Event
- Plenary Talk at Jyothi Nivas College Research Symposium (Organized by Jyoti Nivas College; Bangalore; September 28, 2018). P.P. Sneha made a presentation on presentation on new reading and writing practices in the digital context.
About CIS
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 reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.
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► Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at [email protected] (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at [email protected] (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at [email protected].
CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.
