All Blogs
Introducing the Cybersecurity Visuals Media Handbook
The need for intervention in the cybersecurity imagery in media publications was realised during a brainstorming workshop that was conducted by CIS with illustrators, designers, and cybersecurity researchers.
Guest post: Before cyber norms, let’s talk about disanalogy and disintermediation
In a guest post in relation to CIS’s recently held roundtable onIndia’s cyber defense strategy, Pukhraj Singh looks at the critical fissures – at the technical and policy levels – in global normative efforts to secure cyberspace. By charting out the key vectors and power asymmetries among key stakeholders – both leading state actors and private actors like Microsoft – Singh posits that there is much to be done before we circumscribe cyber operations within legal strictures.
India’s Role in Global Cyber Policy Formulation
The past year has seen vigorous activity on the domestic cyber policy front in India. On key issues—including intermediary liability, data localization and e-commerce—the government has rolled out a patchwork of regulatory policies, resulting in battle lines being drawn by governments, industry and civil society actors both in India and across the globe.
Event Report: Consultation on Draft Information Technology (Fintech Security Standards) Rules
The Centre for Internet and Society is in the process of drafting certain data security standards for Fintech entities. As part of the process of drafting, a consultation roundtable was organized to get inputs from industry executives, lawyers and policy experts working in this field.
Reliance Jio is using SNI inspection to block websites
Reliance Jio, the most popular ISP in India, is employing a deep packet inspection technique to block websites for its users.
State of the Internet's Languages 2020: Announcing selected contributions!
In response to our call for contributions and reflections on ‘Decolonising the Internet’s Languages’ in August, we are delighted to announce that we received 50 submissions, in over 38 languages! We are so overwhelmed and grateful for the interest and support of our many communities around the world; it demonstrates how critical this effort is for all of us. From all these extraordinary offerings, we have selected nine that we will invite and support the contributors to expand further.
CIS’ Comments to the Christchurch Call
In the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron co-chaired the Christchurch Call to Action in May 2018 to “bring together countries and tech companies in an attempt to bring to an end the ability to use social media to organise and promote terrorism and violent extremism.”
Through the looking glass: Analysing transparency reports
An analysis of companies' transparency reports for government requests for user data and content removal
Department of Labour Interaction Program: Online Business Platforms
The Department of Labour convened an interaction program of sorts at Vikas Soudha in Bangalore on 21st October, 2019 to hear the issues plaguing the emergent gig economy.
Comments to the Code on Social Security, 2019
This submission presents a response by researchers at the Centre for Internet & Society, India (CIS) to the draft Code on Social Security, 2019 (hereinafter “ Draft Code ”) prepared by the Government of India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Comments to the United Nations Human Rights Commission Report on Gender and Privacy
This submission to UNHRC presents a response by researchers at the CIS to ‘gender issues arising in the digital era and their impacts on women, men and individuals of diverse sexual orientations gender identities, gender expressions and sex characteristics’. It was prepared by Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, and Pallavi Bedi in response to a report of consultation by a thematic taskforce established by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy on ‘Privacy and Personality’ (hereafter, HRC Gender Report).
Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages 2019 - From Conversations to Actions
Whose Knowledge? is organising the Decolonizing the Internet's Languages 2019 gathering in London on October 23-24 — with a specific focus on building an agenda for action to decolonize the internet’s languages. Puthiya Purayil Sneha is participating in this meeting with scholars, linguists, archivists, technologists and community activists, to share the initial findings towards the State of the Internet’s Language Report (to be published in 2020) being developed by Whose Knowledge?, Oxford Internet Institute, and the CIS.
Facial recognition at airports promises convenience in exchange for surveillance
If smart technology is promising you a few hours of convenience, what is it asking you to sign away?
“Politics by other means”: Fostering positive contestation and charting ‘red lines’ through global governance in cyberspace
The past year has been a busy one for the fermentation of global governance efforts in cyberspace with multiple actors-states, industry, and civil society spearheading a variety of initiatives. Given the multiplicity of actors, ideologies, and vested interests at play in this ecosystem, any governance initiative will be, by default, political, and desirably so.
The Mother and Child Tracking System - understanding data trail in the Indian healthcare systems
Reproductive health programmes in India have been digitising extensive data about pregnant women for over a decade, as part of multiple health information systems. These can be seen as precursors to current conceptions of big data systems within health informatics. In this article, published by Privacy International, Ambika Tandon presents some findings from a recently concluded case study of the MCTS as an example of public data-driven initiatives in reproductive health in India.
Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System
In this case study undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development (BD4D) network, Ambika Tandon evaluates the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) as data-driven initiative in reproductive health at the national level in India. The study also assesses the potential of MCTS to contribute towards the big data landscape on reproductive health in the country, as the Indian state’s imagination of health informatics moves towards big data.
Farming the Future: Deployment of Artificial Intelligence in the agricultural sector in India
This case study was published as a chapter in the joint UNESCAP-Google publication titled Artificial Intelligence in Public Service Delivery. The chapter in its final form would not have been possible without the efforts and very useful interventions by our colleagues at Digital Asia Hub,Google, and UNESCAP.
We need a better AI vision
Artificial intelligence conjures up a wondrous world of autonomous processes but dystopia is inevitable unless rights and privacy are protected.
Doing Standpoint Theory
Feminist research methodology has evolved from different epistemologies, with several different schools of thought. Some of the more popular ones are feminist standpoint theory, feminist empiricism, and feminist relativism. Standpoint theory holds the experiences of the marginalised as the source of ‘truth’ about structures of oppression, which is silenced by traditional objectivist research methods as they produce knowledge from the standpoint of voices in positions of power. In this essay published on the GenderIT website, Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi [1] discuss the practical applicability of these epistemologies to research practices in the field of technology and gender.
AI for Good
CIS organised a workshop titled ‘AI for Good’ at the Unbox Festival in Bangalore from 15th to 17th February, 2019. The workshop was led by Shweta Mohandas and Saumyaa Naidu. In the hour long workshop, the participants were asked to imagine an AI based product to bring forward the idea of ‘AI for social good’.
