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The Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2013 — Penalising 'Peeping Toms' and Other Privacy Issues
The pending amendments to the Indian Penal Code, if passed in their current format, would be a huge boost for individual physical privacy by criminalising stalking and sexually-tinted voyeurism and removing the ambiguities in Indian law which threaten the privacy and dignity of individuals.
India's Biometric Identification Programs and Privacy Concerns
The invasiveness of individual identification coupled with the fallibility of managing big data which biometric identification presents poses a huge risk to individual privacy in India.
What’s In a Name? — DNS Singularity of ICANN and The Gold Rush
March 2013 being the 28th birthday of the first ever registered Internet domain as well as the exigent launch of the Trademark Clearing House disguised as a milestone in rights protection by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for it’s new gTLD program, Sharath Chandra Ram, dissects the transitory role of ICANN from being a technical outfit to the Boardroom Big Brother of Internet Governance.
Wikipedia Indian Languages Workshop at IIT, Bombay
This is a brief report on the Wikipedia Indian languages workshop held on March 9, 2013 at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in partnership with Vaani, the Hindi bloggers' club at IIT, Bombay.
Microsoft releases its first report on data requests by law enforcement agencies around the world
In this post, the Centre for Internet and Society presents Microsoft´s report on law enforcement requests, with a focus on data requested by Indian law enforcement agencies.
CIS Welcomes Standing Committee Report on IT Rules
The Centre for Internet and Society welcomes the report by the Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation, in which it has lambasted the government and has recommended that the government amend the Rules it passed in April 2011 under section 79 of the Information Technology Act.
A Discussion on Intercept between UNCRPD & CEDAW
A seminar was jointly organized by the Shanta Memorial Institute of Rehabilitation – Odisha, CBR Network and Mitra Jyoti to discuss the intercept between the United Nations Convention for Protection of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on February 4, 2013 at Mitra Jyoti in Bangalore. Anandhi Viswanathan participated in the seminar and shares her experiences in this post.
Iraqi Public Data Scenario Workshop: A Summary
A workshop on public data was conducted by Sunil Abraham and Sumandro Chattapadhyay for the officials of the Government of Iraq. It was organized by UNDP Iraq in Amman, Jordan from October 18 to 23, 2012. Sumandro Chattapadhyay shares with us the developments from the workshop held over five days.
Driving in the Surveillance Society: Cameras, RFID tags and Black Boxes...
In this post, Maria Xynou looks at red light cameras, RFID tags and black boxes used to monitor vehicles in India.
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters
Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay bring you a visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia in this first post on Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project. In doing so, the authors look into the different aspects of the past and present activities of Indic Wikipedias, and divide the visualisation into three different focus areas.
The Privacy (Protection) Bill 2013: A Citizen's Draft
The Centre for Internet and Society has been researching privacy in India since 2010 with the objective of raising public awareness around privacy, completing in depth research, and driving a privacy legislation in India. As part of this work, Bhairav Acharya has drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill 2013.
National Resource Kit: The Lakshadweep Chapter (Call for Comments)
The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Lakshadweep.
National Resource Kit : The Meghalaya Chapter: Call for Comments
The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Meghalaya.
Strategic Issues Emerging from Open Access Dialogues - Final Report
A series of discussions - on the Chat Literacy forum of ELDIS and on Twitter - was organised during November 2012 to March 2013 to identify the global challenges in 'Navigating the Complexities of Open Access'. The discussions were facilitated by Eve Gray and Kelsey Wiens, in partnership with The African Commons Project (South Africa) and the Centre for Internet and Society (India), through support from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. On behalf of CIS, Sumandro Chattapadhyay co-coordinated and contributed to these discussions.
Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 Analysis
Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics, US provides an analysis of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012. He says that India’s updated 2012 Human DNA Profiling Bill offers largely superficial changes from its predecessor, the Draft DNA Profiling Bill, 2007.
Wiki Women's Day in Goa
International Women's Day (IWD), also called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8, every year. There were a series of Wikipedia events organised this year with the aim of increasing participation of women contributing to Wikipedia. One such event was organised by the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikimedia India Chapter at the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College in Panaji, Goa on March 8, 2013.
Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa
The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society was invited by Nikhil Dixit, Public Relations Officer at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani – Goa (BITS Goa) to organise Wikipedia session on March 7, 2013. Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop and shares with us the developments.
Ahmednagar — Marathi Wikipedia Workshop
Wikipedia Community members helped the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications Programme (HEIRA), CSCS Bangalore organize a day-long workshop on ‘Digital Literacy’ at Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Maharasthra on January 17, 2013. Tanveer Hasan of HEIRA shares with us the developments in this report.
Workshop on the Unique Identity Number (UID), the National Population Register (NPR) and Governance: What will happen to our data?
On March 2nd, 2013, the Centre for Internet and Society and the Say No to UID campaign organized a workshop to discuss the present state of the UID and NPR schemes. Some of the questions which were addressed included ´How do the UID and NPR impact citizenship´, ´Why and how is national security linked to UID/NPR´, and ´What is the relationship between UID and Big Data´.
Hacking without borders: The future of artificial intelligence and surveillance
In this post, Maria Xynou looks at some of DARPA´s artificial intelligence surveillance technologies in regards to the right to privacy and their potential future use in India.
