All Blogs
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’.
Designing a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN’s Policy Development Processes
As co-chairs of Cross Community Working Party on Human Rights (CCWP-HR) at International Corporation of Names and Numbers (ICANN), Akriti Bopanna and Collin Kurre executed a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN's processes. It was the first time such an experiment was conducted, and unique because of being a multi-stakeholder attempt.
Analysis on the strategies of Mozilla and Wiki communities on gender gap aspects
There is a need for research on how Open Source communities are trying to balance the gender ratio and how they provide the safe space environment to its contributors. With this in mind I have come up with this blog as I am an active contributor of Mozilla since 5 years and also got myself recently introduced to Wikimedia and its sister projects, have interacted with few Indian women contributors in both of these communities and came out with a few observations on how I see them in India and what could be improved in both communities.
Digital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project Announcement
It is our great pleasure to announce that we are undertaking a study on digital mediation of domestic and care work in India, as part of and supported by the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The study is exploring the ways in which structural inequalities, such as those of gender and class, are being reproduced or challenged by digital platforms. The project sites are Delhi and Bangalore, where we are conducting interviews with workers, companies, and unions. In Bangalore, we are collaborating with Stree Jagruti Samiti to collect qualitative data from different stakeholders. The outputs of the research will include a report, policy brief, and other communication materials in English, Hindi, and Kannada. This study is being led by Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi, along with Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
AI: Full Spectrum Regulatory Challenge Launch Workshop [Reference Files]
These are the files released at the AI Full Spectrum Regulatory Challenge Launch Event, organised by CIS, and CCG-NLUD on September 27 2019. At the event, Sunil Abraham discussed the draft policy brief linked below, which is an output of the Regulatory Practices Lab at CIS.
Artificial Intelligence: a Full-Spectrum Regulatory Challenge [Working Draft]
Today, there are certain misconceptions regarding the regulation of AI. Some corporations would like us to believe that AI is being developed and used in a regulatory vacuum. Others in civil society organisations believe that AI is a regulatory circumvention strategy deployed by corporations. As a result, these organisations call for onerous regulations targeting corporations. However, some uses of AI by corporations can be completely benign and some uses AI by the state can result in the most egregious human rights violations. Therefore policy makers need to throw every regulatory tool from their arsenal to unlock the benefits of AI and mitigate its harms.
This policy brief proposes a granular, full spectrum approach to the regulation of AI depending on who is using AI, who is impacted by that use and what human rights are impacted. Everything from deregulation, to forbearance, to updated regulations, to absolute and blanket prohibitions needs to be considered depending on the specifics. This approach stands in contrast to approaches of ethics, omnibus law, homogeneous principles, and human rights, which will result in inappropriate under-regulation or over-regulation of the sector.
Find a copy of the working draft here.
Setting International Norms of Cyber Conflict is Hard, But that Doesn't Mean that We Should Stop Trying
Last month, cyber-defense analyst and geostrategist Pukhraj Singh penned a stinging epitaph, published by MWI, for global norms-formulation processes that are attempting to foster cyber stability and regulate cyber conflict—specifically, the Tallinn Manual.
Comparison of the Manila Principles to Draft of The Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines(Amendment) Rules], 2018
This paper looks at the Manila Principles intermediary liability framework in comparison to the amended draft Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment)] Rules, 2018 introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in December, 2018.
Examining the Constitutionality of the Ban on Broadcast of News by Private FM and Community Radio Stations
Gurshabad Grover and Torsha Sarkar along with Rajashri Seal and Neil Trivedi co-authored a paper that examined the constitutionality of the government prohibition on the broadcast of news against private and community FM channels.
Capturing Gender and Class Inequities: The CCTVisation of Delhi
Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi generated empirical evidence about the CCTV programme well underway in Delhi. The case study was published by Centre for Development Informatics, Global Development Institute, SEED, in the Development Informatics working paper series housed at the University of Manchester.
Kashmir’s digital blackout marks a period darker than the dark side of the moon
While we mourn the loss of connection with the moon, remembering a digital blackout closer home.
Traffic Rules, Mindset and On-Time Payments
There's no alternative to following the rules and working together with discipline for our common interests.
Core Concepts and Processes
When we embarked on this research project, we began with the primary questions of what constitutes a digital identity system. In the last few years, with the rise in national digital identity projects, there has been significant academic and media attention to the idea, benefits and risks of a digital identity system.
