Featured
All featured content from CIS-India
- Navigating the Digitalisation of Finance: User experiences of risks and harms — by Amrita Sengupta, Chiara Furtado, Garima Agrawal, Nishkala Sekhar, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Vipul Kharbanda — last modified Apr 10, 2025 05:49 AM
- Our study unpacks the experiences of marginalised users navigating the digitalisation of finance. Through a survey of 3,784 users, 18 interviews and 7 focus group discussions, our study’s findings highlight user experiences of risks and harms while accessing digital financial services, unpacking experiences specifically of persons with disabilities, transgender persons, gender and sexual minorities, elderly persons, women, regional language-first users, and persons facing digital and economic vulnerabilities.
- AI for Healthcare: Understanding Data Supply Chain and Auditability in India — by Amrita Sengupta (PI), Shweta Mohandas (Co-PI), (In alphabetical order) Abhineet Nayyar, Chetna VM, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Yatharth — last modified Nov 30, 2024 08:17 AM
- This report aims to understand the prevalence and use of AI auditing practices in the healthcare sector. By mapping the data supply chain underlying AI technologies, the study aims to unpack i) how AI systems are developed and deployed to achieve healthcare outcomes and, ii) how AI audits are perceived and implemented by key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.
- Platforming precarity: Data narratives of workers sustaining urban platform services — by Aayush Rathi, Abhishek Sekharan, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V. M., Chiara Furtado, Nishkala Sekhar, and Sriharsha Devulapalli — last modified Oct 15, 2024 02:42 AM
- CIS conducted quantitative surveys with over 800 workers employed in the app-based taxi and delivery sectors across 4 cities in India as part of the ‘Labour Futures’ project supported by the Internet Society Foundation. The surveys covered key employment indicators, including earnings and working hours, work-related cost burdens, income and social security, and platform policies and management. Findings from these surveys are presented as data visualisation briefs centring workers’ everyday experiences. These data briefs form a foundational evidence base for policy and action around labour rights, social protection, and urban inclusion in platform work.
- Future of the Commons: A Conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Indian Languages, and Archives Conference Report — by Soni Wadhwa, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Garima Agrawal and Nishant Shankar — last modified Aug 06, 2024 03:24 AM
- We are pleased to share our report on the ‘Future of the Commons: A Conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Indian Languages, and Archives’ conference, held in July 2024 at the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) in Pune.
- The Platform Economy’s Gatekeeping of Class and Caste Dominance in Urban India — by Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi — last modified Apr 19, 2024 03:11 AM
- Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi contributed an essay on how gated society management apps like MyGate and NoBrokerHood feed on caste and income inequalities in new datafied forms. The essay features in The Formalization of Social Precarities, an anthology edited by Murali Shanmugavelan and Aiha Nguyen and published with Data & Society.
- Online Gender Based Violence on Short Form Video Platforms — by Divyansha Sehgal and Lakshmi T. Nambiar — last modified Apr 11, 2024 03:24 AM
- An inquiry into platform policies and safeguards. This report explores how short-form video platforms in India address online gender based violence (oGBV) by analysing their terms of service, community guidelines (CG), and reporting workflows.
- Your economy, our livelihoods: A policy brief by the All India Gig Workers’ Union — by W.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. Natarajan — last modified Jan 31, 2024 12:02 AM
- In this policy brief, the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) presents its critique on NITI Aayog’s report on India’s platform economy. Through experiences from over 3 years of organising gig workers across India, they highlight fallacies in the report that disregard workers’ experiences and realities. They present alternative recommendations that are responsive to these realities, and offer pathways towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy.
- User Experiences of Digital Financial Risks and Harms — by Amrita Sengupta, Chiara Furtado, Garima Agrawal, Nishkala Sekhar, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Yesha Tshering Paul — last modified Dec 22, 2023 04:05 PM
- The reach and use of digital financial services has risen in recent years without a commensurate increase in digital literacy and access. Through this project, supported by a grant from Google(.)org, we will examine the landscape of potential risks and harms posed by digital financial services, and the disproportionate risk that information asymmetry and barriers to access pose for users, especially certain marginalised communities.
- Strategies to Organise Platform Workers — by Chiaro Furtado — last modified Oct 22, 2023 09:54 AM
- In 2022, the Centre for Internet and Society hosted a panel with Akkanut Wantanasombut, Ayoade Ibrahim, Rikta Krishnaswamy, and Sofía Scasserra at RightsCon, an annual summit on technology and human rights.
- Making Voices Heard — by Shweta Mohandas — last modified Jun 27, 2022 04:18 PM
- We are happy to announce the launch of our final report on the study ‘Making Voices Heard: Privacy, Inclusivity, and Accessibility of Voice Interfaces in India. The study was undertaken with support from the Mozilla Corporation.
- Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 (IRC22): #Home, May 25-27 — by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified May 24, 2022 02:38 PM
- We are excited to announce that the fifth edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference will be held online on May 25-27, 2022.This annual conference series was initiated by the researchers@work (r@w) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers and practitioners engaging with the internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. This year, the conference brings together a set of reflections and conversations on how we imagine and experience the home —as a space of refuge and comfort, but also as one of violence, care, labour and movement-building.
- Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 — by Pranav M B — last modified Feb 11, 2022 09:54 AM
- Due to internal delays related to the pandemic, the Internet Researchers' Conference will now take place online in May 2022. Please see below for a link to the updated call for sessions.
- Platforms, Power, and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India — by Aayush Rathi, and Ambika Tandon — last modified Jul 07, 2021 03:19 PM
- CIS has been undertaking a two-year project studying the entry of digital platforms in the domestic and care work in India, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network. Implemented through 2019-21, the objective of the project is to use a feminist lens to critique platform modalities and orient platformisation dynamics in radically different, worker-first ways. Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi led the research team at CIS. The Domestic Workers’ Rights Union is a partner in the implementation of the project, as co-researchers. Geeta Menon, head of DWRU, was an advisor on the project, and the research team consisted of Parijatha G.P., Radha Keerthana, Zeenathunnisa, and Sumathi, who are office holders in the union and are responsible for organising workers and addressing their concerns.
- IFAT and ITF - Protecting Workers in the Digital Platform Economy: Investigating Ola and Uber Drivers’ Occupational Health and Safety — by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office — last modified Jun 29, 2021 06:53 AM
- Between July to November 2019, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers. CIS is proud to publish the study report and the press release. Akash Sheshadri, Ambika Tandon, and Aayush Rathi of CIS supported post-production of this report.
- Atmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India: An Evaluation of COVID-19 Relief for Migrants — by Ankan Barman — last modified Jun 03, 2021 12:53 PM
- With the onset of the national lockdown on 24th March 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the fate of millions of migrant workers was left uncertain. In addition, lack of enumeration and registration of migrant workers became a major obstacle for all State Governments and the Central Government to channelize relief and welfare measures.
- Sameet Panda - Data Systems in Welfare: Impact of the JAM Trinity on Pension & PDS in Odisha during COVID-19 — by Sameet Panda — last modified Feb 26, 2021 07:36 AM
- This study by Sameet Panda tries to understand the integration of data and digital systems in welfare delivery in Odisha. It brings out the impact of welfare digitalisation on beneficiaries through primary data collected in November 2020. The researcher is thankful to community members for sharing their lived experiences during course of the study. Fieldwork was undertaken in three panchayats of Bhawanipatna block of Kalahandi district, Odisha. Additional research support was provided by Apurv Vivek and Vipul Kumar, and editorial contributions were made by Ambika Tandon (Senior Researcher, CIS). This study was conducted as part of a project on gender, welfare, and surveillance, supported by Privacy International, UK.
- IFAT and ITF - Locking Down the Impact of Covid-19 — by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office — last modified Jun 29, 2021 07:27 AM
- This report, by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, explores the responses to the outbreak of Covid-19 by digital platform based companies, trade unions, and governments to help out workers for digital platform based companies hereafter app based workers during the lockdown. The research work in this article is a characterization of the struggles of app based workers during the global pandemic and how it has affected and changed the world of work for them. The surveys were conducted amongst the workforce working for app based companies like Ola, Uber, Swiggy, Zomato etc. This study is partially supported by CIS as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network led by the Association for Progressive Communications.
- COVID-19 Charter Of Recommendations on Gig Work — by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon — last modified May 13, 2020 08:53 AM
- Tandem Research and the Centre for Internet and Society organised a webinar on 9 April 2020, with unions representing gig workers and researchers studying labour rights and gig work, to uncover the experiences of gig workers during the lockdown. Based on the discussion, the participants of the webinar have drafted a set of recommendations for government agencies and platform companies to safeguard workers’ well being. Here are excerpts from this charter of recommendation shared with multiple central and state government agencies and platforms companies.
- Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages! — by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Aug 07, 2019 12:29 PM
- Whose Knowledge?, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the Centre for Internet and Society are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want. This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives. Read the Call here and share your submission by September 2, 2019.
- Announcement of a Three-Region Research Alliance on the Appropriate Use of Digital Identity — by Amber Sinha — last modified May 13, 2019 09:06 AM
- Omidyar Network has recently announced its decision to invest in establishment of a three-region research alliance — to be co-led by the Institute for Technology & Society (ITS), Brazil, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) , Kenya, and the CIS, India — on the Appropriate Use of Digital Identity. As part of this Alliance, we at the CIS will look at the policy objectives of digital identity projects, how technological policy choices can be thought through to meet the objectives, and how legitimate uses of a digital identity framework may be evaluated.
