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All featured content from CIS-India
- FinTech in India: A Study of Privacy and Security Commitments — by Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas — last modified May 02, 2019 11:20 AM
- The unprecedented growth of the fintech space in India has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns. This report studies the privacy policies of 48 fintech companies operating in India to better understand some of these concerns.
- CIS Response to Draft E-Commerce Policy — by Amber Sinha — last modified Apr 26, 2019 06:40 AM
- CIS is grateful for the opportunity to submit comments to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion on the draft national e-commerce policy. This response was authored by Amber Sinha, Arindrajit Basu, Elonnai Hickok and Vipul Kharbanda.
- Design and the Open Knowledge Movement — by Saumyaa Naidu — last modified Apr 01, 2019 12:13 PM
- With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018 with the Wikimedia Foundation during September 28-30, 2018 in New Delhi. The event was held at the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi. As part of the bootcamp, a panel discussion was held in order to bring together design practitioners, educators, open knowledge contributors, and design students to explore how design and open knowledge communities can engage with each other. In this post, Saumyaa Naidu shares the learnings from the panel discussion aimed at exploring the potential collaborations between design and the open knowledge movement.
- Rejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way — by Subodh Kulkarni — last modified Apr 01, 2019 01:18 PM
- Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.
- Welcome to r@w blog! — by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Jan 02, 2019 11:48 AM
- We from the researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are delighted to announce the launch of our new blog, hosted on Medium. It will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society; and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.
- Clarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report — by Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali — last modified Nov 05, 2018 12:08 PM
- We are issuing a second clarificatory statement on our report titled “Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar numbers with sensitive personal financial information” published on May 1, 2017.
- Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities — by Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V. — last modified Sep 19, 2018 02:18 AM
- 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 this Handbook. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook. CIS-A2K will continue to work with the Wikipedia communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.
- ICANN Diversity Analysis — by Akriti Bopanna — last modified Aug 29, 2018 11:19 AM
- The by-laws of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) state that it is a non-profit public-benefit corporation which is responsible at the overall level, for the coordination of the “global internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet's unique identifier systems”. As key stakeholders of ICANN are spread across the world, much of the communication discussing the work of ICANN takes place over email. This analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes, through a study of their mailing lists, was undertaken by Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna.
- Internet Shutdown Stories — by Ambika Tandon — last modified Sep 03, 2019 09:57 AM
- The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) has published a collection of stories of the impact of internet shutdowns on people's lives in the country. This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. This is a project funded by Facebook and MacArthur Foundation, and the stories were provided by 101 Reporters. Case studies from the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Uttar Pradesh have been highlighted in this compilation.
- What’s up with WhatsApp? — by Aayush Rathi and Sunil Abraham — last modified Apr 23, 2018 04:45 PM
- In 2016, WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption, but is the company doing what it claims to be doing?
- Government gives free publicity worth 40k to Twitter and Facebook — by Akriti Bopanna — last modified Apr 27, 2018 09:52 AM
- We conducted a 2 week survey of newspapers for links between government advertisement to social media giants. As citizens, we should be worried about the close nexus between the Indian government and digital behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. It has become apparent to us after a 2 week print media analysis that our Government has been providing free publicity worth Rs 40,000 to these entities. There are multiple issues with this as this article attempts at pointing out.
- On World Water Day - Open Data for Water Resources — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Jan 28, 2019 02:41 PM
- Lack of open data for researchers and activists is a key barrier against ensuring access to water and planning for sustainable management of water resources. In a collaboration between DataMeet and CIS, supported by Arghyam, we are exploring the early steps for making open data and tools to plan for water resources accessible to all. To celebrate the World Water Day 2018, we are sharing what we have been working on in the past few months - a paper on open data for water studies in India, and a web app to make open water data easily explorable and usable. Craig Dsouza led this collaboration, and authored this post.
- CIS Comments on TRAI Consultation Paper on Promoting Local Telecom Equipment Manufacturing — by Anubha Sinha — last modified Nov 26, 2017 02:56 AM
- The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) sent comments to the TRAI Consultation Paper on promoting telecom equipment manufacturing. CIS submission drew primarily from the research done in the Pervasive Technologies project.
- The Fundamental Right to Privacy: An Analysis — by Amber Sinha — last modified Oct 04, 2017 11:19 AM
- Last month’s judgment by the nine judge referral bench was an emphatic endorsement of the the constitutional right to privacy. In the course of a 547 page judgment, the bench affirmed the fundamental nature of the right to privacy reading it into the values of dignity and liberty. In the course of a few short papers, we will dissect the various aspects of the right to privacy as put forth by the nine judge constitutional bench in the Puttaswamy matter. The papers will focus on the sources, structure, scope, breadth, and future of privacy. Here are the first three papers, authored by Amber Sinha and edited by Elonnai Hickok.
- High Level Comparison and Analysis of the Use and Regulation of DNA Based Technology Bill 2017 — by Elonnai Hickok — last modified Aug 11, 2017 02:16 AM
- This blog post seeks to provide a high level comparison of the 2017 and 2015 DNA Profiling Bill - calling out positive changes, remaining issues, and missing provisions.
- (Updated) Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar Numbers with sensitive personal financial information — by Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali — last modified Mar 13, 2019 12:29 AM
- Since its inception in 2009, the Aadhaar project has been shrouded in controversy due to various questions raised about privacy, technological issues, welfare exclusion, and security concerns. In this study, we document numerous instances of publicly available Aadhaar Numbers along with other personally identifiable information (PII) of individuals on government websites. This report highlights four government projects run by various government departments that have made sensitive personal financial information and Aadhaar numbers public on the project websites.
- Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in India: Opportunities for Advocacy in Intellectual Property — by Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda — last modified Apr 23, 2017 05:22 AM
- Centre for Internet & Society worked on a three part case study. The first case study on digital protection of traditional knowledge was published by GIS Watch in December 2016. The other two case studies along with the synthesis overview has also been published.
- Net Neutrality Resources — by Prasad Krishna — last modified Apr 22, 2017 09:11 AM
- Submissions by the Centre for Internet and Society to TRAI and DoT, 2015-2017.
- Survey on Data Protection Regime — by Aditi Chaturvedi and Elonnai Hickok — last modified Feb 10, 2017 10:47 AM
- We request you to take part in this survey aimed at understanding how various organisations view the changes in the Data Protection Regime in the European Union. Recently the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 was passed, which shall replace the present Data Protection Directive DPD 95/46/EC. This step is likely to impact the way of working for many organisations. We are grateful for your voluntary contribution to our research, and all information shared by you will be used for the purpose of research only. Questions that personally identify you are not mandatory and will be kept strictly confidential.
- Comments on the Report of the Committee on Digital Payments (December 2016) — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha — last modified Jan 12, 2017 12:32 PM
- The Committee on Digital Payments constituted by the Ministry of Finance and chaired by Ratan P. Watal, Principal Advisor, NITI Aayog, submitted its report on the "Medium Term Recommendations to Strengthen Digital Payments Ecosystem" on December 09, 2016. The report was made public on December 27, and comments were sought from the general public. Here are the comments submitted by the Centre for Internet and Society.
