Internet Governance Blog
Education, Epistemologies and AI: Understanding the role of Generative AI in Education
As generative AI becomes more deeply embedded in educational contexts, it raises critical questions about trust, epistemic reliability, and the nature of knowledge production. While AI offers significant opportunities for enhancing pedagogical methodologies, facilitating personalised learning, and augmenting research, it also raises concerns regarding cognitive offloading, the erosion of critical thinking skills, and the perpetuation of biases inherent in training data. This essay examines how higher education institutions navigate these complexities, focusing on institutional adaptation, ethical considerations, and policy responses. Central to this inquiry is an analysis of key theoretical frameworks in education and epistemology to understand how these impact the discourse around generative AI in the classroom. This essay looks at existing educational theory to understand the role of AI in the classroom. Furthermore, the study assesses existing institutional and national AI policies, evaluating their efficacy in addressing governance challenges, and offers future-looking questions and recommendations to guide the responsible integration of generative AI in education.
The Centre for Internet and Society’s comments and feedback to the: Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025
The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted its comments and feedback to the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025 initiated by the Indian government.
The Centre for Internet and Society’s comments and recommendations to the: Report on AI Governance Guidelines Development
The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted its comments and recommendations on the Report on AI Governance Guidelines Development.
Submission to IGF 2025 Call for Thematic Inputs
Below are CIS's inputs submitted in response to the IGF 2025 Call for Thematic Inputs. They will inform the MAG’s discussions and assist them in determining the thematic priorities of the IGF 2025 programme.
Privacy Policy Framework for Indian Mental Health Apps
This report analyses the privacy policies of mental health apps in India and provides recommendations for making the policies not only legally compliant but also user-centric
Technology-facilitated Gender-based Violence and Women’s Political Participation in India: A Position Paper
Read the full paper here.
Political participation of women is fundamental to democratic processes and promotes building of more equitable and just futures. Rapid adoption of technology has created avenues for women to access the virtual public sphere, where they may have traditionally struggled to access the physical public spaces, due to patriarchal norms and violence in the physical sphere. While technology has provided tools for political participation, information seeking, and mobilization, it has also created unsafe online spaces for women, thus often limiting their ability to actively engage online.
This essay examines the emotional and technological underpinnings of gender-based violence faced by women in politics. It further explores how gender-based violence is weaponised to diminish the political participation and influence of women in the public eye. Through real-life examples of gendered disinformation and sexist hate speech targeting women in politics in India, we identify affective patterns in the strategies deployed to adversely impact public opinion and democratic processes. We highlight the emotional triggers that play a role in exacerbating online gendered harms, particularly for women in public life. We also examine the critical role of technology and online platforms in this ecosystem – both in perpetuating and amplifying this violence as well as attempting to combat it.
We argue that it is critical to investigate and understand the affective structures in place, and the operation of patriarchal hegemony that continues to create unsafe access to public spheres, both online and offline, for women. We also advocate for understanding technology design and identifying tools that can actually aid in combating TFGBV. Further, we point to the continued need for greater accountability from platforms, to mainstream gender related harms and combat it through diversified approaches.
Digital Rights and ISP Accountability in India: An Analysis of Policies and Practices
This report presents a comprehensive evaluation of India's four largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs)—Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea (Vi), and BSNL—examining their commitment to digital rights and transparency.
Draft Circular on Digital Lending – Transparency in Aggregation of Loan Products from Multiple Lenders
CIS is grateful for the opportunity to submit comments on the “Draft Circular on Digital Lending: Transparency in Aggregation of Loan Products from Multiple Lenders” to the Reserve Bank of India. We welcome the opportunity provided to comment on the guidelines, and we hope that the final guidelines will consider the interests of all the stakeholders to ensure that it protects the privacy and digital rights of all consumers, including marginalised and vulnerable users, while encouraging innovation and improved service delivery in the fintech ecosystem. Our comments look at two concerns addressed by the draft guidelines, i.e. reducing information asymmetry and market fairness. In addition to this we share comments around a third concern that requires additional scrutiny, i.e. data privacy and security.
Comments to the Draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024
This submission is a response by researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society India (CIS) to the draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024, published by the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL), Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), (hereafter “draft DCB” or “draft Bill”).
Consultation on Gendered Information Disorder in India
On 14th and 15th March 2024, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) collaborated with Point of View (POV) to organise a consultation in Mumbai to explore the phenomenon of gendered information disorder in India, spanning various aspects from healthcare and sexuality to financial literacy, and the role of digital mediums, social media platforms and AI in exacerbating these issues.
Reconfiguring Data Governance: Insights from India and the EU
This policy paper is the result of a workshop organised jointly by the Tilburg Institute of Law, Technology and Society, Netherlands, the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University Delhi, India and the Centre for Internet & Society, India in January, 2023. The workshop brought together a number of academics, researchers, and industry representatives in Delhi to discuss a range of issues at the core of data governance theory and practice.
Information Disorders and their Regulation
The Indian media and digital sphere, perhaps a crude reflection of the socio-economic realities of the Indian political landscape, presents a unique and challenging setting for studying information disorders.
Digital Delivery and Data System for Farmer Income Support
This report, jointly published by the Centre for Internet & Society and Privacy International, highlights the digital systems deployed by the government to augment farmer income. It analyses the PM-Kisan and Kalia schemes in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
Deceptive Design in Voice Interfaces: Impact on Inclusivity, Accessibility, and Privacy
This article was commissioned by the Pranava Institute, as part of their project titled Design Beyond Deception, supported by the University of Notre Dame - IBM's Tech Ethics Lab.” The article examines the design of voice interfaces (VI) to anticipate potential deceptive design patterns in VIs. It also presents design and regulatory recommendations to mitigate these practices.
Health Data Management Policies - Differences Between the EU and India
Through this issue brief we would like to highlight the differences in approaches to health data management taken by the EU and India, and look at possible recommendations for India, in creating a privacy preserving health data management policy.
CoWIN Breach: What Makes India's Health Data an Easy Target for Bad Actors?
Recent health data policies have failed to even mention the CoWIN platform.
Civil Society’s second opinion on a UHI prescription
On January 13, Pallavi Bedi and Shweta Mohandas from CIS participated in an online collaboration organised by Internet Freedom Foundation for a joint submission to the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India released by the National Health Authority.
Comments to the proposed amendments to The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
This note presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India, on the proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“proposed amendments”). We thank Isha Suri for her review of this submission.
The Centre for Internet and Society’s comments and recommendations to the: The Digital Data Protection Bill 2022
The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) published its comments and recommendations to the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, on December 17, 2022.
‘Techplomacy’ and the negotiation of AI standards for the Indo-Pacific
Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have partnered with the Centre for Internet and Society (Bengaluru) to produce a ‘techplomacy guide’ on negotiating AI standards for stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific.
