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#NetNeutrality, Data Protection Laws among topics at ITechLaw Conference

praskrishna — 2016-01-30T09:21:20Z

The who’s-who of the technology law sector convened at the ITechLaw India International Conference held from January 27-29 in Bangalore.

The last three days saw panel discussions being held on a varied set of topics related to technology law. The debates were led by a number of Indian and international legal professionals from law firms, companies and policy houses.

On Day 2, some of the panel discussions included Commercialization of Data, Aggregator Model – Licensing and Regulatory Issues Faced by Shared Economy Models, Digital Underworld, and Legal Challenges faced in New Media and Entertainment, among others.

The speakers present at these sessions included lawyers like Talha Salaria, Founder of Lawyers at Work; JSA Partner Sajai Singh; Trilegal Partner Rahul Matthan; MCM Law Partner Samuel Mani, apart from a host of In-House counsel from Intel, Amazon, IBM, Cognizant et al.

The highlight of Day 3 was a debate on Net Neutrality; Deepali Liberhan from Facebook, Pranesh Prakash from Centre for Internet and Society and Rohan George from Samvad Partners were among the panelists.

For more info, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/netneutrality-data-protection-laws-among-topics-at-itechlaw-conference

The Internet Has a New Standard for Censorship

jyoti — 2016-01-30T09:17:54Z

The introduction of the new 451 HTTP Error Status Code for blocked websites is a big step forward in cataloguing online censorship, especially in a country like India where access to information is routinely restricted.

The article was published in the Wire on January 29, 2016. The original can be read here.

Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 opens with the declaration, “It was a pleasure to burn.” The six unassuming words offer a glimpse into the mindset of the novel’s protagonist, ‘the fireman’ Guy Montag, who burns books. Montag occupies a world of totalitarian state control over the media where learning is suppressed and censorship prevails. The title alludes to the ‘temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns,’ an apt reference to the act of violence committed against citizens through the systematic destruction of literature. It is tempting to think about the novel solely as a story of censorship. It certainly is. But it is also a story about the value of intellectual freedom and the importance of information.

Published in 1953, Bradbury’s story predates home computers, the Internet, Twitter and Facebook, and yet it anticipates the evolution of these technologies as tools for censorship. When the state seeks to censor speech, they use the most effective and easiest mechanisms available. In Bradbury’s dystopian world, burning books did the trick; in today’s world, governments achieve this by blocking access to information online. The majority of the world’s Internet users encounter censorship even if the contours of control vary depending on the country’s policies and infrastructure.

Online censorship in India

In India, information access blockades have become commonplace and are increasingly enforced across the country for maintaining political stability, for economic reasons, in defence of national security or preserving social values. Last week, the Maharashtra Anti-terror Squad blocked 94 websites that were allegedly radicalising the youth to join the militant group ISIS. Memorably, in 2015 the NDA government’s ham-fisted attempts at enforcing a ban on online pornography resulted in widespread public outrage. Instead of revoking the ban, the government issued yet another vaguely worded and in many senses astonishing order. As reported by Medianama, the revised order delegates the responsibility of determining whether banned websites should remain unavailable to private intermediaries.

The state’s shifting reasons for blocking access to information is reflective of its tendentious attitude towards speech and expression. Free speech in India is messily contested and normally, the role of the judiciary acts as a check on the executive’s proclivity for banning. For instance, in 2010 the Supreme Court upheld the Maharashtra High Court’s decision to revoke the ban on the book on Shivaji by American author James Laine, which, according to the state government, contained material promoting social enmity. However, in the context of communications technology the traditional role of courts is increasingly being passed on to private intermediaries.

The delegation of authority is evident in the government notifying intermediaries to proactively filter content for ‘child pornography’ in the revised order issued to deal with websites blocked as result of its crackdown on pornography. Such screening and filtering requires intermediaries to make a determination on the legality of content in order to avoid direct liability. As international best practices such as the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability point out, such screening is a slow process and costly and intermediaries are incentivised to simply limit access to information.

Blocking procedures and secrecy

The constitutional validity of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2008 which grants power to the executive to block access to information unchecked, and in secrecy was challenged in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. Curiously, the Supreme Court upheld S69A reasoning that the provisions were narrowly-drawn with adequate safeguards and noted that any procedural inconsistencies may be challenged through writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution. Unfortunately as past instances of blocking under S69A reveal the provisions are littered with procedural deficiencies, amplified manifold by the authorities responsible for interpreting and implementing the orders.

Problematically, an opaque confidentiality criteria built into the blocking rules mandates secrecy in requests and recommendations for blocking and places written orders outside the purview of public scrutiny. As there are no comprehensive list of blocked websites or of the legal orders, the public has to rely on ISPs leaking orders, or media reports to understand the censorship regime in India. RTI applications requesting further information on the implementation of these safeguards have at best provided incomplete information.

Historically, the courts in India have held that Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India is as much about the right to receive information as it is to disseminate, and when there is a chilling effect on speech, it also violates the right to receive information. Therefore, if a website is blocked citizens have a constitutional right to know the legal grounds on which access is being restricted. Just like the government announces and clarifies the grounds when banning a book, users have a right to know the grounds for restrictions on their speech online.

Unfortunately, under the present blocking regime in India there is no easy way for a service provider to comply with a blocking order while also notifying users that censorship has taken place. The ‘Blocking Rules’ require notice “person or intermediary” thus implying that notice may be sent to either the originator or the intermediary. Further, the confidentiality clause raises the presumption that nobody beyond the intermediaries ought to know about a block.

Naturally, intermediaries interested in self-preservation and avoiding conflict with the government become complicit in maintaining secrecy in blocking orders. As a result, it is often difficult to determine why content is inaccessible and users often mistake censorship for technical problem in accessing content. Consequently, pursuing legal recourse or trying to hold the government accountable for their censorious activity becomes a challenge. In failing to consider the constitutional merits of the confidentiality clause, the Supreme Court has shied away from addressing the over-broad reach of the executive.

Secrecy in removing or blocking access is a global problem that places limits on the transparency expected from ISPs. Across many jurisdictions intermediaries are legally prohibited from publicising filtering orders as well as information relating to content or service restrictions. For example in United Kingdom, ISPs are prohibited from revealing blocking orders related to terrorism and surveillance. In South Korea, the Korean Communications Standards Commission holds public meetings that are open to the public. However, the sheer volume of censorship (i.e. close to 10,000 URLs a month) makes it unwieldy for public oversight.

As the Manila Principles note, providing users with an explanation and reasons for placing restrictions on their speech and expression increases civic engagement. Transparency standards will empower citizens to demand that companies and governments they interact with are more accountable when it comes to content regulation. It is worth noting, for conduits as opposed to content hosts, it may not always be technically feasible for to provide a notice when content is unavailable due to filtering. A new standard helps improve transparency standards for network level intermediaries and for websites bound by confidentiality requirements. The recently introduced HTTP code for errors is a critical step forward in cataloguing censorship on the Internet.

A standardised code for censorship

On December 21, 2015, the Internet Engineering Standards Group (IESG) which is the organisation responsible for reviewing and updating the internet’s operating standards approved the publication of 451-’An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles’. The code provides intermediaries a standardised way to notify users know when a website is unavailable following a legal order. Publishing the code allows intermediaries to be transparent about their compliance with court and executive orders across jurisdictions and is a huge step forward for capturing online censorship. HTTP code 451 was introduced by software engineer Tim Bray and the code’s name is an homage to Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.

Bray began developing the code after being inspired by a blog post by Terence Eden calling for a censorship error code. The code’s official status comes after two years of discussions within the technical community and is a result of campaigning from transparency and civil society advocates who have been pushing for clearer labelling of internet censorship. Initially, the code received pushback from within the technical community for reasons enumerated by Mark Nottingham, Chair of the IETF HTTP Working Group in his blog. However, soon sites began using the code on an experimental and unsanctioned basis and faced with increasing demand for and feedback, the code was accepted.

The HTTP code 451 works as a machine-readable flag and has immense potential as a tool for organisations and users who want to quantify and understand censorship on the internet. Cataloguing online censorship is a challenging, time-consuming and expensive task. The HTTP code 451 circumvents confidentiality obligations built into blocking or licensing regimes and reduces the cost of accessing blocking orders.

The code creates a distinction between websites blocked following a court or an executive order, and when information is inaccessible due to technical errors. If implemented widely, Bray’s new code will help prevent confusion around blocked sites. The code addresses the issue of the ISP’s misleading and inaccurate usage of Error 403 ‘Forbidden’ (to indicate that the server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take any further action) or 404 ‘Not Found’ (to indicate that the requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future).

Adoption of the new standard is optional, though at present there are no laws in India that prevent intermediaries doing so. Implementing a standardised machine-readable flag for censorship will go a long way in bolstering the accountability of ISPs that have in the past targeted an entire domain instead of the specified URL. Adoption of the standard by ISPs will also improve the understanding of the burden imposed on intermediaries for censoring and filtering content as presently, there is no clarity on what constitutes compliance. Of course, censorious governments may prohibit the use of the code, for example by issuing an order that specifies not only that a page be blocked, but also precisely which HTTP return code should be used. Though such sanctions should be viewed as evidence of systematic rights violation and totalitarian regimes.

In India where access to software code repositories such as Github and Sourceforge are routinely restricted, the need for such code is obvious. The use of the code will improve confidence in blocking practices, allowing users to understand the grounds on which their right to information is being restricted. Improving transparency around censorship is the only way to build trust between the government and its citizens about the laws and policies applicable to internet content.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-jyoti-panday-january-29-2016-internet-has-a-new-standard-for-censorship

Data Privacy Day 2016

praskrishna — 2016-01-29T15:34:18Z

The Bangalore chapter of Data Privacy Day was organized by Data Security Council of India on January 28, 2016 at Electronic City in Bangalore. Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

Agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-privacy-day-2016

CIS's Comments on the CCWG-Accountability Draft Proposal

pranesh — 2016-01-29T15:17:48Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) gave its comments on the failures of the CCWG-Accountability draft proposal as well as the processes that it has followed.

We from the Centre for Internet and Society wishes to express our dismay at the consistent way in which CCWG-Accountability has completely failed to take critical inputs from organizations like ours (and others, some instances of which have been highlighted in Richard Hill’s submission) into account, and has failed to even capture our concerns and misgivings about the process — as expressed in our submission to the CCWG-Accountability’s 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations — in any document prepared by the CCWG. We cannot support the proposal in its current form.

Time for Comments

We believe firstly that the 21 day comment period itself was too short and is going to result effectively in many groups or categories of people from not being able to meaningfully participate in the process, which flies in the face of the values that ICANN claims to uphold. This extremely short period amounts to procedural unsoundness, and restrains educated discussion on the way forward, especially given that the draft has altered quite drastically in the aftermath to ICANN55.

Capture of ICANN and CCWG Process

The participation in the accountability-cross-community mailing list clearly shows that the process is dominated by developed countries (of the top 30 non-staff posters to the list, 26 were from the ‘WEOG’ UN grouping, with 14 being from the USA, with only 1 from Asia Pacific, 2 from Africa, and 1 from Latin America), by males (27 of the 30 non-staff posters), and by industry/commercial interests (17 of the top 30 non-staff posters). If this isn’t “capture”, what is? There is no stress test that overcomes this reality of capture of ICANN by Western industry interests. The global community is only nominally multistakeholder, while actually being grossly under-representative of the developing nations, women and minority genders, and communities that are not business communities or technical communities. For instance, of the 1010 ICANN-accredited registrars, 624 are from the United States, and 7 from the 54 countries of Africa.

Culling statistics from the accountability-cross-community mailing list, we find that of the top 30 posters (excluding ICANN staff):

57% were, as far as one could ascertain from public records, from a single country: the United States of America.
87% were, as far as one could ascertain from public records, participants from countries which are part of the WEOG UN grouping (which includes Western Europe, US, Canada, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand), which only has developed countries. None of those who participated substantively were from the EEC (Eastern European) group and only 1 was from Asia-Pacific and only 1 was from GRULAC (Latin American and Caribbean Group).
90% were male and 3 were female, as far as one could ascertain from public records.
57% were identifiable as primarily being from industry or the technical community, as far as one could ascertain from public records, with only 2 (7%) being readily identifiable as representing governments.

This lack of global multistakeholder representation greatly damages the credibility of the entire process, since it gains its legitimacy by claiming to represent the global multistakeholder Internet community.

Bogey of Governmental Capture

With respect to Stress Test 18, dealing with the GAC, the report proposes that the ICANN Bylaws, specifically Article XI, Section 2, be amended to create a provision where if two-thirds of the Board so votes, they can reject a full GAC consensus advice. This amendment is not connected to the fear of government capture or the fear that ICANN will become a government-led body; given that the advice given by the GAC is non-binding that is not a possibility. Given the state of affairs described in the submission made above, it is clear that for much of the world, their governments are the only way in which they can effectively engage within the ICANN ecosystem. Therefore, nullifying the effectiveness of GAC advice is harmful to the interests of fostering a multistakeholder ecosystem, and contributes to the strengthening of the kind of industry capture described above.

Jurisdiction

All discussions on the Sole Designator Model seem predicated on the unflinching certainty of ICANN’s jurisdiction continuing to remain in California, as the legal basis of that model is drawn from Californian corporate law. To quote the draft report itself, in Annexe 12, it is stated that:

"Jurisdiction directly influences the way ICANN’s accountability processes are structured and operationalized. The fact that ICANN today operates under the legislation of the U.S. state of California grants the corporation certain rights and implies the existence of certain accountability mechanisms. It also imposes some limits with respect to the accountability mechanisms it can adopt. The topic of jurisdiction is, as a consequence, very relevant for the CCWG-Accountability. ICANN is a public benefit corporation incorporated in California and subject to California state laws, applicable U.S. federal laws and both state and federal court jurisdiction."

Jurisdiction has been placed within the mandate of WS2, to be dealt with post the transition. However, there is no analysis in the 3rd Draft on how the Sole Designator Model would continue to be upheld if future Work Stream 2 discussions led to a consensus that there needed to be a shift in the jurisdiction of ICANN. In the event that ICANN shifts to, say, Delaware or Geneva, would there be a basis to the Sole Designator Model in the law? Therefore this is an issue that needs to be addressed before this model is adopted, else there is a risk of either this model being rendered infructuous in the future, or this model foreclosing open debate and discussion in Work Stream 2.

Right of Inspection

We strongly support the incorporation of the rights of Inspection under this model as per Section 6333 of the California Corporations Code as a fundamental bylaw. As there is a severe gap between the claims that ICANN raises about its own transparency and the actual amount of transparency that it upholds, we opine that the right of inspection needs to be provided to each member of the ICANN community.

Timeline for WS2 Reforms

We support the CCWG’s commitment to the review of the DIDP Process, which they have committed to enhancing in WS2. Our research on this matter indicates that ICANN has in practice been able to deflect most requests for information. It regularly utilised its internal processes and discussions with stakeholders clauses, as well as clauses on protecting financial interests of third parties (over 50% of the total non-disclosure clauses ever invoked - see chart below) to do away with having to provide information on pertinent matters such as its compliance audits and reports of abuse to registrars. We believe that even if ICANN is a private entity legally, and not at the same level as a state, it nonetheless plays the role of regulating an enormous public good, namely the Internet. Therefore, there is a great onus on ICANN to be far more open about the information that they provide. Finally, it is extremely disturbing that they have extended full disclosure to only 12% of the requests that they receive. An astonishing 88% of the requests have been denied, partly or otherwise. See "Peering behind the veil of ICANN's DIDP (II)".

In the present format, there has been little analysis on the timeline of WS2; the report itself merely states that:

"The CCWG-Accountability expects to begin refining the scope of Work Stream 2 during the upcoming ICANN 55 Meeting in March 2016. It is intended that Work Stream 2 will be completed by the end of 2016."

Without further clarity and specification of the WS2 timeline, meaningful reform cannot be initiated. Therefore we urge the CCWG to come up with a clear timeline for transparency processes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ciss-comments-on-the-ccwg-accountability-draft-proposal

Summary of the Public Consultation by Vigyan Foundation, Oxfam India and G.B. Pant Institute, Allahabad

vipul — 2016-01-28T15:22:56Z

On December 22nd and 23rd a public consultation was organized by the Vigyan Foundation, Oxfam India and G.B. Pant Institute, Allahabad at the GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad to discuss the issues related to making Allahabad into a Smart City under the Smart On December 22nd and 23rd a public consultation was organized by the Vigyan Foundation, Oxfam India and G.B. Pant Institute, Allahabad at the GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad to discuss the issues related to making Allahabad into a Smart City under the Smart City scheme of the Central Government. An agenda for the same is attached herewith. City scheme of the Central Government.

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore (CIS) is researching the 100 Smart City Scheme from the perspective of Big Data and is seeking to understand the role of Big Data in smart cities in India as well as the impact of the generation and use of the same. CIS is also examining whether the current legal framework is adequate to deal with these new technologies. It was in this background that CIS attended a part of the workshop.

At the outset the organizers had noted that there will be no discussion on technology and its adoption in this particular workshop.. The format involved a speaker providing his/her viewpoint on the topic concerned and the discussion revolved mainly around problems relating to traffic, parking, roads, drainage, etc. and there was no discussion of technology or how to utilise it to solve these problems. From the discussions CIS has had with certain people who are quite involved with these public consultations, the impression that we have is that the solutions to these problems were not very complicated and required only some intent and execution, and if that was achieved it would go a long way in improving the infrastructure of the city. This perspective raises the question of whether or not India needs 'Smart Cities' to improve the life of residents or if basic urban solutions are adequate and are in fact needed to lay the foundation for any potential smart city that might be established in the future.

It is quite interesting to see the difference in the levels at which the debate on smart cities is happening, in that when the central government talks about smart cities they try to highlight technology and other aspects such as smart meters, smart grids, etc. while the discussion on the ground in the actual cities is currently at a much more basic stage. For example the government website for the smart city project, while describing a smart city, mentions a number of “smart solutions” such as “electronic service delivery”, “smart meters” for water, “smart meters” for electricity, “smart parking”, Intelligent Traffic Management”, “Tele-medicine”, etc. Even in all the major public service announcements on the smart city project, the government effort seems to be to focus on these “smart solutions”, projecting technology as the answer to urban problems. However those in the cities themselves appear to be more concerned with adequate parking, adequate water supply, proper roads, waste disposal, etc. This difference in approach is only representative of the yawning gap between the mindspace of those who conceive these schemes and market them on the one hand and those who are tasked with implementing the schemes on the other hand as well as the realities of what cities in India need to address problems related to infrastructure and functioning. However the silver lining in this scenario, atleast on a personal level, is that the people on the ground, are not blindly turning to technology to solve their problems but actually trying to look for the best solutions regardless of whether it is a technology based solution or not.

Agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/summary-of-the-public-consultation-by-vigyan-foundation-oxfam-india-and-g-b-pant-institute-allahabad

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 3

vidushi — 2016-01-28T13:53:12Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The third public debate will be held at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road near Air Force Bal Bharti School, New Delhi on February 5, 2016.

In light of the recent consultation paper released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the objective of these debates will be to deconstruct the issue of differential pricing through a discussion on the variety of views this subject has attracted. Speakers will also discuss possible implications of differential pricing policy on questions of access, diversity, competition and entrepreneurship.

Each debate will comprise three rounds. In the first round, speakers will present the body of their arguments over 10 minutes each. The second round will be a rebuttal round, with each speaker being given 5 minutes. The third and final round will see the floor being opened to the audience who will engage the speakers with comments and questions.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/public-debate-on-differential-pricing-series-3

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 2

vidushi — 2016-01-28T13:51:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The second public debate will be held at Pherozeshah Mehta Bhavan, Vidyanagari, Kalina, Mumbai on February 3, 2016.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/public-debate-on-differential-pricing-series-2

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 1

vidushi — 2016-01-27T13:51:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The first public debate will be held at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on February 1, 2016.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-series-of-public-debates-on-differential-pricing-series-1

Transparency in Surveillance

vipul — 2016-01-23T15:11:18Z

Transparency is an essential need for any democracy to function effectively. It may not be the only requirement for the effective functioning of a democracy, but it is one of the most important principles which need to be adhered to in a democratic state.

Introduction

A democracy involves the state machinery being accountable to the citizens that it is supposed to serve, and for the citizens to be able to hold their state machinery accountable, they need accurate and adequate information regarding the activities of those that seek to govern them. However, in modern democracies it is often seen that those in governance often try to circumvent legal requirements of transparency and only pay lip service to this principle, while keeping their own functioning as opaque as possible.

This tendency to not give adequate information is very evident in the departments of the government which are concerned with surveillance, and merit can be found in the argument that all of the government's clandestine surveillance activities cannot be transparent otherwise they will cease to be "clandestine" and hence will be rendered ineffective. However, this argument is often misused as a shield by the government agencies to block the disclosure of all types of information about their activities, some of which may be essential to determine whether the current surveillance regime is working in an effective, ethical, and legal manner or not. It is this exploitation of the argument, which is often couched in the language of or coupled with concerns of national security, that this paper seeks to address while voicing the need for greater transparency in surveillance activities and structures.

In the first section the paper examines the need for transparency, and specifically deals with the requirement for transparency in surveillance. In the next part, the paper discusses the regulations governing telecom surveillance in India. The final part of the paper discusses possible steps that may be taken by the government in order to increase transparency in telecom surveillance while keeping in mind that the disclosure of such information should not make future surveillance ineffective.

Need for Transparency

In today's age where technology is all pervasive, the term "surveillance" has developed slightly sinister overtones, especially in the backdrop of the Edward Snowden fiasco. Indeed, there have been several independent scandals involving mass surveillance of people in general as well as illegal surveillance of specific individuals. The fear that the term surveillance now invokes, especially amongst those social and political activists who seek to challenge the status quo, is in part due to the secrecy surrounding the entire surveillance regime. Leaving aside what surveillance is carried out, upon whom, and when - the state actors are seldom willing and open to talk about how surveillance is carried out, how decisions regarding who and how to target, are reached, how agency budgets are allocated and spent, how effective surveillance actions were, etc. While there may be justified security based arguments to not disclose the full extent of the state's surveillance activities, however this cloak of secrecy may be used illegally and in an unauthorized manner to achieve ends more harmful to citizen rights than the maintenance of security and order in the society.

Surveillance and interception/collection of communications data can take place under different legal processes in different countries, ranging from court-ordered requests of specified data from telecommunications companies to broad executive requests sent under regimes or regulatory frameworks requiring the disclosure of information by telecom companies on a pro-active basis. However, it is an open secret that data collection often takes place without due process or under non-legal circumstances.

It is widely believed that transparency is a critical step towards the creation of mechanisms for increased accountability through which law enforcement and government agencies access communications data. It is the first step in the process of starting discussions and an informed public debate regarding how the state undertakes activities of surveillance, monitoring and interception of communications and data. Since 2010, a large number of ICT companies have begun to publish transparency reports on the extent that governments request their user data as well as requirements to remove content. However, governments themselves have not been very forthcoming in providing such detailed information on surveillance programs which is necessary for an informed debate on this issue.[1] Although some countries currently report limited information on their surveillance activities, e.g. the U.S. Department of Justice publishes an annual Wiretap Report (U.S. Courts, 2013a), and the United Kingdom publishes the Interception of Communications Commissioner Annual Report (May, 2013), which themselves do not present a complete picture, however even such limited measures are unheard of in a country such as India.

It is obvious that Governments can provide a greater level of transparency regarding the limits in place on the freedom of expression and privacy than transparency reports by individual companies. Company transparency reports can only illuminate the extent to which any one company receives requests and how that company responds to them. By contrast, government transparency reports can provide a much greater perspective on laws that can potentially restrict the freedom of expression or impact privacy by illustrating the full extent to which requests are made across the ICT industry. [2]

In India, the courts and the laws have traditionally recognized the need for transparency and derive it from the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed in our Constitution. This need coupled with a sustained campaign by various organizations finally fructified into the passage of the Right to Information Act, 2005, (RTI Act) which amongst other things also places an obligation on the sate to place its documents and records online so that the same may be freely available to the public. In light of this law guaranteeing the right to information, the citizens of India have the fundamental right to know what the Government is doing in their name. The free flow of information and ideas informs political growth and the freedom of speech and expression is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy, it acts as a safety valve. People are more ready to accept the decisions that go against them if they can in principle seem to influence them. The Supreme Court of India is of the view that the imparting of information about the working of the government on the one hand and its decision affecting the domestic and international trade and other activities on the other is necessary, and has imposed an obligation upon the authorities to disclose information.[3]

The Supreme Court, in Namit Sharma v. Union of India,[4] while discussing the importance of transparency and the right to information has held:

"The Right to Information was harnessed as a tool for promoting development; strengthening the democratic governance and effective delivery of socio-economic services. Acquisition of information and knowledge and its application have intense and pervasive impact on the process of taking informed decision, resulting in overall productivity gains .

……..

Government procedures and regulations shrouded in the veil of secrecy do not allow the litigants to know how their cases are being handled. They shy away from questioning the officers handling their cases because of the latters snobbish attitude. Right to information should be guaranteed and needs to be given real substance. In this regard, the Government must assume a major responsibility and mobilize skills to ensure flow of information to citizens. The traditional insistence on secrecy should be discarded."

Although these statements were made in the context of the RTI Act the principle which they try to illustrate can be understood as equally applicable to the field of state sponsored surveillance. Though Indian intelligence agencies are exempt from the RTI Act, it can be used to provide limited insight into the scope of governmental surveillance. This was demonstrated by the Software Freedom Law Centre, who discovered via RTI requests that approximately 7,500 - 9,000 interception orders are sent on a monthly basis.[5]

While it is true that transparency alone will not be able to eliminate the barriers to freedom of expression or harm to privacy resulting from overly broad surveillance,, transparency provides a window into the scope of current practices and additional measures are needed such as oversight and mechanisms for redress in cases of unlawful surveillance. Transparency offers a necessary first step, a foundation on which to examine current practices and contribute to a debate on human security and freedom.[6]

It is no secret that the current framework of surveillance in India is rife with malpractices of mass surveillance and instances of illegal surveillance. There have been a number of instances of illegal and/or unathorised surveillance in the past, the most scandalous and thus most well known is the incident where a woman IAS officer was placed under surveillance at the behest of Mr. Amit Shah who is currently the president of the ruling party in India purportedly on the instructions of the current prime minister Mr. Narendra Modi.[7] There are also a number of instances of private individuals indulging in illegal interception and surveillance; in the year 2005, it was reported that Anurag Singh, a private detective, along with some associates, intercepted the telephonic conversations of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh. They allegedly contacted political leaders and media houses for selling the tapped telephonic conversation records. The interception was allegedly carried out by stealing the genuine government letters and forging and fabricating them to obtain permission to tap Amar Singh's telephonic conversations. [8] The same individual was also implicated for tapping the telephone of the current finance minister Mr. Arun Jaitely.[9]

It is therefore obvious that the status quo with regard to the surveillance mechanism in India needs to change, but this change has to be brought about in a manner so as to make state surveillance more accountable without compromising its effectiveness and addressing legitimate security concerns. Such changes cannot be brought about without an informed debate involving all stakeholders and actors associated with surveillance, however the basic minimum requirement for an "informed" debate is accurate and sufficient information about the subject matter of the debate. This information is severely lacking in the public domain when it comes to state surveillance activities - with most data points about state surveillance coming from news items or leaked information. Unless the state becomes more transparent and gives information about its surveillance activities and processes, an informed debate to challenge and strengthen the status quo for the betterment of all parties cannot be started.

Current State of Affairs

Surveillance laws in India are extremely varied and have been in existence since the colonial times, remnants of which are still being utilized by the various State Police forces. However in this age of technology the most important tools for surveillance exist in the digital space and it is for this reason that this paper shall focus on an analysis of surveillance through interception of telecommunications traffic, whether by tracking voice calls or data. The interception of telecommunications actually takes place under two different statutes, the Telegraph Act, 1885 (which deals with interception of calls) as well as the Information Technology Act, 2000 (which deals with interception of data).

Currently, the telecom surveillance is done as per the procedure prescribed in the Rules under the relevant sections of the two statutes mentioned above, viz. Rule 419A of the Telegraph Rules, 1951 for surveillance under the Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009 for surveillance under the Information Technology Act, 2000. These Rules put in place various checks and balances and try to ensure that there is a paper trail for every interception request. [10] The assumption is that the generation of a paper trail would reduce the number of unauthorized interception orders thus ensuring that the powers of interception are not misused. However, even though these checks and balances exist on paper as provided in the laws, there is not enough information in the public domain regarding the entire mechanism of interception for anyone to make a judgment on whether the system is working or not.

As mentioned earlier, currently the only sources of information on interception that are available in the public domain are through news reports and a handful of RTI requests which have been filed by various activists.[11] The only other institutionalized source of information on surveillance in India is the various transparency reports brought out by companies such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.

Indeed, Google was the first major corporation to publish a transparency report in 2010 and has been updating its report ever since. The latest data that is available for Google is for the period between January, 2015 to June, 2015 and in that period Google and Youtube together received 3,087 requests for data which asked for information on 4,829 user accounts from the Indian Government. Out of these requests Google only supplied information for 44% of the requests.[12] Although Google claims that they "review each request to make sure that it complies with both the spirit and the letter of the law, and we may refuse to produce information or try to narrow the request in some cases", it is not clear why Google rejected 56% of the requests. It may also be noted that the number of requests for information that Google received from India were the fifth highest amongst all the other countries on which information was given in the Transparency Report, after USA, Germany, France and the U.K.

Facebook's transparency report for the period between January, 2015 to June, 2015 reveals that Facebook received 5,115 requests from the Indian Government for 6,268 user accounts, out of which Facebook produced data in 45.32% of the cases.[13] Facebook's transparency report claims that they respond to requests relating to criminal cases and "Each and every request we receive is checked for legal sufficiency and we reject or require greater specificity on requests that are overly broad or vague." However, even in Facebook's transparency report it is unclear why 55.68% of the requests were rejected.

The Yahoo transparency report also gives data from the period between January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2015 and reveals that Yahoo received 831 requests for data, which related to 1,184 user accounts from the Indian Government. The Yahoo report is a little more detailed and also reveals that 360 of the 831 requests were rejected by Yahoo, however no details are given as to why the requests were rejected. The report also specifies that in 63 cases, no data was found by Yahoo, in 249 cases only non content data[14] was disclosed while in 159 cases content [15] was disclosed. The Yahoo report also claims that "We carefully scrutinize each request to make sure that it complies with the law, and we push back on those requests that don't satisfy our rigorous standards."

While the Vodafone Transparency Report gives information regarding government requests for data in other jurisdictions, [16] it does not give any information on government requests in India. This is because Vodafone interprets the provisions contained in Rule 25(4) of the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009 (Interception Rules) and Rule 11 of the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules, 2009 as well as Rule 419A(19) of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1954 which require service providers to maintain confidentiality/secrecy in matters relating to interception, as being a legal prohibition on Vodafone to reveal such information.

Apart from the four major companies discussed above, there are a large number of private corporations which have published transparency reports in order to acquire a sense of trustworthiness amongst their customers. Infact, the Ranking Digital Rights Project has been involved in ranking some of the biggest companies in the world on their commitment to accountability and has brought out the Ranking Digital Rights 2015 Corporate Accountability Index that has analysed a representative group of 16 companies "that collectively hold the power to shape the digital lives of billions of people across the globe".

Suggestions on Transparency

It is clear from the discussions above, as well as a general overview of various news reports on the subject, that telecom surveillance in India is shrouded in secrecy and it appears that a large amount of illegal and unauthorized surveillance is taking place behind the protection of this veil of secrecy. If the status quo continues, then it is unlikely that any meaningful reforms would take place to bring about greater accountability in the area of telecom surveillance. It is imperative, for any sort of changes towards greater accountability to take place, that we have enough information about what exactly is happening and for that we need greater transparency since transparency is the first step towards greater accountability.

Transparency Reports

In very simplistic terms transparency, in anything, can best be achieved by providing as much information about that thing as possible so that there are no secrets left. However, it would be naïve to say that all information about interception activities can be made public on the altar of the principle of transparency, but that does not mean that there should be no information at all on interception. One of the internationally accepted methods of bringing about transparency in interception mechanisms, which is increasingly being adopted by both the private sector as well as governments, is to publish Transparency Reports giving various details of interception while keeping security concerns in mind. The two types of transparency reports that we require in India and what that would entail is briefly discussed below:

By the Government

The problem with India's current regime for interception is that the entire mechanism appears more or less adequate on paper with enough checks and balances involved in it to prevent misuse of the allotted powers. However, because the entire process is veiled in secrecy, nobody knows exactly how good or how rotten the system has become and whether it is working to achieve its intended purposes. It is clear that the current system of interception and surveillance being followed by the government has some flaws, as can be gathered from the frequent news articles which talk about incidents of illegal surveillance. However, without any other official or more reliable sources of information regarding surveillance activities these anecdotal pieces of evidence are all we have to shape the debate regarding surveillance in India. It is only logical then that the debate around surveillance, which is informed by such sketchy and unreliable news reports will automatically be biased against the current mechanism since the newspapers would also only be interested in reporting the scandalous and the extraordinary incidents. For example, some argue that the government undertakes mass surveillance, while others argue that India only carries out targeted surveillance, but there is not enough information publicly available for a third party to support or argue against either claim. It is therefore necessary and highly recommended that the government start releasing a transparency report such as the one's brought out by the United States and the UK as mentioned above.

There is no need for a separate department or authority just to make the transparency report and this task could probably be performed in-house by any department, but considering the sector involved, it would perhaps be best if the Department of Telecommunications is given the responsibility to bring out a transparency report. These transparency reports should contain certain minimum amount of data for them to be an effective tool in informing the public discourse and debate regarding surveillance and interception. The report needs to strike a balance between providing enough information so that an informed analysis can be made of the effectiveness of the surveillance regime without providing so much information so as to make the surveillance activities ineffective. Below is a list of suggestions as to what kind of data/information such reports should contain:

Reports should contain data regarding the number of interception orders that have been passed. This statistic would be extremely useful in determining how elaborate and how frequently the state indulges in interception activities. This information would be easily available since all interception orders have to be sent to the Review Committee set up under Rule 419A of the Telegraph Rules, 1954.
The Report should contain information on the procedural aspects of surveillance including the delegation of powers to different authorities and individuals, information on new surveillance schemes, etc. This information would also be available with the Ministry of Home Affairs since it is a Secretary or Joint Secretary level officer in the said Ministry which is supposed to authorize every order for interception.
The report should contain an aggregated list of reasons given by the authorities for ordering interception. This information would reveal whether the authorities are actually ensuring legal justification before issuing interception or are they just paying lip service to the rules to ensure a proper paper trail. Since every order of interception has to be in writing, the main reasons for interception can easily be gleaned from a perusal of the orders.
It should also reveal the percentage of cases where interception has actually found evidence of culpability or been successful in prevention of criminal activities. This one statistic would itself give a very good review of the effectiveness of the interception regime. Granted that this information may not be very easily obtainable, but it can be obtained with proper coordination with the police and other law enforcement agencies.
The report should also reveal the percentage of order that have been struck down by the Review Committee as not following the process envisaged under the various Rules. This would give a sense of how often the Rules are being flouted while issuing interception orders. This information can easily be obtained from the papers and minutes of the meetings of the Review Committee.
The report should also state the number of times the Review Committee has met in the period being reported upon. The Review Committee is an important check on the misuse of powers by the authorities and therefore it is important that the Review Committee carries out its activities in a diligent manner.

It may be noted here that some provisions of the Telegraph Rules, 1954 especially sub-Rules 17 and 18 of Rule 419A as well as Rules 22, 23(1) and 25 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules, 2009 may need to be amended so as to make them compliant with the reporting mechanism proposed above.

By the Private Sector

We have already discussed above the transparency reports published by certain private companies. Suffice it to say that reports from private companies should give as much of the information discussed under government reports as possible and/or applicable, since they may not have a large amount of the information that is sought to be published in the government reports such as whether the interception was successful, the reasons for interception, etc. It is important to have ISPs provide such transparency reports as this will provide two different data points for information on interception and the very existence of these private reports may act as a check to ensure the veracity of the government transparency reports.

As in the case of government reports, for the transparency reports of the private sector to be effective, certain provisions of the Telegraph Rules, 1954 and the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules, 2009, viz. sub-Rules 14, 15 and 19 of Rule 419A of the Telegraph Rules, 1954 and Rules 20, 21, 23(1) and 25 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules, 2009.

Overhaul of the Review Committee

The Review Committee which acts as a check on the misuse of powers by the competent authorities is a very important cog in the entire process. However, it is staffed entirely by the executive and does not have any members of any other background. Whilst it is probably impractical to have civilian members in the Review Committee which has access to potentially sensitive information, it is extremely essential that the Committee has wider representation from other sectors specially the judiciary. One or two members from the judiciary on the Review Committee would provide a greater check on the workings of the Committee as this would bring in representation from the judicial arm of the State so that the Review Committee does not remain a body manned purely by the executive branch. This could go some ways to ensure that the Committee does not just "rubber stamp" the orders of interception issued by the various competent authorities.

Conclusion

It is not in dispute that there is a need for greater transparency in the government's surveillance activities in order to address the problems associated with illegal and unauthorised interceptions. This paper is not making the case that greater transparency in and by itself will be able to solve the problems that may be associated with the government's currency interception and surveillance regime, however it is not possible to address any problem unless we know the real extent of it. It is essential for an informed debate and discussion that the people participating in the discussion are "informed", i.e. they should have accurate and adequate information regarding the issues which are being discussed. The current state of the debate on interception is rife with individuals using illustrative and anecdotal evidence which, in the absence of any other evidence, they assume to be the norm.

A more transparent and forthcoming state machinery which regularly keeps its citizens abreast of the state of its surveillance regime would be likely to get better suggestions and perhaps less criticisms if it does come out that the checks and balances imposed in the regulations are actually making a difference to check unauthorized interceptions, and if not, then it is the right of the citizens to know about this and ask for reforms.

[1] James Losey, "Surveillance of Communications: A Legitimization Crisis and the Need for Transparency", International Journal of Communication 9(2015), Feature 3450-3459, 2015.

[2] Id.

[3] Namit Sharma v. Union of India, http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=39566.

[4] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=39566 . Although the judgment was overturned on review, however this observation quoted above would still hold as it has not been specifically overturned.

[5] http://sflc.in/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/SFLC-FINAL-SURVEILLANCE-REPORT.pdf .

[6] James Losey, "Surveillance of Communications: A Legitimization Crisis and the Need for Transparency", International Journal of Communication 9 (2015), Feature 3450-3459, 2015.

[7] http://gulail.com/the-stalkers/ .

[8] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Amar-Singh-phone-tap-accused-tracked-Arun-Jaitleys-mobile/articleshow/18582508.cms .

[9] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/arun-jaitley-phonetapping-case-all-accused-get-bail/394997-37-64.html .

[10] For a detailed discussion of the Rules of interception please see Policy Paper on Surveillance in India, by Vipul Kharbanda, http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-india .

[11] As an example please see http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/rti-on-officials-and-agencies-authorized-to-intercept-telephone-messages-in-india .

[12] https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/countries/ .

[13] https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/India/2015-H1/ .

[14] Non-content data (NCD) such as basic subscriber information including the information captured at the time of registration such as an alternate e-mail address, name, location, and IP address, login details, billing information, and other transactional information (e.g., "to," "from," and "date" fields from email headers).

[15] Data that users create, communicate, and store on or through Yahoo. This could include words in a communication (e.g., Mail or Messenger), photos on Flickr, files uploaded, Yahoo Address Book entries, Yahoo Calendar event details, thoughts recorded in Yahoo Notepad or comments or posts on Yahoo Answers or any other Yahoo property.

[16] https://www.vodafone.com/content/sustainabilityreport/2014/index/operating_responsibly/privacy_and_security/law_enforcement/country_by_country.html .

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transparency-in-surveillance

Why Indians are turning down Facebook's free internet

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T16:25:10Z

Imagine a billion of the world’s poorest gaining overnight access to health information, education, and professional help — for free. Add to this one rich man who wants to make that dream a reality.

The article by Nimisha Jaiswal was published in the Global Post on January 13, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

That’s the invitation that Facebook has sent to India. Many there, however, are rejecting such benevolence.

Facebook has introduced its Free Basics project in 36 countries. The company claims that the app acts as a stepping-stone to the internet for those who are otherwise without access, by providing them with a few essential sites — or “basics” — to get started.

“We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, education, healthcare, communication… We know that for India to make progress, more than 1 billion people need to be connected to the internet,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a recent op-ed for a major Indian newspaper. “Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality.”

However, net neutrality researchers and activists in India define it quite differently.

“Free Basics is a zero-rated walled garden that gives users a tiny subset of the world wide web,” Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, told GlobalPost.

The Free Basics app is part of Facebook’s Internet.org, a “zero-rating” internet service that provides limited access for no charge to the consumer. The original Internet.org was heavily criticized in India for violating net neutrality, the principle that all content on the web should be accessible to consumers at the same speed, without discrimination by providers.

Last spring, as part of a homegrown Save The Internet movement, over 1 million people wrote to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to protest services that disrupt net neutrality by providing only a small fraction of the internet to their users.

India’s Department of Telecommunications has already recommended that such platforms be disallowed. Before it makes its own recommendations this month, the TRAI asked concerned citizens for another round of input on zero-rating apps. The criticism has been so loud that, at the end of December, Free Basics’ local telecom partner was ordered to take the service down until a decision is reached.

Though Free Basics does not require payment from the websites it shares, Facebook’s competitors are unlikely to participate and provide user data to their rivals. And while there are currently no advertisements on Free Basics, Facebook reserves the right to introduce them in the future to garner revenue from their “walled-in” clients.

According to Abraham, such a platform harms free speech, privacy, innovation and diversity by adding another layer of surveillance and “censoring” the internet.

Mahesh Murthy, a venture capitalist who is part of India’s Save The Internet movement, puts it more bluntly.

“What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy, or sell their produce on a commodity market, or even search for a job on [Indian recruitment website] Naukri,” said Murthy.

Zuckerberg and Facebook’s India team have vigorously rebutted net neutrality activists in India, including Murthy, challenging their criticism of Free Basics and accusing activists of deliberately trying to prevent the masses from gaining internet access.

“Critics of the program continue to spread false claims — even if that means leaving behind a billion people,” wrote Zuckerberg in his Times of India op-ed.

According to Abraham, this is a misleading assertion. “They are falsely framing the debate, they are making it look like we have only two choices,” he told GlobalPost. “The choice is not between less people on the internet and unregulated [Free Basics].”

Several alternatives are being proposed. Abraham does not advocate a complete ban on Free Basics, instead suggesting a “leaky” walled garden where users would be given 100 MB of full internet access for every 100 MB of Free Basics consumed.

The Save the Internet campaign, however, wants Free Basics barred altogether. It proposes returning to previously implemented schemes like providing data on the purchase of a phone, or letting users access the full internet after watching an ad. The Universal Service Obligation Fund, set up by the Department of Telecommunications to provide affordable communication technology in rural areas, could also be used to finance free data packs.

While Facebook could potentially contribute to such funds to promote its connectivity goals, the millions of dollars it has spent loudly defending Free Basics in India suggest that the company is deeply attached to its own scheme.

Facebook has claimed that “more than four in five Indians support Free Basics,” according to a survey that it paid for. Indian users of the social network have received notifications encouraging them to send a template letter to the regulator in support of Free Basics. Even users in the US were “accidentally” notified to add their backing to the Indian campaign.

Some of the company's critics suggest that it is driven less by philanthropy, more by guaranteeing itself a stream of new users.

Murthy points out that a large number of the world’s population not yet on the internet are in India and China — and Facebook is banned in China. “So who becomes essential to Mark Zuckerberg’s balance sheet? Enter us Indians.”

While Indian activists agree that connectivity is an important goal, they insist that Free Basics in its current form is not the solution or even the only option right now. All it does is whets the appetite of the consumer, according to Abraham.

“You can compare Free Basics to when you go through the mall: You see the people selling cookies, and the aroma fills the whole mall,” he said. “That’s what Free Basics does — it gets you interested in the cookie. But it doesn’t solve the affordability question.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/global-post-nimisha-jaiswal-why-indians-are-turning-down-facebook-free-internet

A billion mobile users: new startup profiles and innovation insights from Mobile India 2016

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T15:13:42Z

The annual Mobile India conference, for which YourStory was the media partner, wrapped up recently in Bengaluru with a startup showcase and a wide range of insights on mobile innovation in India.

The blog post by Sneha Maselkar and Madanmohan Rao was first published in Your Story on January 14, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Chaired by professors V. Sridhar of IIIT Bangalore and D. Manjunath of IIT Bombay, the event’s theme was ‘The App Economy.’ (See YourStory coverage of the earlier editions of this conference: 2015, 2014 and 2013).

Mobile innovators

New products were presented by innovators like Pravin Bhagwat, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, AirTight Networks. The company is creating an app store based on ‘social WiFi,’ riding on Google+ and Facebook. A number of interesting startups like IoTM2MSolutions were also at the event. Founded by Ismail Zabihullahh in 2009, the 15-member team has a range of offerings in home automation, RFID biometrics, street lighting and smart parking solutions.

Inaccel is a med-tech accelerator founded in 2014 by Siraj Dhanani, Vijayarajan and Dr. Jagish Chaturvedi. It address the needs, resource and skill gaps, and price-sensitivity of clinical markets, and helps startups conceptualise, design, engineer, and achieve regulatory certification. Its portfolio picks companies with a five-year horizon, in exchange for equity stakes.

Dataglen was formed in 2014 by Deva P. Seetharam, Tanuja Ganu, Sunil Ghai and Rajesh Kunnath. It provides Internet of Things (IoT) data collection and management services, and provides an API for users to develop applications on a variety of computing platforms. The startup charges for data management services based on the volume of transactions and for any required customisation services.

Czar Securities was founded in August 2013 by Shikhil Sharma and Ananda Krishna. Two employees Deepankar Tyagi and Nakul Gulati joined in quick succession. The cyber security solutions company secures corporate IT infrastructure from cyber attacks. Offerings include ASTRA, an intrusion prevention system, as well as penetration testing and security audit services.

Infilect was founded in April 2015 by Vijay Gabale and Anand Prabhu Subramanian. They are building an AI-enabled personalised fashion shopping assistant. The product, Photolect, helps in discovery, search and personalisation for online shoppers by parsing of photos. The product is in beta-test mode with several fashion experts evaluating its features.

Sattva Medtech was founded in 2014 by Vibhav Joshi and Sumedh Kaulgud. They are developing a next-generation fetal health monitoring device which leverages advanced sensors and algorithms. This device, called the Sattva Fetal Lite, has been designed and engineered for use in India and other low-and-mid-income countries; the team has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from InnAccel.

Coeo Labs was founded in October 2014 by Nitesh Kumar Jangir and Nachiket Deval. It is a medical device company, developing products in the field of emergency and critical care. Offerings include a device to reduce chances of acquiring ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and a mechanical CPAP machine (mCPAP) for transport of neonates with troubled breathing, from a resource-constrained setting to a neonatal ICU.

IoT scenarios

Over a dozen experts from India and the US discussed the latest mobile trends in a day of packed panel sessions and keynotes. Interface design, usable security and systems integration are key success factors for IoT, according to Henning Schulzrinne, Professor at Columbia University, and CTO, United States Federal Communications Commission. Consumer and industrial IoT scenarios differ with respect to predictability, redundancy, energy consumption and interoperability.

He pointed out categories and uses cases of high IoT impacts: automation of manual data extraction (metering), remote maintenance (vending machines), extraction of additional information (thermostats) and software-defined mechanics (locks, switches).

“IoT networks won’t operate just on mobile carriers, but also on other networks such as Zigbee and Bluetooth,” Henning explained. The Internet itself will be transformed by IoT. “Protocols matter, programmability matters more,” he added. The Internet is becoming more than the Internet protocol; plug-and-play is becoming augmented by plug-and-programme in the IoT world.

The ‘DNA’ of apps

The proliferation of apps can lead to the rise of localised app stores in local languages, said Chinnu Senthilkumar, CTO, Exfinity Ventures, pointing to Korea as an example in this regard. “Many apps are local. How well do you know the digital literacy of your neighbourhood users,” he asked.

Most apps in India are of the ‘me-too’ type; developers need to incorporate better user experience (UX) and bring in more cross-disciplinary experience (see earlier insights from the UX India 2015 conference and NASSCOM NPC 2015). “Security is still an afterthought in app development,” cautioned Chinnu.

“You need to figure out the DNA of the mobile experience: Device, Network, App,” explained Amar Nagaram, Director, Mobile Engineering, Flipkart. The e-commerce giant classifies devices into four broad categories, and its app design factors in the app size, data stored on the device, and computational power of the device.

Battery requirements of the device and packet drop rates on mobile networks are major constraints on app performance in India. Online shopping lets users interact with catalogues as well as product experts.

“I had to unlearn a lot of things from the Internet world which may not apply in a similar manner to the app world. For example, not all older versions of apps need to be supported,” explained Amar.

“Ask yourself, what does your app do for consumers?” advised Pradeep Nair, Co-Founder and CEO, Confianzys. Developers should be looking not at product-market fit, but market-product fit. “Industries die because of their myopia; they focus on past products and not future consumer needs,” he said, urging developers to track-long term megatrends as well.

Telcos’ role in the App Economy

The telecommunications world is changing rapidly due to trends like IoT, new breeds of apps, video boom and Big Data, observed Ishwardutt Parulkar, Cisco Distinguished Engineer. Telcos are struggling to get new drivers for existing services, new revenue sources, and new sources of consumer loyalty.

“Telcos need to provide APIs to developers for embedding telco services and network analytics data. Telcos can also play a bigger role in mobile advertising, for example network-wide ad blocking, as in the case of Jamaica,” advised Ishwardutt. Telcos can exploit synergy with cloud services, and resell SaaS products bundled with telco products.

“We are witnessing major waves of disruptive innovation today: the rise from oblivion to the top is rapid – and so is the fall from the top,” said SR Raja, Associate Vice President, Persistent Systems. Many incumbents tend to suffer from ignorance, inertia, and the inability to do little more than tweak or tinker with existing offerings.

There is a Moore’s Law variant for all architecture components, including programming languages. Hence, telcos need to master new business models blending product and service, advised Raja. “Even regulated industries can be disrupted from outside – look at Uber and Tesla. Will telcos experiment with surge pricing like Uber, or become IoT solutions systems integrators,” he asked. For example, operator O2 has used mobile identity to launch its own messaging OTT app, and Vodafone is getting into IoT services.

Operators and Net Neutrality

The Mobile India conference took place with the backdrop of a heated battle over Net Neutrality between Facebook’s Free Basics and Internet activists from India, which has received a lot of media coverage in India and overseas.

This calls for the digital media community and entrepreneur ecosystem to pay attention to complex but important issues such as Internet governance. “The next billion users in India may be very different from the current billion, in terms of geography, language and access device,” observed Samiran Gupta, Head-India, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN’s objective is to maintain inter-operability of the Internet, and there is a unique opportunity for emerging economies to play a stronger role in Internet governance, in issues such as local languages and scripts.

Regulation and digital innovation

Regulators have major challenges ahead in juggling the needs of multiple stakeholders and demands for different slices of spectrum. “There are 43 different kinds of radio-communication services competing for spectrum,” said Pavan Garg, Former Wireless Adviser, GoI, and former Member, Radio Regulations Board, ITU, Geneva.

Regulators need to become much more savvy on the kind of collusions possible between industry heavyweights, according to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society.

If India gets its IP regime correct, the local language content economy can be boosted, in addition to other civic benefits. For example, giving anonymised data access to independent researchers has helped LIRNEasia come up with better transportation design in Sri Lanka.

The discussion covered a wide range of interesting possibilities. In the EU, it is mandated that all mobile phones be able to display all European languages. Can India do the same for local languages? Will regulation promote support for Indic language technology on mobiles, or should this be left purely to the market? Organisations such as the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) is working on Indian language standards in ICTs.

The app economy can indeed be accelerated with proactive government intervention, said Parnil Urdhwareshe, Research Assistant at ICRIER and co-author of a report on ‘Impact of India’s App Economy.’ India’s app ecosystem could be worth Rs 2,000 crore in 2016; it created about 75,000 direct jobs in 2015, according to the report.

The government can pass regulations on apps covering privacy, Net Neutrality and safety, eg. SoS buttons, medical apps. The UK government has drawn up a range of app guidelines covering issues such as in-app purchases.

“Design in India is more important than Make In India,” said Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director, C-DOT, drawing attention to issues of participatory design and citizen-centric services rather than only one-way top-down initiatives from government and large industry players.

The road ahead

Broadband penetration in India is only 10 per cent. By 2018, video will be 62 per cent of India’s mobile data traffic, and there will be 526 million Internet users, according to Anil Kaushal, Member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The government’s BharatNet initiative aims to connect 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats across the country. TRAI has given recommendations for Virtual Network Operators, wherein niche players can offer Smart City services.

In addition to regulators, operators and developers, success of the app economy also rests on responsible user behaviour, said Deepak Maheshwari, Head-Government Affairs, Symantec. “Be more active with respect to data encryption on your device. Use multi-factor authentication,” he advised.

Seventy per cent of India’s population lives in villages; digital innovation will help bring education and healthcare to them, said Vimal Wakhlu, Chairman & Managing Director, TCIL. There are also global extensions and markets for Indian innovations, such as the Pan-African E-Network targeted at 53 countries. There are major uses of ICTs across India, such as monitoring the cleaning of the Ganges as well as water gate management in Gujarat, Vimal added.

“India needs to mandate telecom infrastructure in real estate development and town planning. Digital media will change the way we learn and earn,” said T.R. Dua, Director General, Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) India, and Co-Chair ITU APT Foundation of India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/yourstory-sneha-maselkar-and-madanmohan-rao-january-14-2016-a-billion-mobile-users

Big Data and Governance in India

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T01:57:45Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to invite you to a discussion on the role of Big Data in governance in India with a focus on Digital India, UID Scheme and Smart Cities Mission in India on January 23, 2016 at CIS office in Bangalore from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Background Note

The roundtable discussion intends to delve deeper into various issues around the role of big data in Government schemes and projects like the Digital India, the UID Scheme and the 100 Smart Cities Mission. Some of the topics would include:

Use/Assumptions about use of Big Data.
The public dialogue in the context of Big Data, rights, and governance.
Status and Role of India's data protection standards impacted by Big Data.
Legal hurdles posed by Big Data.

We look forward to making this a forum for knowledge exchange and a learning opportunity for our friends and colleagues attending the discussion.

Contact:

Vanya Rakesh vanya@cis-india.org +919586572707
Amber Sinha amber@cis-india.org +919620180343

Agenda

Introduction 11:00 am - 11.30 am	Introduction about “Big Data in the Global South: Mitigating Harms” and “Big Data in Indian Governance”.
Digital India 11.30 am - 1:00 pm	Discussion Schemes under Digital India and how Big Data pertains to them Scale and nature of data being collected Actors involved Research Methodology and coding “Cradle to grave” identity Need for privacy legislation/data protection policies
1:00 pm- 2:00 pm	Lunch
Big Data and Smart Cities 2:00 pm - 3:30pm	Discussion Use/Assumptions about use of Big Data in Smart cities. Organisations/companies driving the use of Big Data in Governance in India The public dialogue around the scheme in the context of big data, rights, and governance Impact of Big Data on India's Data Protection Standards Impact of Big Data on other legislation/policy besides privacy . What type of 'legal hurdles' could Big Data pose? Need for creating regulatory/legal framework
3:30pm-4:00pm	Tea/Coffee

Detailed Agenda

Digital India

Scope of schemes under Digital India and how Big Data pertains to them

What are the ways in which Big Data is defined?
What aspects of Digital India initiatives pertain to Big Data?
What could be the harms/benefits of Big Data for Digital India?

Scale and nature of data being collected

What do the schemes intend to quantify?

Actors involved

What kinds of issue arise in PPP model?
Questions about ownership of data, access-control and security
Application of Section 43A rules to private parties involved

Research Methodology and coding

What the relevant questions that need to be asked in mapping each scheme?
How do we view e-governance initiatives vis-a-vis privacy principles?
What are the rights of citizens, and how are they impacted?

“Cradle to grave” identity

What does ‘cradle to grave’ digital identity mean?
What is the impact of using the Aadhaar number?

Need for privacy legislation/data protection policies

What aspects of the right to privacy pertain to the schemes?
Extending the Section 43A rules to government agencies
Justice Shah committee’s nine privacy principles.

Big Data and Smart Cities

Use/Assumptions about use of Big Data in Smart cities

What can be termed as big data in the context of smart cities.
What would be the role of big data.
Where do we see use/potential use of big data in the smart cities.

What bodies/companies are driving the use of Big Data in Governance in India?

Identifying actors involved.
Defining the role of: Government bodies, Private companies like IT Companies, consultants, etc. in use of big data. Clarity on ownership, storage, use, re-use, deletion of data. Question of accountability in case of breach/misuse.

What has been the public dialogue around a scheme in the context of big data, rights, and governance?

Weighing promises of big data.
Weighing challenges of big data.
Concerns around big data- data security, privacy, digital resilience of infrastructure, risks of identity management, Circumvention of democracy, social exclusion, right to equality, right to access, etc.
Issue of governance and implementation: role of SPVs.

How are India's data protection standards impacted by Big Data?

Need for developing standards.
Drawing from existing international standards.

Are there other legislation/policy besides privacy impacted by Big Data? what type of 'legal hurdles' could Big Data pose?

Legal landscaping: impact on current laws/policies/provisions.

Need for creating regulatory/legal framework?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/big-data-governance-india

Big Data in the Global South - An Analysis

tanvi — 2016-01-24T02:54:45Z

I. Introduction

"The period that we have embarked upon is unprecedented in history in terms of our ability to learn about human behavior." [1]

The world we live in today is facing a slow but deliberate metamorphosis of decisive information; from the erstwhile monopoly of world leaders and the captains of industry obtained through regulated means, it has transformed into a relatively undervalued currency of knowledge collected from individual digital expressions over a vast network of interconnected electrical impulses.[2] This seemingly random deluge of binary numbers, when interpreted represents an intricately woven tapestry of the choices that define everyday life, made over virtual platforms. The machines we once employed for menial tasks have become sensorial observers of our desires, wants and needs, so much so that they might now predict the course of our future choices and decisions.[3] The patterns of human behaviour that are reflected within this data inform policy makers, in both a public and private context. The collective data obtained from our digital shadows thus forms a rapidly expanding storehouse of memory, from which interested parties can draw upon to resolve problems and enable a more efficient functioning of foundational institutions, such as the markets, the regulators and the government.[4]

The term used to describe a large volume of collected data, in a structured as well as unstructured form is called Big Data. This data requires niche technology, outside of traditional software databases, to process; simply because of its exponential increment in a relatively short period of time. Big Data is usually identified using a "three V" characterization - larger volume, greater variety and distinguishably high rates of velocity. [5] This is exemplified in the diverse sources from which this data is obtained; mobile phone records, climate sensors, social media content, GPS satellite identifications and patterns of employment, to name a few. Big data analytics refers to the tools and methodologies that aim to transform large quantities of raw data into "interpretable data", in order to study and discern the same so that causal relationships between events can be conclusively established.[6] Such analysis could allow for the encouragement of the positive effects of such data and a concentrated mitigation of negative outcomes.

This paper seeks to map out the practices of different governments, civil society, and the private sector with respect to the collection, interpretation and analysis of big data in the global south, illustrated across a background of significant events surrounding the use of big data in relevant contexts. This will be combined with an articulation of potential opportunities to use big data analytics within both the public and private spheres and an identification of the contextual challenges that may obstruct the efficient use of this data. The objective of this study is to deliberate upon how significant obstructions to the achievement of developmental goals within the global south can be overcome through an accurate recognition, interpretation and analysis of big data collected from diverse sources.

II. Uses of Big Data in the Global Development

Big Data for development is the process though which raw, unstructured and imperfect data is analyzed, interpreted and transformed into information that can be acted upon by governments and policy makers in various capacities. The amount of digital data available in the world today has grown from 150 exabytes in 2005 to 1200 exabytes in 2010.[7] It is predicted that this figure would increase by 40% annually in the next few years[8], which is close to 40 times growth of the world's population. [9] The implication of this is essentially that the share of available data in the world today that is less than a minute old is increasing at an exponential rate. Moreover, an increasing percentage of this data is produced and created real-time.

The data revolution that is incumbent upon us is characterized by a rapidly accumulating and continuously evolving stock of data prevalent` in both industrialized as well as developing countries. This data is extracted from technological services that act as sensors and reflect the behaviour of individuals in relation to their socio-economic circumstances.

For many global south countries, this data is generated through mobile phone technology. This trend is evident in Sub Saharan Africa, where mobile phone technology has been used as an effective substitute for often weak and unstructured State mechanisms such as faulty infrastructure, underdeveloped systems of banking and inferior telecommunication networks.[10]

For example, a recent study presented at the Data for Development session at the NetMob Conference at MIT used mobile phone data to analyze the impact of opening a new toll highway in Dakar, Senegal on human mobility, particularly how people commute to work in the metropolitan area. ^{^[11]} A huge investment, the improved infrastructure is expected to result in a significant increase of people in and out of Dakar, along with the transport of essential goods. This would initiate rural development in the areas outside of Dakar and boost the value of land within the region.^{^[12]} The impact of the newly constructed highway can however only be analyzed effectively and accurately through the collection of this mobile phone data from actual commuters, on a real time basis.

Mobile phones technology is no longer used just for personal communication but has been transformed into an effective tool to secure employment opportunities, transfer money, determine stock options and assess the prices of various commodities.[13] This generates vast amounts of data about individuals and their interactions with the government and private sector companies. Internet Traffic is predicted to grow between 25 to 30 % in the next few years in North America, Western Europe and Japan but in Latin America, The Middle East and Africa this figure has been expected to touch close to 50%.[14] The bulk of this internet traffic can be traced back to mobile devices.

The potential applicability of Big Data for development at the most general level is the ability to provide an overview of the well being of a given population at a particular period of time.[15] This overcomes the relatively longer time lag that is prevalent with most other traditional forms of data collection. The analysis of this data has helped, to a large extent, uncover "digital smoke signals" - or inherent changes in the usage patterns of technological services, by individuals within communities.[16] This may act as an indicator of the changes in the underlying well-being of the community as a whole. This information about the well-being of a community derived from their usage of technology provides significantly relevant feedback to policy makers on the success or failure of particular schemes and can pin point changes that need to be made to status quo. [17]The hope is that this feedback delivered in real-time, would in turn lead to a more flexible and accessible system of international development, thus securing more measurable and sustained outcomes. [18]

The analysis of big data involves the use of advanced computational technology that can aid in the determination of trends, patterns and correlations within unstructured data so as to transform it into actionable information. It is hoped that this in addition to the human perspective and experience afforded to the process could enable decision makers to rely upon information that is both reliable and up to date to formulate durable and self-sustaining development policies.

The availability of raw data has to be adequately complemented with intent and a capacity to use it effectively. To this effect, there is an emerging volume of literature that seeks to characterize the primary sources of this Big Data as sharing certain easily distinguishable features. Firstly, it is digitally generated and can be stored in a binary format, thus making it susceptible to requisite manipulation by computers attempting to engage in its interpretation. It is passively produced as a by-product of digital interaction and can be automatically extracted for the purpose of continuous analysis. It is also geographically traceable within a predetermined time period. It is however important to note that "real time" does not necessarily refer to information occurring instantly but is reflective of the relatively short time in which the information is produced and made available thus making it relevant within the requisite timeframe. This allows efficient responsive action to be taken in a short span of time thus creating a feedback loop. [19]

In most cases the granularity of the data is preferably sought to be expanded over a larger spatial context such as a village or a community as opposed to an individual simply because this affords an adequate recognition of privacy concerns and the lack of definitive consent of the individuals in the extraction of this data. In order to ease the process of determination of this data, the UN Global Pulse has developed taxonomy of sorts to assess the types of data sources that are relevant to utilizing this information for development purposes.[20] These include the following sources;

Data Exhaust or the digital footprint left behind by individuals' use of technology for service oriented tasks such as web purchases, mobile phone transactions and real time information collected by UN agencies to monitor their projects such as levels of food grains in storage units, attendance in schools etc.

Online Information which includes user generated content on the internet such as news, blog entries and social media interactions which may be used to identify trends in human desires, perceptions and needs.

Physical sensors such as satellite or infrared imagery of infrastructural development, traffic patterns, light emissions and topographical changes, thus enabling the remote sensing of changes in human activity over a period of time.

Citizen reporting or crowd sourced data , which includes information produced on hotlines, mobile based surveys, customer generated maps etc. Although a passive source of data collection, this is a key instrument in assessing the efficacy of action oriented plans taken by decision makers.

The capacity to analyze this big data is hinged upon the reliance placed on technologically advanced processes such as powerful algorithms which can synthesize the abundance of raw data and break down the information enabling the identification of patterns and correlations. This process would rely on advanced visualization techniques such "sense-making tools"[21]

The identification of patterns within this data is carried out through a process of instituting a common framework for the analysis of this data. This requires the creation of a specific lexicon that would help tag and sort the collected data. This lexicon would specify what type of information is collected and who it is interpreted and collected by, the observer or the reporter. It would also aid in the determination of how the data is acquired and the qualitative and quantitative nature of the data. Finally, the spatial context of the data and the time frame within which it was collected constituting the aspects of where and when would be taken into consideration. The data would then be analyzed through a process of Filtering, Summarizing and Categorizing the data by transforming it into an appropriate collection of relevant indicators of a particular population demographic. [22]

The intensive mining of predominantly socioeconomic data is known as "reality mining" [23] and this can shed light on the processes and interactions that are reflected within the data. This is carried out via a tested three fold process. Firstly, the " Continuous Analysis over the streaming of the data", which involves the monitoring and analyzing high frequency data streams to extract often uncertain raw data. For example, the systematic gathering of the prices of products sold online over a period of time. Secondly, "The Online digestion of semi structured data and unstructured data", which includes news articles, reviews of services and products and opinion polls on social media that aid in the determination of public perception, trends and contemporary events that are generating interest across the globe. Thirdly, a 'Real-time Correlation of streaming data with slowly accessible historical data repositories,' which refers to the "mechanisms used for correlating and integrating data in real-time with historical records."[24] The purpose of this stage is to derive a contextualized perception of personalized information that seeks to add value to the data by providing a historical context to it. Big Data for development purposes would make use of a combination of these depending on the context and need.

(i) Policy Formulation

The world today has become increasingly volatile in terms of how the decisions of certain countries are beginning to have an impact on vulnerable communities within entirely different nations. Our global economy has become infinitely more susceptible to fluctuating conditions primarily because of its interconnectivity hinged upon transnational interdependence. The primordial instigators of most of these changes, including the nature of harvests, prices of essential commodities, employment structures and capital flows, have been financial and environmental disruptions. [25] According to the OECD, " Disruptive shocks to the global economy are likely to become more frequent and cause greater economic and social hardship. The economic spillover effects of events like the financial crisis or a potential pandemic will grow due to the increasing interconnectivity of the global economy and the speed with which people, goods and data travel."[26]

The local impacts of these fluctuations may not be easily visible or even traceable but could very well be severe and long lasting. A vibrant literature on the vulnerability of communities has highlighted the impacts of these shocks on communities often causing children to drop out of school, families to sell their productive assets, and communities to place a greater reliance on state rations.[27] These vulnerabilities cannot be definitively discerned through traditional systems of monitoring and information collection. The evidence of the effects of these shocks often take too long to reach decision makers; who are unable to formulate effective policies without ascertaining the nature and extent of the hardships suffered by these in a given context. The existing early warning systems in place do help raise flags and draw attention to the problem but their reach is limited and veracity compromised due to the time it takes to extract and collate this information through traditional means. These traditional systems of information collection are difficult to implement within rural impoverished areas and the data collected is not always reliable due to the significant time gap in its collection and subsequent interpretation. Data collected from surveys does provide an insight into the state of affairs of communities across demographics but this requires time to be collected, processed, verified and eventually published. Further, the expenses incurred in this process often prove to be difficult to offset.

The digital revolution therefore provides a significant opportunity to gain a richer and deeper insight into the very nature and evolution of the human experience itself thus affording a more legitimate platform upon which policy deliberations can be articulated. This data driven decision making, once the monopoly of private institutions such as The World Economic Forum and The McKinsey Institute [28] has now emerged at the forefront of the public policy discourse. Civil society has also expressed an eagerness to be more actively involved in the collection of real-time data after having perceived its benefits. This is evidenced by the emergence of 'crowd sourcing'[29] and other 'participatory sensing' [30] efforts that are founded upon the commonalities shared by like minded communities of individuals. This is being done on easily accessible platforms such as mobile phone interfaces, hand-held radio devices and geospatial technologies. [31]

The predictive nature of patterns identifiable from big data is extremely relevant for the purpose of developing socio-economic policies that seek to bridge problem-solution gaps and create a conducive environment for growth and development. Mobile phone technology has been able to quantify human behavior on an unprecedented scale.[32] This includes being able to detect changes in standard commuting patterns of individuals based on their employment status[33] and estimating a country's GDP in real-time by measuring the nature and extent of light emissions through remote sensing. [34]

A recent research study has concluded that "due to the relative frequency of certain queries being highly correlated with the percentage of physician visits in which individuals present influenza symptoms, it has been possible to accurately estimate the levels of influenza activity in each region of the United States, with a reporting lag of just a day." Online data has thus been used as a part of syndromic surveillance efforts also known as infodemiology. [35] The US Centre for Disease Control has concluded that mining vast quantities of data through online health related queries can help detect disease outbreaks " before they have been confirmed through a diagnosis or a laboratory confirmation." [36] Google trends works in a similar way.

Another public health monitoring system known as the Healthmap project compiles seemingly fragmented data from news articles, social media, eye-witness reports and expert discussions based on validated studies to "achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases" that may be visualized on a map. [37]

Big Data used for development purpose can reduce the reliance on human inputs thus narrowing the room for error and ensuring the accuracy of information collected upon which policy makers can base their decisions.

(ii) Advocacy and Social Change

Due to the ability of Big Data to provide an unprecedented depth of detail on particular issues, it has often been used as a vehicle of advocacy to highlight various issues in great detail. This makes it possible to ensure that citizens are provided with a far more participative experience, capturing their attention and hence better communicating these problems. Numerous websites have been able to use this method of crowd sourcing to broadcast socially relevant issues[38]. Moreover, the massive increase in access to the internet has dramatically improved the scope for activism through the use of volunteered data due to which advocates can now collect data from volunteers more effectively and present these issues in various forums. Websites like Ushahidi[39] and the Black Monday Movement [40] being prime examples of the same. These platforms have championed various causes, consistently exposing significant social crises' that would otherwise go unnoticed.

The Ushahidi application used crowd sourcing mechanisms in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake to set up a centralized messaging system that allowed mobile phone users to provide information on injured and trapped people.[41] An analysis of the data showed that the concentration of text messages was correlated with the areas where there was an increased concentration of damaged buildings. [42] Patrick Meier of Ushahidi noted "These results were evidence of the system's ability to predict, with surprising accuracy and statistical significance, the location and extent of structural damage post the earthquake." [43]

Another problem that data advocacy hopes to tackle, however, is that of too much exposure, with advocates providing information to various parties to help ensure that there exists no unwarranted digital surveillance and that sensitive advocacy tools and information are not used inappropriately. An interesting illustration of the same is The Tactical Technology Collective[44] that hopes to improve the use of technology by activists and various other political actors. The organization, through various mediums such as films, events etc. hopes to train activists regarding data protection and privacy awareness and skills among human rights activists. Additionally, Tactical Technology also assists in ensuring that information is used in an appealing and relevant manner by human rights activists and in the field of capacity building for the purposes of data advocacy.

Observed data such as mobile phone records generated through network operators as well as through the use of social media are beginning to embody an omnipotent role in the development of academia through detailed research. This is due to the ability of this data to provide microcosms of information within both contexts of finer granularity and over larger public spaces. In the wake of natural disasters, this can be extremely useful, as reflected by the work of Flowminder after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[45] A similar string of interpretive analysis can be carried out in instances of conflict and crises over varying spans of time. Flowminder used the geospatial locations of 1.9 million subscriber identity modules in Haiti, beginning 42 days before the earthquake and 158 days after it. This information allowed researches to empirically determine the migration patterns of population post the earthquake and enabled a subsequent UNFPA household survey.[46] In a similar capacity, the UN Global Pulse is seeking to assist in the process of consultation and deliberation on the specific targets of the millennium development goals through a framework of visual analytics that represent the big data procured on each of the topics proposed for the post- 2015 agenda online.[47]

A recent announcement of collaboration between RTI International, a non-profit research organization and IBM research lab looks promising in its initiative to utilize big data analytics in schools within Mombasa County, Kenya.[48] The partnership seeks to develop testing systems that would capture data that would assist governments, non-profit organizations and private enterprises in making more informed decisions regarding the development of education and human resources within the region. Äs observed by Dr. Kamal Bhattacharya, The Vice President of IBM Research, "A significant lack of data on Africa in the past has led to misunderstandings regarding the history, economic performance and potential of the government." The project seeks to improve transparency and accountability within the schooling system in more than 100 institutions across the county. The teachers would be equipped with tablet devices to collate the data about students, classrooms and resources. This would allow an analysis of the correlation between the three aspects thus enabling better policy formulation and a more focused approach to bettering the school system. [49] This is a part of the United States Agency for International Development's Education Data for Decision Making (EdData II) project. According to Dr Kommy Weldemariam, Research Scientist , IBM Research, "… there has been a significant struggle in making informed decisions as to how to invest in and improve the quality and content of education within Sub-Saharan Africa. The Project would create a school census hub which would enable the collection of accurate data regarding performance, attendance and resources at schools. This would provide valuable insight into the building of childhood development programs that would significantly impact the development of an efficient human capital pool in the near future."[50]

A similar initiative has been undertaken by Apple and IBM in the development of the "Student Achievement App" which seeks to use this data for "content analysis of student learning". The Application as a teaching tool that analyses the data provided to develop actionable intelligence on a per-student basis." [51] This would give educators a deeper understanding of the outcome of teaching methodologies and subsequently enable better leaning. The impact of this would be a significant restructuring of how education is delivered. At a recent IBM sponsored workshop on education held in India last year , Katharine Frase, IBM CTO of Public Sector predicted that "classrooms will look significantly different within a decade than they have looked over the last 200 years."[52]

(iii) Access and the exchange of information

Big data used for development serves as an important information intermediary that allows for the creation of a unified space within which unstructured heterogeneous data can be efficiently organized to create a collaborative system of information. New interactive platforms enable the process of information exchange though an internal vetting and curation that ensures accessibility to reliable and accurate information. This encourages active citizen participation in the articulation of demands from the government, thus enabling the actualization of the role of the electorate in determining specific policy decisions.

The Grameen Foundation's AppLab in Kampala aids in the development of tools that can use the information from micro financing transactions of clients to identify financial plans and instruments that would be be more suitable to their needs.[53] Thus, through working within a community, this technology connects its clients in a web of information sharing that they both contribute to and access after the source of the information has been made anonymous. This allows the individual members of the community to benefit from this common pool of knowledge. The AppLab was able to identify the emergence of a new crop pest from an increase in online searches for an unusual string of search terms within a particular region. Using this as an early warning signal, the Grameen bank sent extension officers to the location to check the crops and the pest contamination was dealt with effectively before it could spread any further.[54]

(iv) Accountability and Transparency

Big data enables participatory contributions from the electorate in existing functions such as budgeting and communication thus enabling connections between the citizens, the power brokers and elites. The extraction of information and increasing transparency around data networks is also integral to building a self-sustaining system of data collection and analysis. However it is important to note that this information collected must be duly analyzed in a responsible manner. Checking the veracity of the information collected and facilitating individual accountability would encourage more enthusiastic responses from the general populous thus creating a conducive environment to elicit the requisite information. The effectiveness of the policies formulated by relying on this information would rest on the accuracy of such information.

An example of this is Chequeado, a non-profit Argentinean media outlet that specializes in fact-checking. It works on a model of crowd sourcing information on the basis of which it has fact checked everything from the live presidential speech to congressional debates that have been made open to the public. [55] It established a user friendly public database, DatoCHQ, in 2014 which allowed its followers to participate in live fact-checks by sending in data, which included references, facts, articles and questions, through twitter. [56] This allowed citizens to corroborate the promises made by their leaders and instilled a sense of trust in the government.

III. Big Data and Smart Cities in the Global South

Smart cities have become a buzzword in South Asia, especially after the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a commitment to build 100 smart cities in India[57]. A smart city is essentially designed as a hub where the information and communication technologies (ICT) are used to create feedback loops with an almost minimum time gap. In traditional contexts, surveys carried out through a state sponsored census were the only source of systematic data collection. However these surveys are long drawn out processes that often result in a drain on State resources. Additionally, the information obtained is not always accurate and policy makers are often hesitant to base their decisions on this information. The collection of data can however be extremely useful in improving the functionality of the city in terms of both the 'hard' or physical aspects of the infrastructural environment as well as the 'soft' services it provides to citizens. One model of enabling this data collection, to this effect, is a centrally structured framework of sensors that may be able to determine movements and behaviors in real-time, from which the data obtained can be subsequently analyzed. For example, sensors placed under parking spaces at intersections can relay such information in short spans of time. South Korea has managed to implement a similar structure within its smart city, Songdo.[58]

Another approach to this smart city model is using crowd sourced information through apps, either developed by volunteers or private conglomerates. These allow for the resolving of specific problems by organizing raw data into sets of information that are attuned to the needs of the public in a cohesive manner. However, this system would require a highly structured format of data sets, without which significantly transformational result would be difficult to achieve.[59]

There does however exist a middle ground, which allows the beneficiaries of this network, the citizens, to take on the role of primary sensors of information. This method is both cost effective and allows for an experimentation process within which an appropriate measure of the success or failure of the model would be discernible in a timely manner. It is especially relevant in fast growing cities that suffer congestion and breakdown of infrastructure due to the unprecedented population growth. This population is now afforded with the opportunity to become a part of the solution.

The principle challenge associated with extracting this Big Data is its restricted access. Most organizations that are able to collect this big data efficiently are private conglomerates and business enterprises, who use this data to give themselves a competitive edge in the market, by being able to efficiently identify the needs and wants of their clientele. These organizations are reluctant to release information and statistics because they fear it would result in them losing their competitive edge and they would consequently lose the opportunity to benefit monetarily from the data collected. Data leaks would also result in the company getting a bad name and its reputation could be significantly hampered. Despite the individual anonymity, the transaction costs incurred in ensuring the data of their individual customers is protected is often an expensive process. In addition to this there is a definite human capital gap resulting from the significant lack of scientists and analysts to interpret raw data transmitted across various channels.

(i) Big Data in Urban Planning

Urban planning would require data that is reflective of the land use patterns of communities, combined with their travel descriptions and housing preferences. The mobility of individuals is dependent on their economic conditions and can be determined through an analysis of their purchases, either via online transactions or from the data accumulated by prominent stores. The primary source of this data is however mobile phones, which seemed to have transcend economic barriers. Secondary sources include cards used on public transport such as the Oyster card in London and the similar Octopus card used in Hong Kong. However, in most developing countries these cards are not available for public transport systems and therefore mobile network data forms the backbone of data analytics. An excessive reliance on the data collected through Smart phones could however be detrimental, especially in developing countries, simply because the usage itself would most likely be concentrated amongst more economically stable demographics and the findings from this data could potentially marginalize the poor.[60]

Mobile network big data (MNBD) is generated by all phones and includes CDRs, which are obtained from calls or texts that are sent or received, internet usage, topping up a prepaid value and VLR or Visitor Location Registry data which is generated whenever the phone is question has power. It essentially communicates to the Base Transceiver Stations (BSTs) that the phone is in the coverage area. The CDR includes records of calls made, duration of the call and information about the device. It is therefore stored for a longer period of time. The VLR data is however larger in volume and can be written over. Both VLR and CDR data can provide invaluable information that can be used for urban planning strategies. [61] LIRNEasia, a regional policy and regulation think-tank has carried out an extensive study demonstrating the value of MNBD in SriLanka.[62] This has been used to understand and sometimes even monitor land use patterns, travel patterns during peak and off seasons and the congregation of communities across regions. This study was however only undertaken after the data had been suitably pseudonymised.[63] The study revealed that MNBD was incredibly valuable in generating important information that could be used by policy formulators and decision makers, because of two primary characteristics. Firstly, it comes close to a comprehensive coverage of the demographic within developing countries, thus using mobile phones as sensors to generate useful data. Secondly, people using mobile phones across vast geographic areas reflect important information regarding patterns of their travel and movement. [64]

MNBD allows for the tracking and mapping of changes in population densities on a daily basis, thus identifying 'home' and 'work' locations, informing policy makers of population congestion so that thy may be able to formulate policies with respect to easing this congestion. According to Rohan Samarajiva, founding chair of LIRNEasia, "This allows for real-time insights on the geo-spatial distribution of population, which may be used by urban planners to create more efficient traffic management systems."^{^[65]} This can also be used for the developmental economic policies. For example, the northern region of Colombo, a region inhabited by the low income families shows a lower population density on weekdays. This is reflective of the large numbers travelling to southern Colombo for employment. ^{^[66]}Similarly, patterns of land use can be ascertained by analyzing the various loading patterns of base stations. Building on the success of the Mobile Data analysis project in SriLanka LIRNEasia plans to collaborate with partners in India and Bangladesh to assimilate real time information about the behavioral tendencies of citizens, using which policy makers may be able to make informed decisions. When this data is combined with user friendly virtual platforms such as smartphone Apps or web portals, it can also help citizens make informed choices about their day to day activities and potentially beneficial long term decisions. ^{^[67]}

Challenges of using Mobile Network Data

Mobile networks invest significant sums of money in obtaining information regarding usage patterns of their services. Consequently, they may use this data to develop location based advertizing. In this context, there is a greater reluctance to share data for public purposes. Allowing access to one operator's big data by another could result in significant implications on the other with respect to the competitive advantage shared by the operator. A plausible solution to this conundrum is the accumulation of data from multiple sources without separating or organizing it according to the source it originates from. There is thus a lesser chance of sensitive information of one company being used by another. However, even operators do have concerns about how the data would be handled before this "mashing up" occurs and whether it might be leaked by the research organization itself. LIRNEasia used comprehensive non-disclosure agreements to ensure that the researchers who worked with the data were aware of the substantial financial penalties that may be imposed on them for data breaches. The access to the data was also restricted. [68]

Another line of argumentation advocates for the open sharing of data. A recent article in the Economist has articulated this in the context of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. " Releasing the data, though, is not just a matter for firms since people's privacy is involved. It requires governmental action as well. Regulators in each affected country would have to order operators to make their records accessible to selected researchers, who through legal agreements would only be allowed to use the data in a specific manner. For example, Orange, a major mobile phone network operator has made millions of CDRs from Senegal and The Ivory Coast available for researchers for their use under its Data Development Initiative. However the Political will amongst regulators and Network operators to do this seems to be lacking."[69]

It would therefore be beneficial for companies to collaborate with the customers who create the data and the researchers who want to use it to extract important insights. This however would require the creation of and subsequent adherence to self regulatory codes of conduct. [70] In addition to this cooperation between network operators will assist in facilitating the transference of the data of their customers to research organizations. Sri Lanka is an outstanding example of this model of cooperation which has enabled various operators across spectrums to participate in the mobile-money enterprise.[71]

(ii) Big Data and Government Delivery of Services and Functions

The analysis of Data procured in real time has proven to be integral to the formulation of policies, plans and executive decisions. Especially in an Asian context, Big data can be instrumental in urban development, planning and the allocation of resources in a manner that allows the government to keep up with the rapidly growing demands of an empowered population whose numbers are on an exponential rise. Researchers have been able to use data from mobile networks to engage in effective planning and management of infrastructure, services and resources. If, for example, a particular road or highway has been blocked for a particular period of time an alternative route is established before traffic can begin to build up creating a congestion, simply through an analysis of information collected from traffic lights, mobile networks and GPS systems.[72]

There is also an emerging trend of using big data for state controlled services such as the military. The South Korean Defense Minister Han Min Koo, in his recent briefing to President Park Geun-hye reflected on the importance of innovative technologies such as Big Data solutions. [73]

The Chinese government has expressed concerns regarding data breaches and information leakages that would be extremely dangerous given the exceeding reliance of governments on big data. A security report undertaken by Qihoo 360, China's largest software security provider established that 2,424 of the 17,875 Web security loopholes were on government websites. Considering the blurring line between government websites and external networks, it has become all the more essential for authorities to boost their cyber security protections.[74]

The Japanese government has considered investing resources in training more data scientists who may be able to analyze the raw data obtained from various sources and utilize requisite techniques to develop an accurate analysis. The Internal Affairs and Communication Ministry planned to launch a free online course on big data, the target of which would be corporate workers as well as government officials.[75]

Data analytics is emerging as an efficient technique of monitoring the public transport management systems within Singapore. A recent collaboration between IBM, StarHub, The Land Transport Authority and SMRT initiated a research study to observe the movement of commuters across regions. ^{^[76]} This has been instrumental in revamping the data collection systems already in place and has allowed for the procurement of additional systems of monitoring.^{^[77]} The idea is essentially to institute a "black box" of information for every operational unit that allows for the relaying of real-time information from sources as varied as power switches, tunnel sensors and the wheels, through assessing patterns of noise and vibration. ^{^[78]}

In addition to this there are numerous projects in place that seek to utilize Big Data to improve city life. According to Carlo Ritti, Director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, "We are now able to analyze the pulse of a city from moment to moment. Over the past decade, digital technologies have begun to blanket our cities, forming the backbone of a large, intelligent infrastructure." ^{^[79]} The professor of Information Architecture and Founding Director of the Singapore ETH Centre, Gerhart Schmitt has observed that "the local weather has a major impact on the behavior of a population." In this respect the centre is engaged in developing a range of visual platforms to inform citizens on factors such as air quality which would enable individuals to make everyday choices such as what route to take when planning a walk or predict a traffic jam. ^{^[80]} Schmitt's team has also been able to arrive at a pattern that connects the demand for taxis with the city's climate. The amalgamation of taxi location with rainfall data has been able to help locals hail taxis during a storm. This form of data can be used in multiple ways allowing the visualization of temperature hotspots based on a "heat island" effect where buildings, cars and cooling units cause a rise in temperature. ^{^[81]}

Microsoft has recently entered into a partnership with the Federal University of Minas Gerais, one of the largest universities in Brazil to undertake a research project that could potentially predict traffic jams up to an hour in advance. ^{^[82]} The project attempts to analyze information from transport departments, road traffic cameras and drivers social network profiles to identify patterns that they could use to help predict traffic jams approximately 15 to 60 minutes before they actually happen.^{^[83]}

In anticipation of the increasing demand for professionals with requisite training in data sciences, the Malaysian Government has planned to increase the number of local data scientists from the present 80 to 1500 by 2020, through the support of the universities within the country.

IV. Big Data and the Private Sector in the Global South

Essential considerations in the operations of Big Data in the Private sector in the Asia Pacific region have been extracted by a comprehensive survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit.[84] Over 500 executives across the Asia Pacific region were surveyed, from across industries representing a diverse range of functions. 69% of these companies had an annual turnover of over US $500m. The respondents were senior managers responsible for taking key decisions with regard to investment strategies and the utilization of big data for the same.

The results of the Survey conclusively determined that firms in the Asia Pacific region have had limited success with implementing Big Data Practices. A third of the respondents claimed to have an advanced knowledge of the utilization of big data while more than half claim to have made limited progress in this regard. Only 9% of the Firms surveyed cited internal barriers to implementing big data practices. This included a significant difficulty in enabling the sharing of information across boundaries. Approximately 40% of the respondents surveyed claimed they were unaware of big data strategies, even if they had in fact been in place simply because these had been poorly communicated to them. Almost half of the firms however believed that big data plays an important role in the success of the firm and that it can contribute to increasing revenue by 25% or more.

Numerous obstacles in the adoption of big data were cited by the respondents. These include the lack of suitable software to interpret the data and the lack of in-house skills to analyze the data appropriately. In addition to this, the lack of willingness on the part of various departments to share their data for the fear of a breach or leak was thought to be a major hindrance. This combined with a lack of communication between the various departments and exceedingly complicated reports that cannot be analyzed given the limited resources and lack of human capital qualified enough to carry out such an analysis, has resulted in an indefinite postponement of any policy propounding the adoption of big data practices.

Over 59% of the firms surveyed agreed that collaboration is integral to innovation and that information silos are a huge hindrance within a knowledge based economy. There is also a direct correlation between the size of the company and its progress in adopting big data, with larger firms adopting comprehensive strategies more frequently than smaller ones. A major reason for this is that large firms with substantially greater resources are able to actualize the benefits of big data analytics more efficiently than firms with smaller revenues. These businesses which have advanced policies in place outlining their strategies with respect to their reliance on big data are also more likely to communicate these strategies to their employees to ensure greater clarity in the process.

The use of big data was recently voted as the "best management practice" of the past year according to a cumulative ranking published by Chief Executive China Magazine, a Trade journal published by Global Sources on 13th January, 2015 in Beijing. The major benefit cited was the real-time information sourced from customers, which allows for direct feedback from clients when making decisions regarding changes in products or services. [85]

A significant contributor to the lack of adequate usage of data analytics is the belief that a PhD is a prerequisite for entering the field of data science. This misconception was pointed out by Richard Jones, vice president of Cloudera in the Australia, New Zealand and the Asean region. Cloudera provides businesses with the requisite professional services that they may need to effectively utilize Big Data. This includes a combination of the necessary manpower, technology and consultancy services.^{^[86]} Deepak Ramanathan, the chief technology officer, SAS Asia Pacific believes that this skill gap can be addressed by forming data science teams within both governments and private enterprises. These teams could comprise of members with statistical, coding and business skills and allow them to work in a collaborative manner to address the problem at hand.^{^[87]} SAS is an Enterprise Software Giant that creates tools tailored to suit business users to help them interpret big data. Eddie Toh, the planning and marketing manager of Intel's data center platform believes that businesses do not necessarily need data scientists to be able to use big data analytics to their benefit and can in fact outsource the technical aspects of the interpretation of this data as and when required.^{^[88]}

The analytical team at Dell has forged a partnership with Brazilian Public Universities to facilitate the development of a local talent pool in the field of data analytics. The Instituto of Data Science (IDS) will provide training methodologies for in person or web based classes. ^{^[89]} The project is being undertaken by StatSoft, a subsidiary of Dell that was acquired by the technology giant last year. ^{^[90]}

V. Conclusion

There have emerged numerous challenges in the analysis and interpretation of Big Data. While it presents an extremely engaging opportunity, which has the potential to transform the lives of millions of individuals, inform the private sector and influence government, the actualization of this potential requires the creation of a sustainable foundational framework ; one that is able to mitigate the various challenges that present themselves in this context.

A colossal increase in the rate of digitization has resulted in an unprecedented increment in the amount of Big Data available, especially through the rapid diffusion cellular technology. The importance of mobile phones as a significant source of data, especially in low income demographics cannot be overstated. This can be used to understand the needs and behaviors of large populations, providing an in depth insight into the relevant context within which valuable assessments as to the competencies, suitability and feasibilities of various policy mechanisms and legal instruments can be made. However, this explosion of data does have a lasting impact on how individuals and organizations interact with each other, which might not always be reflected in the interpretation of raw data without a contextual understanding of the demographic. It is therefore vital to employ the appropriate expertise in assessing and interpreting this data. The significant lack of a human resource to capital to analyze this information in an accurate manner poses a definite challenge to its effective utilization in the Global South.

The legal and technological implications of using Big Data are best conceptualized within the deliberations on protecting the privacy of the contributors to this data. The primary producers of this information, from across platforms, are often unaware that they are in fact consenting to the subsequent use of the data for purposes other than what was intended. For example people routinely accept terms and conditions of popular applications without understanding where or how the data that they inadvertently provide will be used.[91] This is especially true of media generated on social networks that are increasingly being made available on more accessible platforms such as mobile phones and tablets. Privacy has and always will remain an integral pillar of democracy. It is therefore essential that policy makers and legislators respond effectively to possible compromises of privacy in the collection and interpretation of this data through the institution of adequate safeguards in this respect.

Another challenge that has emerged is the access and sharing of this data. Private corporations have been reluctant to share this data due to concerns about potential competitors being able to access and utilize the same. In addition to this, legal considerations also prevent the sharing of data collected from their customers or users of their services. The various technical challenges in storing and interpreting this data adequately also prove to be significant impediments in the collection of data. It is therefore important that adequate legal agreements be formulated in order to facilitate a reliable access to streams of data as well as access to data storage facilities to accommodate for retrospective analysis and interpretation.

In order for the use of Big Data to gain traction, it is important that these challenges are addressed in an efficient manner with durable and self-sustaining mechanisms of resolving significant obstructions. The debates and deliberations shaping the articulation of privacy concerns and access to such data must be supported with adequate tools and mechanisms to ensure a system of "privacy-preserving analysis." The UN Global Pulse has put forth the concept of data philanthropy to attempt to resolve these issues, wherein " corporations [would] take the initiative to anonymize (strip out all personal information) their data sets and provide this data to social innovators to mine the data for insights, patterns and trends in realtime or near realtime."[92]

The concept of data philanthropy highlights particular challenges and avenues that may be considered for future deliberations that may result in specific refinements to the process.

One of the primary uses of Big Data, especially in developing countries is to address important developmental issues such as the availability of clean water, food security, human health and the conservation of natural resources. Effective Disaster management has also emerged as one of the key functions of Big Data. It therefore becomes all the more important for organizations to assess the information supply chains pertaining to specific data sources in order to identify and prioritize the issues of data management. [93] Data emerging from different contexts, across different sources may appear in varied compositions and would differ significantly across economic demographics. The Big Data generated from certain contexts would be inefficient due to the unavailability of data within certain regions and the resulting studies affecting policy decisions should take into account this discrepancy. This data unavailability has resulted in a digital divide which is especially prevalent in the global south. [94]

Appropriate analysis of the Big Data generated would provide a valuable insight into the key areas and inform policy makers with respect to important decisions. However, it is necessary to ensure that the quality of this data meets a specific standard and appropriate methodological processes have been undertaken to interpret and analyze this data. The government is a key actor that can shape the ecosystem surrounding the generation, analysis and interpretation of big data. It is therefore essential that governments of countries across the global south recognize the need to collaborate with civic organizations as well technical experts in order to create appropriate legal frameworks for the effective utilization of this data.

[1] Onella, Jukka- Pekka. "Social Networks and Collective Human Behavior." UN Global Pulse. 10 Nov.2011. <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/node/14539>

[2] http://www.business2community.com/big-data/evaluating-big-data-predictive-analytics-01277835

[3] Ibid

[4] http://unglobalpulse.org/sites/default/files/BigDataforDevelopment-UNGlobalPulseJune2012.pdf

[5] Ibid, p.13, pp.5

[6] Kirkpatrick, Robert. "Digital Smoke Signals." UN Global Pulse. 21 Apr. 2011. <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/blog/digital-smoke-signals>

[7] Helbing, Dirk , and Stefano Balietti. "From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crises." Arxiv (2011) 1-66. 26 Jul 2011 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.0178v5.pdf.

[8] Manyika, James, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh andAngela H. Byers. "Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity." McKinsey

Global Institute (2011): 1-137. May 2011.

[9] "World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision." United Nations Development Programme. <http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm>

[10] Mobile phone penetration, measured by Google, from the number of mobile phones per 100 habitants, was 96% in Botswana, 63% in Ghana, 66% in Mauritania, 49% in Kenya, 47% in Nigeria, 44% in Angola, 40% in Tanzania (Source: Google Fusion Tables)

[11] http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2015/04/23-big-data-mobile-phone-highway-sy

[12] Ibid

[13] <http://www.google.com/fusiontables/Home/>

[14] "Global Internet Usage by 2015 [Infographic]." Alltop. <http://holykaw.alltop.com/global-internetusage-by-2015-infographic?tu3=1>

[15] Kirkpatrick, Robert. "Digital Smoke Signals." UN Global Pulse. 21 Apr. 2011 <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/blog/digital-smoke-signals>

[16] Ibid

[17] Ibid

[18] Ibid

[19] Goetz, Thomas. "Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 19 June 2011. <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/all/1>.

[20] Kirkpatrick, Robert. "Digital Smoke Signals." UN Global Pulse. 21 Apr. 2011. <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/blog/digital-smoke-signals>

[21] Bollier, David. The Promise and Peril of Big Data. The Aspen Institute, 2010. <http://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/promise-peril-big-data>

[22] Ibid

[23] Eagle, Nathan and Alex (Sandy) Pentland. "Reality Mining: Sensing Complex Social Systems",Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 10.4 (2006): 255-268.

[24] Kirkpatrick, Robert. "Digital Smoke Signals." UN Global Pulse. 21 Apr. 2011. <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/blog/digital-smoke-signals>

[25] OECD, Future Global Shocks, Improving Risk Governance, 2011

[26] "Economy: Global Shocks to Become More Frequent, Says OECD." Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development. 27 June. 2011.

[27] Friedman, Jed, and Norbert Schady. How Many More Infants Are Likely to Die in Africa as a Result of the Global Financial Crisis? Rep. The World Bank <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/AfricaIMR_FriedmanSchady_060209.pdf>

[28] Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity. McKinsey Global Institute,June 2011<http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/big_data/pdfs/MGI_big_data_full_report.pdf>

[29] The word "crowdsourcing" refers to the use of non-official actors ("the crowd") as (free) sources of information, knowledge and services, in reference and opposition to the commercial practice of

outsourcing. "

[30] Burke, J., D. Estrin, M. Hansen, A. Parker, N. Ramanthan, S. Reddy and M.B. Srivastava. ParticipatorySensing. Rep. Escholarship, University of California, 2006. <http://escholarship.org/uc/item/19h777qd>.

[31] "Crisis Mappers Net-The international Network of Crisis Mappers." <http://crisismappers.net>, http://haiti.ushahidi.com and Goldman et al., 2009

[32] Alex Pentland cited in "When There's No Such Thing As Too Much Information". The New York Times.23 Apr. 2011<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/business/24unboxed.html?_r=1&src=tptw>.

[33] Nathan Eagle also cited in "When There's No Such Thing As Too Much Information". The New YorkTimes. 23 Apr. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/business/24unboxed.html?_r=1&src=tptw>.

[34] Helbing and Balietti. "From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis."

[35] Eysenbach G. Infodemiology: tracking flu-related searches on the Web for syndromic surveillance.AMIA (2006)<http://yi.com/home/EysenbachGunther/publications/2006/eysenbach2006cinfodemiologyamia proc.pdf>

[36] Syndromic Surveillance (SS)." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 06 Mar. 2012.<http://www.cdc.gov/ehrmeaningfuluse/Syndromic.html>.

[37] Health Map <http://healthmap.org/en/>

[38] see www.detective.io

[39] www.ushahidi.com

[40] www.facebook.com/BlackMondayMovement

[41] Ushahidi is a nonprofit tech company that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya followingthe 2007 post-election fallout. Ushahidi specializes in developing "free and open source software for

information collection, visualization and interactive mapping." <http://ushahidi.com>

[42] Conducted by the European Commission's Joint Research Center against data on damaged buildingscollected by the World Bank and the UN from satellite images through spatial statistical techniques.

[43] www.ushahidi.com

[44] See https://tacticaltech.org/

[45] see www. flowminder.org

[46] Ibid

[47] http://post2015.unglobalpulse.net/

[48] http://allafrica.com/stories/201507151726.html

[49] Ibid

[50] Ibid

[51] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2948226/big-data/opinion-apple-and-ibm-have-big-data-plans-for-education.html

[52] Ibid

[53] http://www.grameenfoundation.org/where-we-work/sub-saharan-africa/uganda

[54] Ibid

[55] http://chequeado.com/

[56] http://datochq.chequeado.com/

[57] Times of India (2015): "Chandigarh May Become India's First Smart City," 12 January, http://timesofi ndia.indiatimes.com/india/Chandigarh- may-become-Indias-fi rst-smart-city/articleshow/ 45857738.cms

[58] http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/scc/ioe_citizen_svcs_white_paper_idc_2013.pdf

[59] Townsend, Anthony M (2013): Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers and the Quest for a New Utopia, New York: WW Norton.

[60] See "Street Bump: Help Improve Your Streets" on Boston's mobile app to collect data on roadconditions, http://www.cityofboston.gov/DoIT/ apps/streetbump.asp

[61] Mayer-Schonberger, V and K Cukier (2013): Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, London: John Murray.

[62] http://www.epw.in/review-urban-affairs/big-data-improve-urban-planning.html

[63] Ibid

[64] Newman, M E J and M Girvan (2004): "Finding and Evaluating Community Structure in Networks,"Physical Review E, American Physical Society, Vol 69, No 2.

[65] http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150412/sunday-times-2/big-data-can-make-south-asian-cities-smarter-144237.html

[66] Ibid

[67] Ibid

[68] http://www.epw.in/review-urban-affairs/big-data-improve-urban-planning.html

[69] GSMA (2014): "GSMA Guidelines on Use of Mobile Data for Responding to Ebola," October, http:// www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wpcontent/ uploads/2014/11/GSMA-Guidelineson-

protecting-privacy-in-the-use-of-mobilephone- data-for-responding-to-the-Ebola-outbreak-_ October-2014.pdf

[70] An example of the early-stage development of a self-regulatory code may be found at http:// lirneasia.net/2014/08/what-does-big-data-sayabout- sri-lanka/

[71] See "Sri Lanka's Mobile Money Collaboration Recognized at MWC 2015," http://lirneasia. net/2015/03/sri-lankas-mobile-money-colloboration- recognized-at-mwc-2015/

[72] http://www.thedailystar.net/big-data-for-urban-planning-57593

[73] http://koreaherald.com , 19/01/2015

[74] http://www.news.cn/, 25/11/2014

[75] http://the-japan-news.com , 20/01/2015

[76] http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/can-big-data-help-tackle-mrt-woes

[77] Ibid

[78] Ibid

[79] http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/24/tech/big-data-urban-life-singapore/

[80] Ibid

[81] Ibid

[82] http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/03/how-microsofts-using-big-data-to-predict-traffic-jams-up-to-an-hour-in-advance/

[83] Ibid

[84] https://www.hds.com/assets/pdf/the-hype-and-the-hope-summary.pdf

[85] http://www.news.cn , 14/01/2015

[86] http://www.techgoondu.com/2015/06/29/plugging-the-big-data-skills-gap/

[87] Ibid

[88] Ibid

[89] http://www.zdnet.com/article/dell-to-create-big-data-skills-in-brazil/

[90] Ibid

[91] Efrati, Amir. "'Like' Button Follows Web Users." The Wall Street Journal. 18 May 2011.

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281504576329441432995616.html>

[92] Krikpatrick, Robert. "Data Philanthropy: Public and Private Sector Data Sharing for Global Resilience."

UN Global Pulse. 16 Sept. 2011. <http://www.unglobalpulse.org/blog/data-philanthropy-public-privatesector-data-sharing-global-resilience>

[93] Laney D (2001) 3D data management: Controlling data volume, velocity and variety. Available at: http://blogs. gartner.com/doug-laney/files/2012/01/ad949-3D-DataManagement-Controlling-Data-Volume-Velocity-andVariety.pdf

[94] Boyd D and Crawford K (2012) Critical questions for Big Data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication, & Society 15(5): 662-679.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-in-the-global-south-an-analysis

Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:41:13Z

The Centre of Internet and Society (CIS) in association with Observer Research Foundation, and IT For Change in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce a roundtable on ‘Network Neutrality Regulation Across South Asia: Aspects of Differential Pricing” that will take place on January 22, 2016 from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at TERI in Bangalore.

Download the Invite

The objective of this roundtable will be to look into the issue of differential pricing in light of TRAI’s recent consultation process, with the specific intention of research building. The network neutrality debate has gained significant momentum in India during the past year, with competing interests of internet service providers, OTTs and the public giving rise to important questions of ICT regulation and policy.

With Facebook looking to expand its zero rated walled garden, Free Basics, into nascent markets, differential pricing is an important point of regulatory policy not just in India, but in jurisdictions across South Asia. These countries have limited connectivity, large consumer potential and low internet penetration which bring to the fore questions of access, diversity, competition and innovation. To this end, the roundtable will seek to address the regulatory and market aspects of differential pricing as well as the impact on rights. Broadly, the roundtable will be forward looking and seek to build future research agendas.

Draft Agenda

11:00 – 11:30	Tea and Registration
11:30 – 12:30	Roundtable 1: Framing the issue: The practice of differential pricing Examples of differential pricing Stakeholder perspectives Competition and market effect of differential pricing Larger social consequences of differential pricing
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Roundtable 2: Regulatory response: Discerning governmental actions Locating public interest Moving from research to action
2:30 – 3:00	Tea
3:00 – 4:30	Roundtable 3: Impact on rights: Access Freedom of expression Privacy Equity and Social Justice
4:30 – 5:00	Discussion and research agenda building

Roundtable Questions:

Roundtable 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE:

What is differential pricing and how does it work? What are the technical components and policy components of differential pricing? What are examples of differential pricing?
What has been the response from different stakeholders to differential pricing schemes? What are the arguments for/against differential pricing?
What could be the market effect of differential pricing?
What are possible larger social impacts of differential pricing?

Roundtable 2: REGULATORY RESPONSE:

How have governments responded to differential pricing? What can these responses tell us about the position of governments?
What are the different components for consideration with developing a regulatory response? What are different forms of regulation for differential pricing?
What type of policy research around differential pricing can drive meaningful action?

Roundtable 3: IMPACT ON RIGHTS:

How does differential pricing impact the right to access, freedom of expression, privacy, and equity and social justice?
Are there ways to mitigate this impact through regulation? Market incentives? Company policy?
What are forms of redress that individuals could seek in the context of differential pricing?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/network-neutrality-regulation-across-south-asia-a-roundtable-on-aspects-of-differential-pricing

Mobile India 2016

praskrishna — 2016-01-13T14:26:50Z

COMSNETS in association with Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Digital India, et.al. organized the event in Bangalore from January 5 to 9, 2016. Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in Session 4: Law, regulation and policy of App Economy.

Mobile India 2016 is one of the first premier events and will be the curtain raiser for the App Economy revolution in the country. It is associated with The Eighth International Conference on COMmunication Systems NETworkS (COMSNETS), the world's premier international conference on networking and communications technology innovation.

Theme: App Economy: Interplay between Telcos and OTTs

The App Economy in India has been jumpstarted by the new age start-ups, commonly referred to as “Over The Top (OTT)” players. Compass (2015) upgraded Bengaluru from #19 to #15 in its Global Start-up Ecosystem Ranking, much to the delight of all of us. The app economy and the traditional economy are overlapping to a greater extent. Apps are being integrated into many traditional activities ranging from grocery shopping to calling a cab, a trend that is rapidly spilling revenue from almost every industry in the higher revenue traditional economy into the app economy. It is expected that the spill-overs are greater in emerging countries such as India where there are substantial inefficiencies in the traditional industries. This has also caught the attention of funding agencies. While more than $4 billion was invested in start-ups in India in 2014, the meter is up to $1.5 billion in Q1 of 2015, indicative of the promise of this sector of the economy.

Simultaneously, the telecom, mobile and Internet infrastructure backbone that is required for the app economy is also gearing up. Nationwide 3G mobile service is available and year 2016 is expected to be the “Year of 4G mobile”. Mobile broadband subscriber base is touching 100 Million and continues to grow at a quarterly growth rate of more than 15%.

Hence the interplay between telcos and OTTs are very important to bolster the app economy. Meanwhile, the “Net Neutrality” debate is also peaking with the world watching our policy steps on this issue closely.

Mobile India 2016 will explore opportunities and challenges of the App Economy and the interplay between Telcos and OTTs in four sessions with all stakeholders in the ecosystem. For more info, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/mobile-india-2016