We are anonymous, we are legion

Much at stake for tech sector in UID project

praskrishna — 2011-12-12T13:10:49Z

With the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance raising a red flag against the National Identification Authority of India ( NIAI) Bill to grant the UID (or Aadhar) project legal status, the project looks set for a slowdown. That could have broad implications for the tech sector that had laid substantial hope on it, especially when global markets are slowing down.

The UID project is estimated to offer IT companies a Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000-crore opportunity. This includes building an ecosystem around the project, comprising biometrics, databases, smartcards, storage and system integration.

Since the UIDAI implements an open-system, plugand-play approach, entrepreneurs and startups can develop applications in numerous areas. Some of the applications of Aadhar is seen in areas such as food distribution, financial inclusion, and know-your-customer services.

The parliamentary committee has said that the project might be too expensive and duplicates the National Population Register's (NPR) efforts to collect biometric and other data for the national census. Some have also called for a change of collection of data from biometric data, which they consider insecure for smart cards (as fraudsters can take your fingerprints from objects that you touch). The Cabinet need not accept the committee's recommendations.

Thus it is unclear if the UID project will be scrapped, watered down or persisted with in its current form. Some contracts have been granted to tech majors. According to the said current contracts are not significantly large in size and their cancellation will not make a big dent in the companies' books. He added that scrapping of project from a longer term perspective could be a negative.

Government public services initiatives like public distribution system UIDAI website, Wipro in March 2011 won a contract to supply, install, and commission hardware and software for data centres at Bangalore and NCR. MindTree in April 2010 won a contract for application software development, maintenance and support. TCS, Accenture, HP, Satyam, Intelenet Global, HCL Infosystems, Geodesic are some others that have won contracts.

Ankur Rudra, IT sector analyst at Ambit Capital, (PDS) and e-governance schemes are expected to spark off more projects requiring technology enablement.

Sunil Abraham, ED of the Centre for Internet and Society, said if changes are incorporated to the Bill, it would not necessarily be anti-technology. The organization had raised concerns about security issues around biometric data. "There might be a change in the design of the UID project, but technology will remain a critical element," he added. Siddharth Pai, MD of global sourcing advisory firm Technology Partners International (TPI) India, said that the UID project is a very critical infrastructure from a national perspective and chances of the project being scrapped are little.

He added that tech companies might experience delay in government spends and see a delay in project execution. This may lead to delays in revenue yields. IT company officials also acknowledge that there could be delays in projects which could increase costs for them. None wanted to be quoted on this issue.

This article by Pranav Nambiar was published in the Economic Times on 12 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this. Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/much-at-stake-for-tech-sector

MPs to be taught ‘draconian’ IT Act Rules as India.net support galvanises for annul motion

praskrishna — 2012-04-25T10:39:48Z

The blog post by Prachi Shrivastava was published in Legally India on April 23, 2012.

Rajya Sabha’s member of parliament (MP) from Kerala, P Rajeeve, whose statutory motion to annul the IT (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 is slated for discussion in Parliament tomorrow, aims to convene a meeting of MPs, internet societies, and bloggers in the first week of May to create awareness against the draconian effect of the rules.

“Most of the MPs need to know about this,” Rajeeve told Legally India, explaining that statutory motions are generally not easy to pass. “Actually we are trying to create awareness by organizing a session. The issue will be the IT Rules 2011 and how it is against the constitution, how it is against natural justice, how it is against due process of law.”

“The motion has been accepted. The committee has allotted time for discussion on the twenty fourth. Thereafter it will come to the house. In this part of the session I am trying to coordinate other MPs to get support”, he said.

Rajeeve’s motion of 23 March 2012, as first reported by CIS-India, was not his first attempt at bringing the IT rules into the spotlight. When the rules were in draft stage, he had made a zero hour mention against them for being in violation of freedom of speech and expression, by over-scrutinising bloggers, over-authorising intermediaries, and letting the government, individuals and institutions by-pass the due process of law.

Rajeeve was one of the nine panelists in the open discussion on “Resisting Internet Censorship”, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Foundation for Media Professionals, in Bangalore on Saturday, 21 April. The discussion, addressing an audience of 40, was moderated by veteran journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

Other panelists included Mahesh Murthy, founder of digital marketing website Pinstorm, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, founding member of Centre for Law and Policy Research, Na Vijayashankar, director of Cyber Law College, and Siddharth Narain from the Alternative Law Forum.

Also on the panel were Rishabh Dara, Google policy fellow who conducted a study last year on intermediary liability in India and its chilling effects on free expression, BG Mahesh, founder of Oneindia.com, Ram Bhat, co-founder of community media collective Maraa, and Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at CIS.

Prakash said that the discussion brought together different perspectives, even those of the entrepreneur, like BG Mahesh and Mahesh Murthy. “Transparency in the terms of censorship is good. We are not saying all censorship is bad, but that it should be transparent.”

Prakash told Legally India about the various experiences shared by panelists, of the lack of transparency in the present system of censorship. While one faced harassment by the police over trivial procedural compliances, there was complaint for defamation against an article syndicated by another from a different publication’s press release. “And we read the article over and over and over again but couldn’t find anything which was remotely defamatory.”

Legal experts on the panel, Kirshnaswamy and Vijayashankar, spoke about the constitutionalism behind free speech provisions. Narain shed light on the fact that while excessive energy has been expended on highlighting which content should not be banned, little has been spent on examining the operative procedures behind censorship.

Dara spoke about his research and how it not only revealed that content was being frivolously removed on complaints to intermediaries, but also that the people whose content was being removed were not being informed of the same. There was no public notice of the removal.

Bhat’s discourse drew attention to the history of censorship in India and elicited the fact that the Indian press has in fact been censored in an upsetting manner even since the revolt of 1857.

Murthy made the observation that statistically speaking, in India the number of internet users exceeds television watchers, which has made social media unfathomably important while the internet is no longer elitist.

A number of related Indian initiatives have been gathering momentum in recent months, such as signature campaigns for internet freedom, and offline protests such as the Free Software Movement in Karnataka and the Save your Voice in Delhi, are the order of the day. Other actions include writing to MPs, asking them to vote in favor of Rajeeve’s statutory motion for annulment of the IT rules.

Kerala-based advocate Shojan Jacob filed the first ever writ challenging the rules in the Kerala High Court last month.

The rules enable any individual or public or private institution to get content removed from websites, in most cases simply by notifying the website owners or intermediaries such as Google, Yahoo and others.

Takedown requests can be based on any of 15 vaguely drafted parameters, without stating any reasons or requiring any judicial or quasi-judicial order in support.

Click to read the original.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/draconian-it-rules

MPs oppose curbs on internet; Sibal promises discussions

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T10:25:35Z

With MPs raising concerns over open-ended interpretations of restrictive terms in the rules seeking to regulate social media and internet, the government promised to evolve a consensus on points of contention.

Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article published by the Times of India on May 18, 2012

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal's assurance came at the end of an engrossing debate in Rajya Sabha on a motion moved by CPM MP P Rajeeve who said the rules violated freedom of expression and free speech.

He found support from leader of opposition Arun Jaitley who picked several examples to point out that terms or descriptions like "harmful", "blasphemous" and "defamatory" did not lend themselves to precise legal definitions.

Jaitley said what the government may find defamatory may not be seen in similar light by its critics. He also pointed to the difficulties of controlling technology and asked if it was desirable to do so.

Assuring MPs who sought the annulment of 'rules' which are aimed at regulating internet content, Sibal said, "My assurance to the House is that I will request the MPs to write letters to me objecting to any specific words. I will then call a meeting of the members as well as the industry and all stakeholders. We will have a discussion and whatever consensus emerges, we will implement it."

The move to put rules in place flows from the government's annoyance with what it sees as scurrilous and disrespectful comments about senior Congress leaders. It had suggested pre-screening of content which service providers were reluctant to consider.

The motion for annulling the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules notified in April 2011 was, however, defeated by a voice vote. Justifying the rules, the minister said "these are sensitive issues" as most internet companies were registered abroad and not subjected to Indian laws.

TOI was first to report about the new rules that put a lot of the onus on intermediaries like internet service providers, Facebook and Twitter, to manage and monitor content produced by their users. Web activists believe the IT rules are open to arbitrary interpretation and can be misused to silence freedom of speech.

Google, which participated in the public consultative process before the rules were framed, had told TOI, "If Internet platforms are held liable for third party content, it would lead to self-censorship and reduce the free flow of information."

Moving the motion, Rajeeve said, "I am not against any regulation on internet but I am against any control on internet... In control, there is no freedom... These rules attempt to control internet and curtail the freedom of expression."

Complimenting the CPM member, Jaitley said, "I think he (Rajeeve) deserves a compliment for educating us on this rule that Parliament has a supervisory control as far as subordinate legislations are concerned, and, if need be, we can express our vote of disapproval to the subordinate legislations."

MPs felt the government should consider a regime where offensive content can be removed immediately after being posted rather than trying to sieve it out.

Noting that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defy technology and that the days of withholding information have gone, Jaitley urged the minister to "reconsider the language of restraints" to prevent its misuse. He pointed to certain words - harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory - used in the rules, explaining how these could be interpreted/misinterpreted at any stage.

The MPs did note that the internet had a risk of inciting hate speech and frenzy in society and therefore it needed to be restrained but the device could be swift identification of objectionable content.

Pranesh Prakash of Centre for Internet and Society, an organization that has been advocating withdrawal of the rules, said he was sad with the outcome in Rajya Sabha. "The IT minister has promised to hold consultations but the ideal way to do so would have been to scrap the rules and start from scratch," he said.

"It's not only about language in these rules. There is a problem with provisions like the one that empowers intermediaries to remove content without notifying the user who had uploaded the content or giving users a chance to explain themselves."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/mps-oppose-curbs-on-internet

Moving Towards a Surveillance State

atreya — 2013-07-15T05:57:15Z

The cyberspace is a modern construct of communication and today, a large part of human activity takes place in cyberspace. It has become the universal platform where business is executed, discourse is conducted and personal information is exchanged. However, the underbelly of the internet is also seen to host activities and persons who are motivated by nefarious intent.

Note: The original tender document of the Assam Police dated 28.02.2013 along with other several other tender documents for procurement of Internet and Voice Monitoring Systems is attached as a zip folder.

As highlighted in the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance, logistical barriers to surveillance have decreased in recent decades and the application of legal principles in new technological contexts has become unclear. It is often feared that in light of the explosion of digital communications content and information about communications, or "communications metadata," coupled with the decreasing costs of storing and mining large sets of data and the provision of personal content through third party service providers make State surveillance possible at an unprecedented scale. Communications surveillance in the modern environment encompasses the monitoring, interception, collection, preservation and retention of, interference with, or access to information that includes, reflects, arises from or is about a person's communications in the past, present or future.[*] These fears are now turning into a reality with the introduction of mass surveillance systems which penetrate into the lives of every person who uses any form of communications. There is ample evidence in the form of tenders for Internet Monitoring Systems (IMS) and Telecom Interception Systems (TCIS) put out by the Central government and various state governments that the Indian state is steadily turning into an extensive surveillance state.

While surveillance and intelligence gathering is essential for the maintenance of national security, the creation and working of a mass surveillance system as it is envisioned today may not necessarily be in absolute conformity with the existing law. A mass surveillance system like the Central Monitoring System (CMS) not only threatens to completely eradicate any vestige of the right to privacy but in the absence of a concrete set of procedural guidelines creates a tremendous risk of abuse.

Although information regarding the Central Monitoring System is quite limited on the public forum at the moment it can be gathered that a centralized system for monitoring of all communication was first proposed by the Government of India in 2009 as indicated by the press release of the Ministry of Communications & Information. Implementation of the system started subsequently as indicated by another government press release and the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) was entrusted with the responsibility of implementing the system. As per the C-DOT annual report 2011-12, research, development, trials and progressive scaling up of a Central Monitoring System were conducted by the organization in the past 4 years and the requisite hardware and CMS solutions which support voice and data interception have been installed and commissioned at various Telecom Service Providers (TSP) in Delhi and Haryana as part of the pilot project. Media reports indicate that the project will be fully functional by 2014. While an extensive surveillance system is being stealthily introduced by the state, several concerns with regard to its extent of use, functioning, and real world impact have been raised owing to ambiguities and wide gaps in procedure and law. Moreover, the lack of a concrete privacy legislation coupled with the absence of public discourse indicates the lack of interest of the state over the rights of an ordinary citizen. It is under these circumstances that awareness must first be brought regarding the risks of the mass surveillance on civil liberties which in the absence of established procedures protecting the rights of the citizens of the state can result in the abuse of powers by the state or its agencies and lead to the demise of civil freedoms even in democratic states.

The architecture and working of a proposed Internet Monitoring System must be examined in an attempt to better understand the functioning, capabilities and possible impact of a Central Monitoring System on our society and lives. This can perhaps allow more open discourse and a committed effort to preserve the rights of the citizens especially the right to privacy can be made while allowing for the creation of strong procedural guidelines which will help maintain legitimate intelligence gathering and surveillance.

Internet Monitoring System: Setup and Working
Very broadly, The Internet Monitoring System enables an agency of the state to intercept and monitor all content which passes through the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) server which includes all electronic correspondence (emails, chats or IM’s, transcribed call logs), web forms, video and audio files, and other forms of internet content. The electronic data is stored and also subject to various types of analysis. While Internet Monitoring Systems are installed locally and their function is limited to specific geographic region, the Central Monitoring System will consolidate the data acquired from the different voice and data interception systems located across the country and create a centralized architecture for interception, monitoring and analysis of communications. Although the exact specifications and functions of the central monitoring system still remain unclear and ambiguous, some parallels regarding the functioning of the CMS can be drawn from the the specifications revealed in the Assam Police tender document for the procurement of an Internet Monitoring System.

Setup
The deployment architecture of an Internet Monitoring System (IMS) contains probe servers which are installed at the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) premises and the probes are installed at various tapping points within the entire ISP network. A collection server is also installed and hosted at the site of the ISP. The collection server is used to either collect, analyze, filter or simple aggregate the data from the ISP servers and the data is transferred to a master aggregation server located a central data center. The central data center may also contain more servers specifically for analysis and storage. This type of architecture is being referred to as a ‘high availability clustered setup’ which is supposed to provide security in case of a failure or outage.

The Assam Police Internet Monitoring System tender document specifically indicates that the deployment in the state of Assam shall require 8 taps or probes to be installed at different ISPs, out of which 6 taps/probes shall be of 10 GBPS and 2 taps are of 1 GBPS. The document however mentions that the specifications are preliminary and subject to change.

Types of data
The proposed internet monitoring system of the Assam state can provide network traffic interception and a variety of internet protocols including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) can be intercepted and monitored. The system can also support monitoring of Internet Relay Chat and various other messaging applications (such as Google Talk, Yahoo Chat, MSN Messenger, ICQ, etc.). The system can be equipped to capture and display multiple file types like text (.doc, .pdf), zipped (.zip) and executable applications (.exe). Further, information regarding login details, login pattern, login location, DNS address, routing address can be acquired along with the IP address and other details of the user.

Web crawling capabilities can be installed on the system which can provide data from various data sources like social networking sites, web based communities, wikis, blogs and other forms of web content. Social media websites (such as Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, MySpace etc.), web pages and data on hosted applications can also be intercepted, monitored and analyzed. The system also allows capture of additional pages if updated; log periodical updates and other changes. This allows the monitoring agencies the capability of gathering internet traffic based on several parameters like Protocols, Keywords, Filters and Watch lists. Keyword matching is achieved by including phonetically similar words in various languages including local languages.

More specific functions of the IMS can include complete email extraction which will disclose the address book, inbox, sent mail folder, drafts folder, personal folders, delete folders, custom folders etc. and can also provide identification of dead drop mails. The system can also be equipped to allow country wise tracking of instant messages, chats and mails.

Regarding retention and storage of data, the tender document specifies that the system shall be technically capable of retaining the metadata of Internet traffic for at least one year and the defined traffic/payload/content is to be retained in the storage server at least for a week. However, the data may be retained for a longer period if required. The metadata and qualified data after analysis are integrated to a designated main intelligence repository for storage.

Types of Analysis
The Internet Monitoring System apart from intercepting all the data generated through the Internet Service Providers is essentially equipped for various types of data analysis. The solutions that are installed in the internet monitoring system provide the capability for real time as well as historical analysis of network traffic, network perimeter devices and internal sniffers. The kinds of analysis based on ‘slicing and dicing of data’ range from text mining, sentiment analysis, link analysis, geo-spatial analysis, statistical analysis, social network analysis, transaction analysis, locational analysis and fusion based analysis, CDR analysis, timeline analysis and histogram based analysis from various sources.

The solutions installed in the IMS can enable monitoring of specific words or phrases (in various languages) in blogs, websites, forums, media reports, social media websites, media reports, chat rooms and messaging applications, collaboration applications and deep web applications. Phone numbers, addresses, names, locations, age, gender and other such information from content including comments and such can also be monitored. Specifically with regard to social media, the user’s profile and information related to it can be extracted and a detailed ontology of all the social media profiles of the user can be created.

Based on the information, the analysis supposed to provide the capability to identify suspicious behavior based on existing and new patterns as they emerge and are continuously applied to combine incoming and existing information on people, profiles, transactions, social network, type of websites visited, time spent on websites, type of content download or view and any other type of gatherable information. The solutions on the system are also supposed to create single or multiple or parallel scenario build-ups that may occur in blogs, social media forums, chat rooms, specific web hosting server locations or URL, packet route that may be defined from time to time and such scenario build-ups can be based on parameters like sentiments, language or expressions purporting hatred or anti-national expressions, and even emotions like expression of joy, compassion and anger, which as may be defined by the agency depending on operational and intelligence requirement. Based on these parameters, automated alerts can be generated relating to structured or unstructured data (including metadata of contents), events, pattern discovery, phonetically similar words or phrases or actions from users.

Based on the data analysis, reports or dossiers can be generated and visual analysis allowing a wide variety of views can be created. Further, real time visualization showing results from real-time data can be generated which allows alerts, alert categories or discoveries to be ranked (high, medium, and low priority, high value asset, low value asset, moderate value asset, verified information, unverified information, primary evidence, secondary evidence, circumstantial evidence, etc.) based on criteria developed by the agency. The IMS solutions can also be capable of offering web-intelligence and open source intelligence and allow capabilities like simultaneous search capabilities which can be automated providing a powerful tool for exploration of the intercepted data.

Another important requirement mentioned in the tender document is the systems capability to integrate with other interception and monitoring systems for 2G, 3G/UMTS and other evolving mobile carrier technologies including fixed line and Blackberry services and encrypted IP services like Skype services.

Conclusion
It is clear that a system like IMS with its extensive interception and analysis capabilities gives complete access to an agency or authority of all information that is accessed or transmitted by a person on the internet including information which is private and confidential such as email and instant messages. Although the state has the power to issue directions for interception or monitoring of information under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and certain rules are prescribed under section 69B, they are wholly inadequate compared to the scope and extent of the Internet Monitoring System and its scale of operations. The interception and monitoring systems that are either proposed or already in place effectively bypass the existing procedures prescribed under the Information Technology Act.

The issues, concerns and risks are only compounded when it comes to the Central Monitoring System. The solutions installed in present day interception and monitoring systems give the state unprecedented powers to intercept, monitor and analyze all the data of any person who access the internet. Tools like deep packet inspection and extensive data mining solutions in the absence of concrete safeguards and when deployed through a centralized system can be misused to censor any content including legitimate discourse. Also, the perception that access to a larger amount of data or all data can help improve intelligence can also be sometimes misleading and it must be asked whether the fundamental rights of the citizens of the state can be traded away under the pretext of national security. Furthermore, it is essential for the state to weigh the costs of such a project both economically and morally and balance it with sufficient internal measures as well as adequate laws so that the democratic values are persevered and not endangered by any act of reckless force.

Reiterating what has been said earlier, while it is important for the state to improve its intelligence gathering tools and mechanisms, it must not be done at the cost of a citizen’s fundamental right. It is the duty of the democratic state to endure and maintain a fine balance between national interest and fundamental rights through timely creation of equitable laws.

[*]. http://necessaryandproportionate.net/#_edn2

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/moving-towards-surveillance-state

Move over Kolaveri di, here comes Gowda

praskrishna — 2011-11-28T06:58:54Z

Transparency is the buzzword in governance and chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda is eager to set a new benchmark. You could soon watch what the chief minister is doing at office, live on YouTube. This article was published in dailybhaskar.com on November 28, 2011.

Cameras are being installed at the chief minister's office in Vidhana Soudha and his home office, Krishna. The live footage will be uploaded to YouTube. "I always wanted to maintain transparency in my functioning. Very soon, I will put it to work, when people can watch me live at what I am doing when inoffice. Let the people see who come to meet me, what I do and how I work. This will set a new example, but there will be no compulsion for my colleagues to emulate me. It is entirely up to them whether to follow me or not," said Gowda on Sunday.

Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy has already set a precedent by installing cameras in his office. On July 1 this year, the day Chandy's experiment went 'live', one lakh visitors logged in. Talking to The New York Times earlier this year, Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, said "He applauded Chandy's webcams, even if the effort amounted to no more than tokenism."This type of tokenism is also quite useful," The NYT reported Abraham as saying.

In Karnataka, the much-hyped Citizens' Charter would be implemented after the state legislature, which begins on December 6, ends. The cabinet had already cleared the proposal and the bill on time-bound delivery of public services would be introduced in the session, added Gowda.

The proposed bill will make it mandatory for officials in government offices to deliver public services within stipulated period of time and failure to do so would make them liable for penal action and fine to be computed for every day of delay.

Already, Bescom chief P Manivannan has installed a webcam in his office. The NYT earlier reported Manivannan as saying that "he was installing a 'hemispheric' camera that would capture the goings-on in his entire office rather than just show his visitors."

Read the original published in dailybhaskar.com here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/here-comes-gowda

Mothers discuss kids, music, fashions, on Net

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T01:25:28Z

Among the many conversations about behavioural problems seen among teenage children and the benefits of organic foods, there is one that raves about a baby-sitter who takes care of pets too, and one that reviews newly opened art classes in the city. These are not the usual face-to-face discussions among women at a gathering, but threads that run on parenting websites and ‘mommy' blogs that have captured the imagination of many mothers in Chennai.

Many parenting forums register more than a thousand threads of interaction each every day from the city alone, with a variety of localised pages on Yahoo, Facebook, and netlog dedicated to facilitate communication between mothers.

Baby growth charts, immunisation schedules, home-made remedies, reviews of schools, summer camps, information on doctors and a collection of articles from the mothers themselves — these forums have it all.

Many mothers feel that going through related threads on various parenting sites before attending the PTA meetings helps to know what rest of the parents feel about issues.

“My daughter does not like me talking to her classmates' parents at meetings; discussing online helps to talk to parents without the interference of children,” says Shobana Mahadevan, a blogger and a mother.

Discussing concerns, especially those regarding increase in fees, change in examination patterns, homework, and school announcements with hundreds of other mothers on the internet helps them understand matters at hand and form opinions, she says.

Many of these forums have threads on car-pooling in selected areas where parents decide on turns to drop children at schools.

Subbiah Arunachalam, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, says that with the computer finding its way into many urban households, an increasing number of mothers are focussing more on their children's performance in school.

The social network they form on the net provides the mothers a platform to be “collectively enlightened” about everything from culinary innovations to popular music and fashion trends, he says.

On “Babycentre”, a forum that monitors child's growth and gives regular inputs on expected child behaviour, Sangeetha Vijay (38), mother of a two-year-old says,

“It is like an elderly person helping you get prepared for everything from teething problems to allergies in children.”

Many mothers say that though communication on parenting forums starts out as a medium to interact with those who share similar concerns, it soon goes beyond the confines of the internet. “We have groups of ‘internet mothers' who often meet, hold competitions and spend time together,” says Penithia Selvi (32), mother of a five year old girl.

“These sites and blogs give mothers a platform to write, discuss their interests and talk openly, which is a priceless experience,” she adds.

“It is very much an urban phenomenon,” says Savithri. J., child counsellor with schools, “Since many working mothers have access to the internet for more hours, they try tracking their children's activities, and also explore the net in their own way,” she says. Many concerns such as addiction to gaming seen among children, are better discussed with mothers who experience similar problems, says Ranjitha Kumaran (32).

“Since mothers as young as 23 to those in their sixties share their experiences on these sites, the issues are approached with a lot of sensitivity and understanding,” she says.

Read the original in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kids-music-fashion-on-net

Most emerging firms low on cyber security: Experts

praskrishna — 2015-06-29T16:02:51Z

When Pavitra Badrinath saw that the upgrade to a shopping application on her smartphone asked access to her contacts and messages, she decided against it. "Laws on privacy are not clear in India. So I am doing what I can to protect my information," the 26-year-old technology firm employee said.

The article by Malavika Murali and Payal Ganguly was published in the Economic Times on June 24, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Are users taking a risk by allowing applications to gain access to personal data shadowed by an upgrade? "Most definitely ," said Bikash Barai, cofounder and chief executive of security firm iViz Security .

With at least 10 alleged breaches and hacks into the databases of startups such as Ola and Gaana this year, the alarm bells are going off.

Experts warn that emerging businesses are lax with security frameworks, which is especially worrying as millions more Indians are shopping online, including on their phones, exposing crucial personal and financial data to fraud.

More than 70 per cent of Indian companies are under-prepared when it comes to cyber security, according to a report by CISO Platform, a social platform for security experts where Barai is chief adviser.

India's largest cab-hailing company, Ola denied hackers' claims in an email response to ET, stating that its data were not compromised.

Music service Gaana.com, in response to being hacked by a person in Pakistan calling himself MakMan, said it had strengthened its security team and offerings in recent weeks. "In addition, we are working on a `bug bounty' program, which will allow individuals to point out any potential vulnerability in a safe way," said Pawan Agarwal, business head at Gaana.com.

According to Google India, the number of online shoppers is expected to cross 100 million by the end of next year, from 35 million ear, from 35 million n 2014. But lack of roust regulations and ata privacy laws as ell as the fragmentd nature of the starup ecosystem, do not llow much scope for esearch on cyber seurity , said experts."Under the Indian "Under the Indian regime, there are no self-regulatory mechanisms for putting out breach notifications," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society. "The numbers available with a central body like Data Security Council of India will be a gross underestimation of the cases of breach."

"Most of the startups in India want to do everything in-house. This can lead to a potential compromise or lack of expertise on the security front, even if it is made priority," said Harshit Agarwal, founder and chief executive of Singapore-based Appknox, which provides security services to Paytm, Freecharge and Myntra among other clients.

Jabong founder and managing director Praveen Sinha said the online fashion retailer spends 15-20 per cent of its revenue on cyber security. But other startups contended that budgets and teams sizes are not accurate indicators of security preparedness.

"We do not work with any external security firms as we have realised that the average report is as good as our internal team can make," said Mukesh Singh, chief executive officer of online grocer ZopNow.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-june-24-2015-malavika-murali-and-payal-ganguly-most-emerging-firms-low-on-cyber-security-experts

More urban Indian women are acting against offensive calls and text messages

Aria Thaker — 2019-03-10T02:24:46Z

More Indian women are fighting back against sexual harassment they face over phone calls and text messages, a survey shows.

The blog post by Aria Thaker was published in Quartz India on March 8, 2019. Ambika Tandon was quoted.

In an India-based survey by the Swedish phone-identification app Truecaller, nearly 40% of respondents who had faced sexual harassment via calls and SMSes said they’d filed police complaints against it in 2019—a sharp increase from 10% when the company conducted the same survey just one year ago.

Truecaller’s survey, conducted with global market research firm Ipsos, asked detailed questions to over 2,100 women from metro areas across India. All respondents had to be users of the Truecaller app.

The survey, published yesterday (March 07), showed the staggering scale of phone-based harassment of women in India. One in three respondents reported receiving “sexual and inappropriate” calls or SMSes. This is the same figure as when Truecaller conducted the survey last year.

Women’s responses to phone harassment took various forms. While 62% of women reported having “taken measures against” harassment in 2018, 74% did this year. Some of the steps women took this year included blocking numbers, calling mobile operators to request “do not disturb” activation, ignoring calls, and changing one’s number.

Blocking numbers, the most popular step women took, also saw a substantial increase in popularity from last year. While 65% of women who experienced harassment reported blocking offending numbers in 2018, 92% did so in 2019.

Women who faced harassment also reported being more willing to “name and shame” perpetrators on social media—with 7% reporting having done so last year, and 16% this year. In a recent, high-profile instance of this, when television journalist Barkha Dutt experienced a torrent of phone-based harassment, she published screenshots from her perpetrators’ messages on Twitter.

Why this increase?

Some say that this increase in willingness among women to take action may be in part due to the influence of the MeToo movement, which took India by storm last year.

“MeToo had a huge impact across India,” said Gayatri Sethi, the business head of WhiteBalance, a Delhi-based creative studio that Truecaller partnered with on an anti-harassment media campaign called #ItsNotOK. Now, Sethi said, “women can step up and can tell the world about these issues, and understand that they should not just ignore (harassment).”

Truecaller believes that the Indian government’s initiatives to tackle harassment may also be partly responsible for the increased reports to police. “There’s been a major shift in the approachability of the police, and there are several helplines for women to call and report,” Lindsey LaMont, Truecaller’s global brand manager, told Quartz. “I think this has made a big difference.” In October, as #MeToo gripped India, the country’s National Commission for Women launched helplines and a dedicated email address to field harassment complaints.

It is important to note, however, that Truecaller’s survey—of which around 97% of respondents come from the highest socioeconomic classification group in India—cannot at all be considered nationally representative. “One of their criteria for targeting respondents is that they need to be using Truecaller, which is in itself a very limited sample set,” said Ambika Tandon, a policy officer who researches gender and tech issues for the think tank Centre for Internet and Society.

Indian women of lower socioeconomic strata, Tandon suggested, would be more likely to respond to harassment “by going offline or not accessing mobile phones at all, because they don’t have the kinds of support structures that would exist for communities where there is a larger level of access or skill.”

Tandon also cautioned against the survey’s clubbing together of different ways that women are taking action against harassment, for example, by including steps like ignoring calls or blocking numbers next to filing police complaints. This conflation, she said, could risk being seen as similar to instances of law enforcement bias, in which police sometimes tell women to simply block harassers’ numbers—while “not dealing with (the complaint) as rigorously as they would with a physical harassment complaint.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/more-urban-indian-women-are-acting-against-offensive-calls-and-text-messages

More than a Hundred Global Groups Make a Principled Stand against Surveillance

elonnai — 2013-07-31T14:26:38Z

For some time now there has been a need to update understandings of existing human rights law to reflect modern surveillance technologies and techniques.

Nothing could demonstrate the urgency of this situation more than the recent revelations confirming the mass surveillance of innocent individuals around the world.

To move toward that goal, today we’re pleased to announce the formal launch of the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance. The principles articulate what international human rights law – which binds every country across the globe – require of governments in the digital age. They speak to a growing global consensus that modern surveillance has gone too far and needs to be restrained. They also give benchmarks that people around the world can use to evaluate and push for changes in their own legal systems.

The product of over a year of consultation among civil society, privacy and technology experts, including the Centre for Internet and Society (read here, here, here and here), the principles have already been co-signed by over hundred organisations from around the world. The process was led by Privacy International, Access, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The process was led by Privacy International, Access, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The release of the principles comes on the heels of a landmark report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, which details the widespread use of state surveillance of communications, stating that such surveillance severely undermines citizens’ ability to enjoy a private life, freely express themselves and enjoy their other fundamental human rights. And recently, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nivay Pillay, emphasised the importance of applying human right standards and democratic safeguards to surveillance and law enforcement activities.

"While concerns about national security and criminal activity may justify the exceptional and narrowly-tailored use of surveillance programmes, surveillance without adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy actually risk impacting negatively on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms," Pillay said.

The principles, summarised below, can be found in full at necessaryandproportionate.org. Over the next year and beyond, groups around the world will be using them to advocate for changes in how present laws are interpreted and how new laws are crafted.

We encourage privacy advocates, rights organisations, scholars from legal and academic communities, and other members of civil society to support the principles by adding their signature.

To sign, please send an email to rights@eff.org, or visit https://www.necessaryandproportionate.org/about

Summary of the 13 principles

Legality: Any limitation on the right to privacy must be prescribed by law.
Legitimate Aim: Laws should only permit communications surveillance by specified State authorities to achieve a legitimate aim that corresponds to a predominantly important legal interest that is necessary in a democratic society.
Necessity: Laws permitting communications surveillance by the State must limit surveillance to that which is strictly and demonstrably necessary to achieve a legitimate aim.
Adequacy: Any instance of communications surveillance authorised by law must be appropriate to fulfill the specific legitimate aim identified.
Proportionality: Decisions about communications surveillance must be made by weighing the benefit sought to be achieved against the harm that would be caused to users’ rights and to other competing interests.
Competent judicial authority: Determinations related to communications surveillance must be made by a competent judicial authority that is impartial and independent.
Due process: States must respect and guarantee individuals' human rights by ensuring that lawful procedures that govern any interference with human rights are properly enumerated in law, consistently practiced, and available to the general public.
User notification: Individuals should be notified of a decision authorising communications surveillance with enough time and information to enable them to appeal the decision, and should have access to the materials presented in support of the application for authorisation.
Transparency: States should be transparent about the use and scope of communications surveillance techniques and powers.
Public oversight: States should establish independent oversight mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability of communications surveillance.
Integrity of communications and systems: States should not compel service providers, or hardware or software vendors to build surveillance or monitoring capabilities into their systems, or to collect or retain information.
Safeguards for international cooperation: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) entered into by States should ensure that, where the laws of more than one State could apply to communications surveillance, the available standard with the higher level of protection for users should apply.
Safeguards against illegitimate access: States should enact legislation criminalising illegal communications surveillance by public and private actors.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/more-than-hundred-global-groups-make-principled-stand-against-surveillance

More errors in Aadhaar data in Andhra Pradesh than in voter database

Admin — 2018-05-20T14:04:00Z

As much as eight per cent of Aadhaar data collected in Andhra Pradesh has errors, mostly related to name, address and date of birth, which is more than the errors in the voter ID database. But still, 87% of rural residents approve mandatory linking of the unique ID with various schemes and services.

The article by U Sudhakar Reddy was published in the Times of India on May 18, 2018.

This was revealed in the State of Aadhaar report 2017-18 based on a survey carried out in three states — Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal. The survey revealed that a majority of people in AP and Rajasthan preferred Aadhaar-based PDS delivery as they believed biometric authentication prevents identity fraud. On the flip side, at least 3 lakh people, which is 0.8% of PDS beneficiaries, were denied ration benefits due to Aadhaar issues, it found.

The survey found that among the three states, it was easiest to enrol for Aadhaar in AP. As many was 67% of people used Aadhaar as proof for opening bank accounts and 17% used it for Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. The survey also found that 96% of respondents valued privacy and wanted to know what the government will do with their data.

“The survey covered 2,947 rural households in 21 districts across the three states from Nov 2017 and Feb 2018,” the report by IDinsight, a development analytics firm, said. “Compared to voter IDs, the error-rate in Aadhaar was 1.5 times higher. While exclusion from PDS due to Aadhaar-related factors is significant, it is lower than exclusion explained by factors unrelated to Aadhaar,” said Ronald Abraham of IDinsight.

Reacting to the findings, Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO of UIDAI, said: “The report highlights that Aadhaar has wide-scale support from people. Exclusion from PDS is due to failure of the local administration and should be taken very seriously.”

But critics found fault with the survey methodology. “If IDinsight asked respondents whether they preferred the UK system where you can get a SIM card without KYC or the Indian system with mandatory biometric authentication, then 100% of respondents would have opted for the UK approach. They have got an endorsement for use of biometrics due to their disingenuous survey design,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-may-18-2018-u-sudhakar-reddy-more-errors-in-aadhaar-data-in-andhra-pradesh-than-in-voter-database

More Debate on UID Project Needed

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:13:43Z

A press conference on UID was held at the Press Club in Bangalore on 26 July, 2010. It was co-organised by Citizen's Action Forum, Alternate Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society. Mathew Thomas and Vinay Baindur spoke about the UID. Proceedings from the conference was covered in the Hindu on 27 July, 2010.

More Debate on UID

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/debate-on-uid

MongoDB startup hired by Aadhaar got funds from CIA VC arm

praskrishna — 2013-12-13T11:53:32Z

Two weeks ago, Max Schireson, chief executive of MongoDB, a New York-based technology startup, was in New Delhi to sew up a very important contract for his company — with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

The article by Lison Joseph was published in the Economic Times on December 3, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The contract is yet to be announced but what could raise eyebrows is the fact that MongoDB is part-funded by the US' Central Intelligence Agency.

The company is expected to help in capturing and analysing data related to the ambitious plan to issue a unique identity number — Aadhaar — to over a billion citizens.

MongoDB, which makes software that helps manage large databases, especially unstructured data, has raised $231 million (Rs1,400 crore) since being founded in 2007. Some of its funding is from In-Q-Tel, the not-for-profit venture capital arm of CIA.

While MongoDB lists In-Q-Tel as one of its investors on its website, the company has not disclosed the quantum of funding received from it. The fund's stated mission is to identify, adapt and deliver innovative technology solutions to support the missions of CIA and the broader US intelligence community.

Besides CIA, In-Q-Tel works with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.

"Once an investment is made, IQT (the fund) works with the company and the intelligence community partner agency to complete a work program and facilitate solution delivery," the fund's website said. The quote describes IQT's relationship with any company in which it invests in and is not specific to MongoDB.

Neither UIDAI nor MongoDB responded to queries from ET on whether the CIA link was considered before entering into a partnership. UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani did not respond to emails, messages and phone calls.

A senior UIDAI official confirmed the agency has entered into an agreement with MongoDB and that the company's database software is already being used for analysing the pace at which registration of new beneficiaries is taking place.

It is not clear if MongoDB's vendor relationship would be with UID directly or with one of the system integrators that UID works with. Schireson, the CEO, was also one of the national co-chairs for Technology for Obama, an interest group that campaigned for the reelection of President Barack Obama after his first term.

There is no evidence in the public domain that the firm is controlled or significantly influenced by the CIA in any manner.

But the revelations of Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower that US intelligence agencies routinely intercepted communication in Europe and Asia, including in India has raised concerns. Experts said the UID's centralised design could pose a risk, where even a single mistake can make the whole system disproportionately vulnerable.

"The risk exposure because of CIA involvement (could be that) if MongoDB is a data controller, then secret courts and secret court orders could be used to get access to the UID data," said Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society.

He added that even if UIDAI is only using the source code without getting into a commercial relationship with MongoDB, they should audit the source code to check if CIA has introduced any back doors. "This is because Snowden has told us that the army of mathematicians working for the US government has compromised some standards even though they were developed in an open, participatory and transparent fashion." MongoDB, whose name is a play on the word humongous, competes with Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. It has around 320 employees and some 600 customers. At its latest round of $150 million in fund-raising in October, the company was valued at about $1.2 billion, according to Bloomberg. Other investors include Intel Capital, Salesforce-.com, Red Hat and Sequoia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-december-30-2013-lison-joseph-mongo-db-startup-hired-by-aadhar-got-funds-from-cia-vc-arm

Moldova Online: An Interview with Victor Diaconu

Sudha Rajagopalan — 2012-03-21T10:10:38Z

In this interview for Russian Cyberspace, set up with the help of Sunil Abraham (Executive Director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India), computer software professional Victor Diaconu explains the nature of Internet use, state control and the development of blogging and social media platforms in Moldova. Victor works at Computaris in Chisinau. He is Moldova educated, and has travelled to several western countries (including lengthy stays to US, UK) to learn about and understand what there is to be done in Moldova. Sudha Rajagopalan interviewed Victor Diaconu.

SR: After the 2009 elections, there was some talk of reform in Moldova and greater transparency, but now one also hears contradictory reports of increasing authoritarian tendencies. Is this ambivalence evident in the way the internet is regulated and used here?

VD: I would not say the tendencies are authoritarian. The constitution says that the President should be voted in by a majority of 61 out of 101 members of the Parliament. If not, Parliament should be dissolved and re-elected. Well, this should happen twice a year at the most, and as such, after a second failed attempt to vote the President the authority of the Parliament and Government is somewhat questionable. The current Parliament has tried to change the rules of voting in the President - to make it by popular vote, for instance, but this is met with resistance from the Communist Party.

As to transparency - I would say it has improved. Though, one should not expect too many changes from a Government with questionable authority and with so many systemic flaws inherited from the previous government. At the moment we've got a coalition government. As such, there are frictions and these are indeed visible. This gives a sense of comfort and truthfulness since it is normal to have frictions in any human endeavour. While the communist party was ruling - everything was "nice and dandy" both in media and in political affairs and one could not get anything but "fake" - fake news, fake results, fake improvements.

Internet control and filtering do not happen. In fact, we did have a "small revolt" on April 7, 2009, when it seemed the communist party had tried to steal the vote for the parliament. At that moment a few .md sites were blocked by the national Telecom operator, but most other sites were still available. In fact, news about the event was best available on twitter (might still be available under "pman" tags). There also were a few attempts to stifle free speech when authorities requested names/IP addresses of commenters on some forums. However, this is no longer conceivable ...

SR: Given that the press and television are largely in the hands of the state and criticism of the state is considered defamation (and leads to the arrest of press people), does the internet play a special role as a space for alternative media and political blogs? Are these prevalent and influential?

VD: Yes, national TV is largely state owned and it was worse before the change in power. Now it seems to have improved. There are a series of smaller TV stations but these have reduced coverage - mostly in bigger cities. I understand that they've started rolling out IP TV with packages of 50+ TV channels - local and international. The national Telecoms operator provides very good Internet coverage. Dial-up Internet at reasonable prices is available everywhere in the country. Broadband availability even in rural areas is very good. And it's not too expensive. As to the role of Internet - indeed its influence is increasing. A series of media portals are frequented by many, including me. http://unimedia.md/; http://m.protv.md/; http://jurnaltv.md/; http://forum.md/to mention a few. The news here is conveyed tersely but I do my own editorializing if need be. Also, I can read the comments if I want to get a feeling about how others feel about some specific event.

SR: Can you tell us about some of the popular bloggers and blogging platforms in Moldova? Live Journal is popular in Russia; can the same be said of Moldova?

VD: I'm not aware of any significant blogger, more so, political blogger. I'd say we still need to wait for someone whose commentary is mature enough for people to care about him or her... As to the platform - those blogging attempts that I've seen were indeed on major blogging portals like Live Journal.

SR: What can you tell us about the presence of social media in Moldova? Does Moldova prefer its own versions of global digital platforms, or are FB, My Space, Twitter popular here? What is the role of the diaspora in this space?

VD: Global platforms are widely used. There are a few Russian popular platforms in wide use too, such as odnoklassniki.ru. We have up to 1 million Moldovans working in European countries, Russia and other places, since the pay is significantly higher over there. These people left a few years back and most of them intend to return. And they, indeed, rely on the available platforms to relate back to relatives and friends.

SR: Lastly, can you tell us about the linguistic landscape of Moldovan new media; I imagine the most widely used language on the internet is Moldovan/Romanian. Is Russian prevalent or is new media here a platform to assert their exclusive Moldovan identity?

VD: The rules for language are that media should have at least 60-70% of content in "state" language and the law was often changed so that sometimes 'state language’ included Russian too. In fact, in Moldova we are very comfortable with the Russian language, at least those a bit older (30+ years) since we were supposed to speak it well in the Soviet era.

SR (with many thanks to Victor Diaconu and Sunil Abraham)

About Sudha Rajagopalan

Sudha Rajagopalan is the deputy editor of Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media and co-blogger at Russian Cyberspace. Sudha is also a Research Affiliate with the Media Studies Group at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her current research is on audience and fan communities on Runet (the Russian-language internet), with a special interest in identity, performativity and affect in online practices. Sudha obtained her PhD in Russian History from Indiana University, Bloomington (2005). She is the author of 'Leave Disco Dancer Alone: Indian Cinema and Soviet Movie-going after Stalin,' Yoda Press, 2008 ('Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas: The Culture of Movie-going after Stalin,' Indiana University Press, 2009).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/moldova-online

Modi's Valley hug sparks swadeshi talk

praskrishna — 2015-10-11T05:33:55Z

His warm hug of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg will perhaps be the most abiding image of Narendra Modi's visit to the Silicon Valley.

But that embrace, and what it conveyed, is now becoming the subject for an intense debate among techies here. Is Modi giving in too much to the Googles and Facebooks of the world, when there is so much technology talent within India? Is he taking the easy way out by handing out critical pieces of his Digital India vision to global incumbents rather than build domestic capabilities?

"When the government wanted to build a citizen engagement platform earlier this year, they depended on Google. Now when they want Wi-Fi in railway stations, it's again Google. These are things that can be done by our companies, otherwise we will not be able to create our own digital industry. Remember, we are the people who built Aadhaar," said an industry veteran who did not want to be named.

Nitin Pai, co-founder of Takshashila, an independent policy research and advocacy body that provides services for government agencies, NGOs and corporations, said Modi's team should make a careful distinction between national interest and MNCs' commercial interest. "Many MNCs have come forward to participate in Digital India initiatives. The government will have to look at offering sufficient incentives for innovation to domestic tech companies, many of whom are coming with innovative business models," he said.

Speaking to a cross-section of tech companies here, two sets of concerns emerge. One relates to the concessions that will work in favour of global incumbents and against newcomers - the latter is likely to add more value in the long term. This includes the issue of net neutrality , on which the government is seen to be waffling, and the guidelines issued by the Indian Patent Office declaring that software is patentable in India.

The new guidelines will make it easier for companies to file for software patents in India. But software patenting has become hugely controversial globally , because innova tions in the area are often just incremental, and come on top of other software programs.Besides, patenting is expensive and is often the subject of litigation, both of which work against small ventures with little resources. Companies like Google have spent billions of dollars to buy patents.

Venkatesh Hariharan, member of software product think-tank iSpirt, said the new guidelines would make it easier for bigger companies to file software patents, but for smaller firms and startups, the move could be detrimental."They could end up fighting patent litigations. In the US, 37% of patent litigation is around software and business patents," he said.

Sunil Abraham, executive director in research organization Centre for Internet and Society , fears litigation could kill local innovation. He cited a recent example where a Delhi high court order asked Indian handset manufacturer Micromax to pay 1.25%-2% of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson that had claimed infringement of patents.

The other set of issues relates to certain rules and regulations in India that place significant obstacles before small technology ventures. This is resulting in many ventures shifting their registered offices to Singapore or the US.

Albinder Dindsa's on-demand delivery service Gro fers is among the latest to create a holding company in Singapore. "It is challenging to do business in India. Even opening a bank account took time. We thought it would be easier to do an IPO if we are in Singapore," he said.

A senior industry analyst who did not want to be named said that till last year, two out of four ventures were moving out of India, but now that figure is three out of four. "I would expect the government to do something about it. In fact, the finance minister did say in June that the issues would be addressed within 30 days. But nothing has happened."

Also, it is expensive for angel investors overseas to invest in Indian startups.

India disallows startups from offering stock options to foreign nationals, which makes it difficult for them to access seasoned mentors.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-sujit-john-and-shilpa-phadnis-october-6-2015-modi-valley-hug-sparks-swadeshi-talk

Modi Govt compromising privacy of individuals: Cong

Admin — 2018-04-18T01:10:42Z

Charging the Narendra Modi Governemt with compromising the privacy of individuals by leaking user information on the Narendra Modi app, the Congress on Monday said the counter allegations by the BJP that the Opposition party was indulging in 'data theft' were an attempt to divert attention from the issue.

This was published by United News of India on March 26, 2018.

Talking to reporters here, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, 'we have said repeatedly that the biggest assault on individual privacy has occurred under the watch of the Narendra Modi Government. Not only people’s money, but people’s privacy is also in question.

Even as startling revelations that the Narendra Modi app, run by the BJP is sharing data of millions of users with American companies emerge, the Modi Government mocks and flouts the ‘Right to Privacy’ with brazen impunity. While the Prime Minister’s Office, PMO India app, asks users to voluntarily part with their identity on 14 data points, the NaMo app asks for a sweeping access to 22 data points. The NaMo app records audio, video, contacts of your friends and family and even tracks your location via GPS. No wonder, Modi ji is like the ‘Bigg Boss’ who with brazenness likes to spy on Indians. The BJP whose IT (Identity Theft?) Minister does daily press conferences on the issue of data security and democracy, has much to answer to the people of India on the unscrupulous means by which Shri Narendra Modi’s personal app is accessing data and passing on data of more than 50 lakh Indians,' he alleged.

Describing the BJP allegations that the Congress was indulging in 'data theft' through its mobile app, Mr Singhvi said. 'the Modi Government is resorting to deflectionary and diversionary tactics. The Congress application had just 15,000 downloads against the 50 lakh Indians who downloaded the NaMo app. Also, the Congress application was discontinued as most of the users wanted to register offline.'

Accusing Mr Modi of misusing the Prime Minister’s position to build personal database with data on millions of Indians via the NaMo app promoted by the government, Mr Singhvi said, 'Why does Mr Modi, in his own book ‘Exam Warriors’ urge you to download the NaMo app. Is he now planning to snoop in on minors? Mr Modi is misusing the Prime Minister’s position to build personal database with data on millions of Indians via the NaMo app promoted by Government. If as PM he wants to use tech to communicate with India, there is no problem in that. But use the official PMO app for it, not the NaMo app. This data belongs to India, not to Mr Modi.

Shockingly, data of atleast 13 lakh NCC cadets which include personal mobile phone numbers and email ID’s are being given to the Prime Minister’s Office for an interaction.'

Citing in this regard the report of a committee of experts appointed by the government on the issue of data protection, Mr Singhvi said, 'importantly, a Government appointed Committee of Experts (CoE) to look into a framework for data protection, headed by Justice (retd) BN Srikrishna has made scathing observations in a paper released in November 2017, against the Government and has shockingly implied (according to the media reports) that the Modi Government is collecting personal data illegally. The committee, which is currently in the process of conducting consultations, has also considered the SC judgment on privacy, says in its paper “The public and private sector are collecting and using personal data on an unprecedented scale. While data can be put to beneficial use, unregulated and arbitrary use of data, especially personal data, raise concerns relating to centralisation of databases, profiling of individuals, increased surveillance and a consequent erosion of individual autonomy.”

Alleging that under the Modi Government, not only the personal data of citizens was under serious threat, but there were multiple reports of data breaches in banks, Mr Singhvi said, 'astonishingly, under the Modi Government, not only the personal data of citizens is under serious threat, but multiple breaches in the banks. In an atmosphere where every single day there has been a bank fraud worth thousands of crores of rupees being reported, have resulted in one single question - how safe is our money in banks?

Banks and PSU’s have reported multiple breaches in recent past. A newspaper report on Monday said two online security experts have claimed that the Aadhaar database of two public-sector enterprises leaked select data and the vulnerability was fixed only a month after attention was drawn to it. This exposes their names, the 12-digit Aadhaar number and information of the services they have linked their Aadhaar card to. These services include bank details, policy details and other private information. This was corroborated by the UIDAI statement released on Sunday.

“It was left up there for more than a month — even though it had been reported to them directly,” claim the security experts. On February 23, 2018 a report had claimed that there was a data breach which had hit the the Punjab National Bank, whereby sensitive credit, debit card details of 10,000 customers were leaked. Quick Heal, a reputed software company in October 2017 had also claimed that there was a massive data breach in 6,000 government offices including banks. Earlier in 2016, as per media reports -- 32 lakh debit/credit cards of various Indian banks were compromised. The worst-hit was the State Bank of India along with certain private banks.'

He also charged the present Government of breach of Aadhaar data of individuals.

'In April 2014, the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had attacked Aadhaar and the UPA Government on its possible ‘security threat’. Life has now come full circle for the BJP. Just like numerous other issues, their blatant hypocrisy on Aadhaar is exposed. In January, this year, when a reputed newspaper in a sting exposed how 1 crore Aadhaar details can be accessed in just 10 minutes, by paying just Rs 500 in Chandigarh, the UIDAI had then filed an FIR against the reporter. Now the editor of the reputed media house has also been replaced.

We have seen it in May 4, 2017, when the Modi Government is on record in Supreme Court, accepting data breach in the Aadhaar scheme. Now the Attorney General in Supreme Court, while arguing that Aadhaar data remains safe and secure, says that the Aadhaar data remains secure behind a complex that has 13-ft high and five-feet thick walls, which is laughable and ludicrous, to say the least. On November 20, 2017, the UIDAI had accepted on record that –“More than 210 central and state government websites publicly displayed details such as names and addresses of Aadhaar beneficiaries”. Earlier too, ‘Centre for Internet and Society’, a Bengaluru-based organisation (CIS) in a study published on May 1, 2017, had found that data of more than 130 million Aadhaar card holders has been leaked from just four government websites. Therefore this is a serious issue. Clearly, neither our money, nor our Aadhaar details or our personal details are secure under the Modi Government.'

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/united-news-of-india-march-26-2018-modi-govt-compromising-privacy-of-individuals-congress