We are anonymous, we are legion

Majority of top politicians' Twitter followers fake: audit

Admin — 2017-11-28T01:10:44Z

A majority of Twitter users following top Indian politicians, including prime minister Narendra Modi, are fake, according to an audit site.

The article by Furquan Moharkan was published in Deccan Herald on October 24, 2017.

Leaders cutting across party lines generate popularity on social media using bots, or automated software, according to the data-analytics website TwitterAudit.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Modi, and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi have a combined Twitter credibility of just 35%. In other words, 65 out of 100 followers are fake.

Kejriwal, with 1.24 crore followers, has a low credibility of 22.9% on Twitter, according to TwitterAudit. A good 96.34 lakh of Kejriwal’s followers are bots.

Modi, who has two personal Twitter handles (@narendramodi and @narendramodi_in), has a combined credibility of just 37.4%. On the handle @narendramodi, of 3.5 crore followers, just 1.3 crore followers are said to be authentic. The remaining 2.2 crore are marked as bots by TwitterAudit.

The handle @narendramodi_in has 5.99 lakh authentic followers, and 8.01 lakh are again marked as bots.

Congress heir apparent Rahul Gandhi, relatively new to social media, has seen much traction of late. His credibility score is 51.6% on Twitter.

While 19.73 lakh of his followers are authentic, 18.51 lakh are said to be fake.

Rahul’s story
Rahul Gandhi’s handle ‘OfficeofRG’ has been in the news, with a spike in retweets being cited by rivals in the BJP as evidence of bots at work.

The handle got 2,784 retweets in September, as compared to 2,506 for Modi and and 1,722 for Kejriwal. In October, he’s scoring even better, with 3,812 retweets.

Sites like TwitterAudit are helpful, but their results are guesses based on various assumptions about ‘bot-like’ qualities, according to an expert.

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society, told DH some users were also out on ‘false flag operations,’ besmirching opponents by ‘exposing’ their usage of bots. “The idea that social media bots can shape popular discourse, as is often supposed to be the case with Brexit, is not backed by research,” he said. “A study by Enders Analysis shows the opposite to be the case.”

The score by TwitterAudit is based on the number of tweets, date of the last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends.

A news agency alleged the traction came from ‘bots’ with Russian, Kazakh or Indonesian handles routinely retweeting Rahul’s posts.

Infact, Prime Minister Office handle (@PMOIndia) also has a low credibility of 39.6%, according to twitter audit.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-furquan-moharkan-october-24-2017-majority-of-top-politicians-twitter-followers-fake

Lost your phone? Here's how you can make your mobile theft-proof

praskrishna — 2017-01-19T02:40:21Z

Losing a phone has become even more costly after the government's push for a cashless society.

The article by Sanjay Kumar Singh was published in the Business Standard on January 16, 2017. Udbhav Tiwari was quoted. Read the full article on Press Reader. Udbhav Tiwari was quoted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while pitching for cashless transactions, has coined a new phrase — your mobile is a bank. If you really want to use your mobile phone as a bank, remember the costs of losing it are much higher. Earlier, if you lost your mobile phone, there was the risk of misuse of personal data. Now, with most gadgets also carrying mobile wallet apps, there is the added risk of serious financial loss. A number of security solutions, available in the form of external security software or in-built into the phone, can help you track the device, lock it and minimise the probability of misuse.

First, it should give you some satisfaction that if your device is of recent vintage, someone stealing your phone will not be able to use it. Earlier, thieves would wipe the data on the phone (if it had a pin), set up a new account, and use it. But if it is an Apple phone that came out after 2014 or a phone with Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher operating system (OS), the server will ask for login information of the first account (with which the owner had initially set up the phone). Only then will it allow someone to set up a second account on the same device. Since that information is not likely to be available to the thief, the phone will be of little use to him.

Track your device

Both Apple and Android have in-built features that allow you to track your device if it gets lost. In Apple it is called 'Find my phone' and on Android, 'Android device manager'. When you log in through your Apple or Google account while setting up the phone, this feature gets enabled by default. After your phone is stolen, go online and type 'Find my phone' or 'Android device manager'. Use your account credentials to log in. As long as your phone is on and is connected to the Internet, it will broadcast its location. If it has been switched off or can't connect to the Internet, you will only be able to see the last location from where it transmitted.

Antivirus software for mobile phones also offer tracking features. "Using our mobile security software, users can locate their lost device on a map or receive the location coordinates through an SMS," says Ritesh Chopra, country manager, Norton by Symantec. These software also enable you to lock the lost device remotely either from the antivirus software's web site or by sending an SMS. Chopra informs that you can also remotely delete all the data stored either on the device or its memory card. Users can also trigger an alarm if they think their device is still in the vicinity. "Some antivirus software also allow you to take snapshots of the illegal user once the original user has reported it as stolen," says Udbhav Tiwari, policy officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

Take preventive security measures

How well your phone and the data on it are protected after theft will, however, depend on the security measures you adopt proactively while the phone is in your possession.

Install a password: The first stage of protection you should adopt is a pin, pattern lock, or password for your mobile phone. If you don't set up a pin, everything that doesn't require a second level of authentication is available to anyone who gets possession of your device. If you lose your laptop but have logged out of your email or social networking account, the thief can't access them. But on mobile phones most of these services don't require a second level of authentication.

Most alarming from a financial standpoint is the fact that most mobile wallets don't ask for a password before allowing you to transact (Paytm has introduced one recently). "If you have a mobile wallet and don't have a pin on your phone and it gets stolen, the thief can easily transfer money from your wallet to another," says Tiwari. Most mobile and net banking apps, however, require a login and password every time you want to access them, and are hence safer.

Set a pin promptly--a strong one that can't be easily guessed. Numbers associated with you, such as your birthday, are a strict no-no. If your phone carries especially sensitive or important data, eschew pins altogether and use a detailed password with a diverse combination of characters.

Nowadays you can also deploy fingerprint-based unlocking feature on your phone. "By using Fonetastic for the Android platform, you can set the fingerprint unlock feature on your phone," informs Sanjay Katkar, managing director and chief technology officer, Quick Heal Technologies.

Encrypt data on your device: Even if you set up a pin or password, the data on your mobile phone is not protected. Hackers can bypass it and gain access to your files. To protect data, OS developers like Google and Apple encrypt data. The device encryption feature works using something unique on your device, such as its serial number, and your pin. Even if someone gets access to your files via a computer, they will not be able to open them. These files will open only on your phone, and for that they will need your pin, password or pattern lock (presuming you have set one).

In all iOS phones, the moment you set your pin, all files get automatically encrypted. In any Android phone purchased within the last one year (that runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow by default), the same holds true. But if you have an older Android phone or OS version, you need to enable this feature manually. Go to Settings, then to Security, find an option called 'Encrypt phone' and click on it.

Install an app lock: Some security apps allow you to lock the apps on your phone and also encrypt the files produced by those apps. When you start an app, the security app will ask for a pin. And when you exit an app, it will encrypt the files stored within the app. Go to Google Play or iStore and type 'encrypted file storage' to get the most popular lock-and-encrypt apps. "If you use device-level encryption, you may not need these apps, as the former locks and encrypts the entire device," says Tiwari

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-january-16-2017-sanjay-kumar-singh-lost-your-phone-here-is-how-you-can-make-your-mobile-theft-proof

Los internautas indios se oponen a la censura a través de la Red

praskrishna — 2011-12-09T00:25:11Z

La idea del Gobierno indio de censurar los contenidos de internet ha chocado con el rechazo de la empresas del sector y de los internautas, que están usando las redes sociales para ridiculizar al ministro

La idea del Gobierno de la India de censurar los contenidos de internet ha chocado con el rechazo de la empresas del sector y, sobre todo, de los internautas, que están usando las redes sociales para ridiculizar al ministro del ramo.

Esta semana, el titular de Comunicaciones, Kapil Sibal, reveló que ha contactado con los gestores de la más importantes redes sociales y buscadores para plantear la eliminación de contenidos "objetables", lo cual ha sublevado a los internautas.

Los foros de la red hierven de opiniones en contra de la simple posibilidad de que se censure internet y en el Twitter indio las cadenas de "tuiteos" más seguidas llevan por título el nombre del ministro; la más exitosa es de hecho "IdiotKapilSibal".

Los medios locales afirman que la iniciativa del Ejecutivo indio surgió a raíz de la publicación en algunos portales de fotos deformadas del primer ministro, Manmohan Singh, y de la líder del gobernante Partido del Congreso, Sonia Gandhi.

Esto último ha motivado que muchos de los mensajes que corren por la red bromeen con que la nueva normativa de control debería llamarse SONIA, acrónimo de Social Networking Inspection Act (Norma de inspección de las redes sociales).

La idea del ministro Kapil también ha topado con la más moderada oposición de portales como Facebook o Google, que se han negado a aplicar nuevos sistemas de control más allá de los previstos por las mismas páginas de internet.

Aunque dijeron "reconocer el interés del Gobierno en minimizar el contenido abusivo" en la red, los responsables de Facebook en India recalcaron en un comunicado que su portal ya tiene mecanismos para eliminar textos o imágenes contrarias a su propia normativa interna.

Según datos de Facebook, la India es, con 34 millones, el tercer país del mundo con más usuarios de esta red social, solo por detrás de Estados Unidos e Indonesia.

Google India recalcó en un comunicado, citado por la agencia local IANS, que "hay que diferenciar lo que es controvertido de lo que es ilegal" y también se remitió a los mecanismos de control de contenidos del propio buscador.

La oposición de los operadores y los internautas no ha hecho desistir, de momento, al ministro, que advirtió en una rueda de prensa convocada por sorpresa de que el Gobierno seguirá adelante con la cooperación de las empresas o sin ella.

"Les pediremos información (a los portales web), déjennos tiempo para gestionarlo. Pero una cosa es segura: no permitiremos ese tipo de contenido objetable", dijo Kapil a los medios. El plan del ministro choca, sin embargo, con problemas de diversa índole.

"En el control de internet hay una dificultad técnica, ya que es imposible que una máquina discrimine lo que es 'objetable' de lo que no, por lo se producen multitud de falsos positivos", dijo el responsable de una organización india de estudios sobre la red.

Pero el director del Centro Internet y Sociedad, Sunil Abraham, cree que el problema es más ético que tecnológico, ya que "solo un juez está facultado para eliminar contenidos y debe haber evidencia del daño cometido, algo casi imposible cuando hay censura previa".

This article appeared in the Spanish newspaper Diario de Navarra on 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this. Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internautas-indios-se-oponen

Look Who’s Chasing... The Twitter God

praskrishna — 2012-04-10T09:24:52Z

The celebrity isn’t the known face, it’s the Twitter handle that gets the following, writes Arpita Basu in this article published in Outlook's April 2012 issue. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article.

If Abhishek Asthana felt the jitters as he prepared to face an internship interview on his B-school campus, this 35-character nugget of information would have lifted his spirits: He had a fan on the interview panel. “One of the panelists asked me, ‘Are you the same @GabbbarSingh from Twitter? I’ve been following you for a long time’!” recalls Abhishek, still chuffed. At 25, and in just over two years on Twitter, this Gabbbar Singh’s answer to ‘Kitne aadmi the?’ would be a formidable 19,540. That’s his follower count: people who hang on to his every word, retweeting, replying and generally relishing the irreverence that has made stars out of tweeters like Abhishek.

Twitter, the microblogging site that turned six last month, has raised a smart brood of commentators who go from politics to policies to pop culture and back, riding on 140 characters, trailed by a few thousand followers. Neither netas nor abhinetas, they are rabble-rousers and opinion-makers in their own right. Executives, entrepreneurs, tech geeks, students and creative types, these are ordinary people who have found anything but ordinary fame on the strength of their one-liners alone.

Take @BollywoodGandu, a blockbuster of a Twitter handle with a 57,000-strong audience, including, till recently, big-ticket followers like Karan Johar and Abhishek Bachchan. “They unfollowed me for reasons only they know,” shrugs the man behind the tweets, who’s used to having celebs follow him and then dropping him when they “don’t like” what he writes (Here’s a teaser: “Aishwarya looks like a mannequin in #Robot posters. Oh wait, on second thought, that kinda makes sense”.) The 30-year-old tweet icon, an industry insider who swears by Amol Palekar comedies, relishes the effect he has on filmwallahs; film crews have been known to scroll through his timeline during shooting breaks. “It makes me want to storm in like Russell Crowe in Gladiator and yell ‘Are you not entertained?’!” he adds dramatically.

Entertained, yes. Enlightened? You bet. These new stars on the media horizon, explains Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, “provide information, comments, and a sense of humour and cynicism that is missing from mainstream media”. With Twitter launching its Hindi version in September last year, language too is no longer a barrier. Again, on this turf, the threshold for entry is much lower. “Unlike TV,” Abraham elaborates, “where you have to look and dress a certain way and then say something interesting, these tweeters hold people’s attention sitting in their homes. We don’t even know what they look like.”

Which only makes them more relatable. After all, they are swimming in the same fish bowl as everyone else, right? And feeling the same fears when the water rises too high above the head. Only, they express it way better. Snappy, sharp and always questioning, their unforgiving, emperor-has-no-clothes approach scores with people fed up with what Twitter veteran Ramesh Srivats calls “curated mainstream media”.

Photograph by Amit Haralkar

Varun Grover @JayHind 11724 followers
Famous tweet Keep army busy. Give them an IPL team of their own.

It’s no wonder that popular media wants a piece of them too. Varun Grover, a 32-year-old engineer-turned-satirist whose witty observations made the Twitter handle @JayHind a hit, landed a TV deal: to script, along with his team, the spoofy The Late Night Show on Colors. “Tweets are my research; a scratchboard for the gags,” Varun reveals. The show, which carries forward JayHind TV’s online sketches, looks at current goings-on with a shovelful of salt. “Having grown up in Lucknow, analysing politics came naturally to me,” says Varun.

There’s more that comes naturally to the Tweet brigade—the art of getting Twitterverse’s 12 million inhabitants (that’s just counting India) to listen, for one. Writer and IT professional Arnab Ray @greatbong (see accompanying column) recalls how his legion of followers grew over three years, drawn in by his “funny, spontaneous, politically incorrect tweets that honour no holy cows”. “I am not a celebrity, so there was no opening day surge for me,” Arnab quips, conceding that his reputation as Greatbong the blogger preceded him on Twitter. For Rake$£ Jhunjhunwala ['Fake Jhunjhunwala'] @jhunjhunwala too, tweeting about blog posts got his foot in the door back in 2009, when very few had warmed to Twitter in India. Today, some 43,000-odd Tweeple prick up their ears to catch what this trader-investor, video-gamer and combat sports freak has to say during his “recreation hours”. Blogging also helped Priyanka Sachar @twilightfairy increase her tweet-worth. Priyanka passed up eleven-and-a-half years as a computer engineer to become a fine art wedding photographer, and regularly tweets links to her work. She hardly blogs now, having “lost patience with lengthy posts”, and can’t say enough about the mercurial nature of Twitter, though her strike rate of 70-plus tweets on a good day says enough.

Photograph by Narendra Bisht

Priyanka Sachar @twilightfairy 14913 followers
Famous tweet ...markets are full of Easter eggs already. On Navratre. That’s the way the Indian cookie crumbles.

“We have to stay in the moment. Or if possible, before the moment,” offers Utsav Chakraborty @SatanBhagat, who counts power-lister Anand Mahindra amongst his fans. The 21-year-old media grad, “bottom-tier stand-up comic” and er... not the biggest fan of Chetan Bhagat, distills the essence of a quality tweet: “A view is just a view without analogies and wordplay. No one likes raw chicken. You have to marinate, cook, season, garnish and serve it on a warm plate. We’re all assembly line gourmet chefs.”

Each, though, has perfected his or her own specialty dish, be it satire, humour, current affairs, business dos, boudoir don’ts.... Then there is Twitter’s tryst with literature—Twisters. Twitter stories penned, like their nomenclature, by Arjun Basu, a Montreal-based writer and publishing veteran in his 40s, whose Twitter readership stands at 1,46,895 and counting. “After my first tweet wishing I had ordered another vodka on a flight, I wrote a story, which came in at 140 characters with some editing. Within a day, I had written a few and then I became a bit obsessed.” That’s understating it: Arjun has written 5,000 Twisters since. One of them—“They tolerated the ennui of their jobs, bought off by promises of spectacular riches sometime in the future. At retirement, they bought guns”—has been made into an award-winning short film, Life. He hopes to compile his Twisters into a book—or at least put them on posters or coffee mugs.

Another compilation of tweets worth a shot—@Kweezzz trivia. Conscientiously hosting tweet-sized quizzes on everything from Guatemalan currency to the inventor of earmuffs to the actress whose “toothbrush fell in the toilet”, Kweezzz is instant food for the brain.

There’s grist for gossip mills too. Malini Agarwal @MissMalini has much to reveal about “Bollywood and the Bombay party circuit unplugged”. With tidbits from fashion shows, who-wore-it-best couture contests, and shirtless celeb twitpics (sample this: “Lean, mean and undressed Rana Daggubati”) she keeps her tweet wattage high. Devotees leave posts at her shrine on the hour.

Photograph by Nilotpal Baruah

Ramesh Srivats @rameshsrivats 35798 followers
Famous tweet Two weapons against corruption: Lokpal and Chappal

For Ramesh Srivats, it’s all in a day’s work to have fans come up to him to say hello. Characteristically, he makes light of it: “My bald head makes me easy to recognise!” Utsav’s celeb moment translates into “an occasional free meal or a job offer”. “Other than that, my ‘celebrity’ mostly extends to Linkedin and Google+ invites,” he says modestly.

For some Twitterati, think Pragmatic Desi, The Comic Project, Bombay Addict and C_gawker, it’s enough for just the pseudonyms to be recognised. They refuse to step out from behind their famous handles. Hear it from BollywoodGandu: “I never thought anonymity would be a criterion for popularity, but I was wrong. As Indians, our first response to anyone usually is ‘Tu kaun hai?’. And when you don’t know the answer, it adds to the mystery,” he says. It adds on immunity too, as you throw that virtual chappal. Anonymity and accountability are, after all, inversely linked. Social scientist Shiv Visvanathan insists that the freedom of expression which Twitter affords exists only up to a point: “If you keep making outrageous comments, there will come a quiet point when people will say ‘See you later’. The loudmouths disappear over time. What works best is self-policing.”

Photograph by Jignesh Mistry

Abhishek Asthana @GabbbarSingh 19540 followers
Famous tweet No. of hours you spend wearing shorts in a day/no. of hours wearing trousers = work/life balance index

Besides its obvious merit, the anonymous Twitter handle is also a great creative opportunity. No wonder the handles, alter-egos for their owners, are attention magnets themselves. Abhishek recalls how starting the Gabbbar Singh account to write a blogpost about a Twitter-savvy cast of Sholay, got him 50 followers in five minutes flat, and a thousand in 20 days.

Bollywood Gandu’s irresistible handle, he says, was inspired by a meeting with “a certain Bollywood star and his/her friends (read chamchas)”. He adds, “The irony is that the real ‘gaali’ in my handle is ‘Bollywood’.” Many in his Twitter circle would have noted that already. Twitter’s wit wagon, after all, is teeming with like-minded tweeple, befriending each other, following each other. Ashish Shakya, for instance, follows Gursimran Khamba and Overrated Outcast, who, in turn follow him; Ramesh Srivats and Lakshmipathy Bhat @bhatnaturally follow each other. Yes, it is a small world. But by no means a closed one. Most of them also follow those who could become potential ‘material’ for tweets. JayHind follows news sites to keep himself updated, just as diligently as he keeps up with “unintentionally funny people who falter almost daily” (read celebs).

With the variety and versatility on offer, it’s a goldmine out there for anyone who can keep pace with a tweet a minute. The format helps, of course, as Abraham points out: “It forces people to be brief. You don’t have to wade through too much information to find the next big thing.” Or star. After all, in the democratic republic of Twitter, all it takes to go from voice in the wilderness to vox popular is to say something worthwhile. And find people who’ll gladly repeat it after you.

Read the original in Outlook

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/look-who-s-chasing-twitter-god

Look what the state just did to you

praskrishna — 2011-06-16T10:51:58Z

The government's recent introduction of new rules in the IT Act allows 'offensive' material on any website to be removed within 36 hours. Did the state just arm everyone to shoot the messenger, online?Th

Let's say a newspaper published a contentious piece that begs to be questioned in the court of law. What would happen if instead of the journalist who wrote the article or the editor who published it, we decide to sue the newspaper boy who delivered the paper? Irrational? According to bloggers and digital media experts, new rules notified under the Information Technology Act 2008, has armed everyone to shoot the messenger, online. Will this challenge our fundamental freedom of speech and expression, and the fabric of the Internet as we know it?

In April this year, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) introduced a new set of rules called Intermediary Due Diligence. According to it, every citizen has the right to complain against any digital content to the website host or any ISP that serves the content or any cybercafe from which the content is available, etc (legally referred to as intermediary). In other words, any website that carries content Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and even newspaper websites can be sued for the content they carry, even if it is a third party that has written it.

So, even though over 190 million users worldwide publish over a billion comments a week on social broadcast medium Twitter, if someone were to find a particular 'Tweet' offensive even if it hasn't been written by an Indian they can ask Twitter to remove the tweet, failing which, they can sue the site.

According to the rules, every intermediary (read website) is now required to hire a grievance officer, to whom the offended party can send their complaint. The website is given 36 hours, to remove the comment, post or content, failing which the website is liable to judicial action.

The website owner no longer possesses the discretion to ignore complaints and uphold the freedom of speech of his site's users without risking liability himself.

Is the rule unconstitutional?

According to Pranesh Prakash, programme manager for Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, the new rules are unconstitutional.

The pre-existing section 79 of the IT Act states that intermediaries (that is to say, websites) are not liable for third party information (such as comments, posts, tweets or posts) as long as they are mere conduits, observe 'due diligence' and don't encourage criminal activity. The new rules were meant to clarify what 'due diligence' meant. A draft of the rules was released in February, and the final rules were added to the IT Act in April.

"The rules have gone far beyond mere clarification. The Department has imposed rules that insist that intermediaries play the role of a judge and executioner on mere complaint, without any opportunity for the other side to be heard," says Prakash.

In a press release issued on May 11 this year, the DIT stated, "The Government adopted a transparent process for formulation of the Rules under the Information Technology Act. The draft rules were published on the Department of Information Technology website for comments [in February] and were widely covered by the media. None of the Industry Associations and other stakeholders objected to the formulation, which is now being cited in some section of media."

However, media analysts disagree. "The DIT was expected to create a public listing of comments submitted. From what we've seen on their website, they haven't," says Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, a website that offers analyses of news on various forms of media, including the Internet.

Interestingly, some Members of Parliament registered their protest against the draft rules.

Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar registered his protest against the draft rules during Zero Hour on March 22, and received the support of three other MPs Kumar Deepak Das, P Rajeev, Mahendra Mohan.

His argument was also published on his website: "The execution of these rules could result in a shutting down of the Internet, which is the main form of expression for growing Indians, if the information posted is found inconvenient to Government, institutions or individuals. This would also take away the right to freedom of expression of bloggers and other Internet users in the country. The Government must call for transparent public consultation/public opinion."

Restricting freedom of speech

What's more, say lawyers, the ground on which a person can find a comment offensive is vague and open to interpretation.

Apar Gupta, a lawyer associated with the Software Freedom Law Centre in New Delhi, says, "The grounds to block content are arbitrary. In a situation like this, any intelligent critique, discourse etc can be deemed offensive and no one can do anything about it."

Nor is it mandatory for the website to inform the person, who has posted a comment that someone else found offensive, before removing it.

"In a case like this, the so-called violator does not even have the opportunity to be heard or defend himself, which is a violation of the principles of natural justice," adds Prakash.

Websites no longer have a final say in regulating content, as they are legally bound to remove matter that has been found offensive. The removed content can be re-instated if the website wins a lawsuit against the complainant if it chooses to go through with one in the first place.

"Suppose you do not like what I have posted on Twitter, and file a complaint with the grievance officer.

Twitter has two options remove the content and be safe or keep it and be liable. What do you think is easier for Twitter? Obviously, it wouldn't want to be party to hundreds of lawsuits," explains Gupta.

Before the rules were notified, a police complaint could be registered, a civil suit filed, or a 'nodal officer' required to be designated in all government departments could be approached, which would be followed by a judicial probe. If the content was eventually found offensive, the website would be asked to remove it.

"Now, websites will lose protection from law if they don't take down 'offensive' content. They have no incentive to uphold the freedom of speech of their users. Instead, they have been provided incentives to take down all content about which they receive complaints without applying their minds," Prakash points out.

Then again, in our country where anything from a paragraph in a history textbook to a 15-second jig by a politician can be deemed offensive, analysts fear that the rules can be rampantly misused.

"The rule will be used by conservatives and not liberals. Lots of organised people (political parties, bureaucrats etc) will take down all content against them. People could end up using the rule to challenge a website and making money by agreeing for an out of court settlement," fears Gupta.

"It can become a tool for harassment," Shivam Vij, a member of radical critique blog Kafila, adds tersely.

The new clause has the potential to immediately address truly offensive material, such as child pornography, online grooming of young girls and boys by paedophiles (such as the recent case of Paul Wilson who was convicted in Birmingham for grooming 20 minors online) and videos taken on the sly (one such case led Rutgers university student Tyler Clementi to commit suicide, when a video of him having sex with a fellow male student was posted online). However, it is a double-edged sword that calls for further debate on what can be posted and what can be removed.

One way to do this is to make information public. If a site is blocked or content removed, there should be a public notice issued and a list should be maintained of all requests for removals or blocks. Also, the reason for removing or blocking a piece of content, and the authority responsible for taking that decision should be made public. When a user visits a blocked site, there should be a notice about the block, and a specific recourse mentioned for getting the block removed.

This article by Yoshita Sengupta was published in Mid Day on June 12, 2011. Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/state-just-did-to-you

Lok sabha polls: Social media companies launch special pages for polls

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T11:28:54Z

Internet and social media giants such as Google and Facebook have launched special campaigns, pages and services around the Indian Lok Sabha elections to make the most of the world's largest democratic exercise that kicked off on Monday.

The article by Varuni Khosla was published in the Economic Times on April 10, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Big and small social media companies are looking to use the poll fever to augment their businesses by wooing new users and generating more traffic.

Google, for example, recently launched an election page along with a Google Hangout series and a 'Pledge to Vote' and 'Know Your Candidates' campaign that featured 97-year-old Shyam Saran Negi from Himachal Pradesh who has voted in every election in Independent India. Twitter has come up with a 'Discover' section of curated tweets while Facebook has launched an election trackers as well as a 'Facebook Talks' page.

Indian social platform Vebbler has unveiled 'Ungli' campaign while telecom operator MTS has tied up with Social Samosa for an election tracker.

"While in the short run it may just be a branding exercise, in the long run it could result in more sign-ups and convert into a wider user base for these companies," said Bhupendra Khanal, CEO and co-founder at social business intelligence company Simplify360.

"But it also shows how important India is as a market for these companies — that they are looking at generating information beyond short-term revenues," he added. Khanal said the most popular hashtags with mentions in last 30 days are #Elections2014, which got 46,000 mentions, and #Election2014:, with 36,000 mentions.

This shows that social media users are following and discussing the elections and candidates constantly. Raheel Khursheed, head of news, politics and government at Twitter India, said election candidates across political parties are using Twitter platform to break news, answer questions and post 'selfies'.

"This page lets voters see all the official Twitter feeds from political parties and candidates and will let voters make an informed choice before they go and vote," he said.

Sunil Abraham, executive director at non-profit charitable organisation Centre for Internet and Society, said social media companies are looking at earning close to 10% of the entire media spend by political parties.

"When they have election related features on their site, they can tell their advertisers (political parties) that they are a serious platform that talks politics," he said. "Also, when a user clicks on these ads that are being put up by parties, social media companies are able to gain granular information about the user's likes and dislikes and therefore figure out how to advertise to them in the future," Abraham added.

These make it doubly attractive for social media companies to have such services.

Also, experts say that it doesn't cost much at all to set up these special pages and launch campaigns. "Spends on these campaigns could cost social media companies just about Rs 10-20 lakh - including making videos and setting up pages," a social media agency head said.

This person said that about 60 million people have been discussing Indian Elections on social media, even though there are just about 40 million Twitter users in India. "So, a lot of interest has been taken in the elections from other countries," the person added.

Close to 65% of India's population is under the age of 35 and more and more young people in the country are using social media.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) estimates that a well-executed social media campaign can swing 3%–4% of votes. "Digital advertising in India has increased by 30% this year and around Rs 3402 crore is expected to be spent in 2014. Of this, social media spend is close to Rs 300 crore according to IMRB," says James Drake-Brockman, head of digital marketing division, DMG :: events.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls

Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:32:56Z

The Union government and mobile operators are at loggerheads on location based services (LBS) – the service through which mobile companies can provide real time location of mobile users to the government.

The article by Danish Raza was published in FirstPost on October 15, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In the aftermath of Nirbhaya gangrape case in December, Delhi Police approached mobile operators to implement LBS, but the operators refused citing the costs involved in the process, said M M Oberoi, joint commissioner of Delhi police. Oberoi was talking at the India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance, conducted by FICCI in New Delhi on Tuesday. “Often the person in distress dials 100 but does not know his or her location. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the PCR vans to track the victim. A lot of time is spent trying to figure out the victim’s location, as it happened in the 16 December gangrape case,” said Oberoi.


Representational image. Agencies.

As reported by Firstpost, the government has already directed all telecom service providers to make location details a mandatory part of call data records (CDR) of all mobile users in the country starting mid- 2014.

India is the second-largest mobile phone user with over 900 million users, as per the union government data. However, mobile companies are not complying with the government order, Oberoi told Firstpost. “In our attempt to develop a better response mechanism, we are also exploring ways through which we can bypass mobile companies to track the person. We can do it through software,” he added.

The mobile companies have maintained that they can help the government in tracking people in distress, but the kind of accuracy the law enforcement forces are demanding involves huge costs.

The DoT directive says that while detecting the location of the mobile users in urban centres, the telecom operator should achieve 80 percent accuracy in the first year of implementing the technology followed by 95 percent accuracy in the second year. However, it is not clear from the DoT note which year will be taken into account while determining the degree of accuracy of the company’s technology – 2011 (when the order was issued) or 2014 (when location details shall be part of CDR for all mobile calls).

“For such accuracy, we need to put enhanced cell tracking software on cell towers which is a very expensive process,” Rajan S Mathews, director, Cellular Operators Associations of India, told Firstpost.

In the last meeting with the representatives of DoT, Cellular Operators Associations of India told the former that it was against the idea of LBS for all mobile users, but can cooperate in the case of targeted tracking, said Mathews.

He suggested two alternatives which can work to track a person in distress. It should be mandated by the government, he said, that people use only high end phones which send signals to cell towers when they make a call. “It is not easy to make everyone use such devices though.”

Another possibility, according to him, is that a person gets registered with the mobile operator for such service. “When this person is in distress and dials 100, he avails the service through which police can track his or her location,” said Mathews.

According to Sunil Abraham, director of Bangalore based Centre for Internet & Society, it is unethical implement LBS as a blanket order and the government, along with mobile operators, should find a way out to introduce targeted surveillance.

“There is an initial increase in security that accompanies increase in surveillance – after which increased surveillance actually undermines the security imperative and could make the security worse than when surveillance was initiated. Therefore surveillance should always be targeted, blanket surveillance is almost always a terrible idea,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-october-15-2013-danish-raza-location-tracking

Locating Constructs of Privacy within Classical Hindu Law

Ashna Ashesh and Bhairav Acharya — 2015-01-01T13:56:04Z

This white paper seeks to locate privacy in Classical Hindu Law, and by doing so, displace the notion that privacy is an inherently ‘Western’ concept that is the product of a modernist legal system.

Introduction: Conceptions of Privacy

Because of the variance exhibited by the various legal, social, and cultural aspects of privacy, it cannot be easily defined. As a legal concept, privacy may form a constitutional claim, a statutory entitlement, a tortious action or an equitable remedy. As a constitutional claim, privacy is either an explicitly recognised right that is capable of independent enforcement, read into a pre-existing right , or located within the penumbra of a larger right. Statutory recognition of privacy may be afforded by both criminal and civil statutes. The offence of criminal defamation for instance, is perceived as an act of violating an individual's privacy by tarnishing his or her reputation. Similarly the provision of in camera trials for divorce proceedings is an illustration of a civil statute implicitly recognising privacy. As a tortious claim the notion of privacy is commonly understood in terms of the right against trespass of property. Equity, co-terminus with a statutory mandate or in isolation, may also be a source of privacy.

Most legal conceptions of privacy in everyday use in India originated from the English common law. Other constitutional and statutory constructions of privacy, even when not found in the common law, arise within a broader modernist system of law and justice that originated in Europe. During the European colonisation of India, the British (and, in a different manner, the French ) attempted to recreate the common law in India through the establishment of a new legal and courts system, and the wholesale importation of the European idea of law. The very notion of privacy, as well as its legal conception, is a product of this legal modernity. In post-colonial societies, the argument against the right to privacy is usually premised on its perceived alien-ness - as a foreign idea brought by colonisers and imposed on a traditionalist society that favoured communitarian living over individual rights - in an effort to discredit it.

The fallacy of this argument lies in its ignorance of the cultural plurality of privacy. To begin with, the idea that is connoted by the modernist notion of privacy pre-dated the introduction of common law in India. By the time of the Enlightenment, Hindu law and Islamic law were established legal systems with rich histories of jurisprudence and diverse schools of law within them, each with their own juristic techniques and rules of interpretation. While neither Hindu law nor Islamic law use a term that readily translates to "privacy", thereby precluding a neat transposition of meanings between them, the notion of privacy existed and can be located in both the legal traditions. In this paper, the term 'privacy' is used to describe both the modernist notion that arises from the principle of personal autonomy as well as the diverse pre-modern concepts in Hindu and Islamic jurisprudence that resemble or relate to this notion. These pre-modern concepts are diverse, and do not permit an easy analysis. For instance, the Manusmriti, which is a source of classical Hindu law, prohibits bathing in tanks that belong to other men. Additionally it prohibits the use of wells, gardens, carriages, beds, seats and houses without the owner's permission. These prohibitions are not driven by the imperatives of privacy alone. The rationale is that in using others' belongings one appropriates a portion of their sins. Hence, these privacy protections are linked to an ideal of purity. Islamic law also restricts the use or misappropriation of another's property. However, this prohibition is designed to protect private property; it has no ideological link to purity.

This paper attempts to locate constructs of privacy in classical Hindu law. The purpose of this exercise is not to privilege one legal system over another. Therefore, we do not intend to normatively assess the existing modernist discourse on privacy. We simply seek to establish the existence of alternate notions of privacy that pre-date modernity and the common law.

The scope of the paper is confined to locating privacy in classical Hindu law. The materials within the realm of classical Hindu law, relevant to this exercise are- the sruti, smriti, and acara. Sruti comprises of the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and the Upanishads. It is considered to symbolise the spirit of Hindu law and is not the source of any positivist command as such. Smriti involves various interpretations of the sruti, We have however restricted ourselves to the Dharmashastras in this realm. Acara refers to the body of customary practices.

The review of the material at hand however, is not exhaustive. The reasons for this are twofold- first, given the vast expanse of Hindu jurisprudence, the literature review has been limited; second, there is a limited availability of reliable English translations of ancient legal treatises.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part of this paper deals with the interface of colonisation with Hindu law and elucidates the nature of Hindu law. With the advent of colonialism, classical Hindu law was gradually substituted by a modernist legal system. Exploring the characteristics of modernity, the factors that contributed to the displacement of classical Hindu law will be identified.

One of the factors that contributed to the displacement was the uncertainty that characterised classical Hindu law. Classical Hindu law was an amalgamation of three sources, as. In an attempt to rule out the uncertainty, and the lack of positive command, the modernisation of Hindu law was brought about. Accordingly this part shall also examine the nature of Hindu law. Furthermore it shall determine whether the application of codified modern Hindu law, is informed by the precepts of classical Hindu law.

Having explicated the nature of Hindu law, the next part will focus on identifying instances of privacy in classical Hindu law.

Before ascertaining specific instances, however, this part will lay down a general understanding of privacy as it existed then. It will be demonstrated that regardless of the absence of an equivalent term, an expectation of privacy existed.

The specific illustrations of privacy will then be mapped out.

Given the different aspects wherein an expectation of privacy exists, there is also a possibility of competing claims. In the event that such conflicts arise, this part will attempt to resolve the same.

Part 1: The Transmogrification of the Nature of Hindu Law

The evolution of Hindu jurisprudence can be charted through three phases- classical, colonial, and modern.

In the classical phase, it was embodied by the Dharmashastra which elaborated on customary practices, legal procedure, as well as punitive measures. The Dharamshastra was accompanied by the Vedas, and acara. Whether this body of jurisprudence could be called 'law' in the strict modernist sense of the term is debatable.

Modernity has multifarious aspects. However, we are concerned with modernity in the context of legal systems, for the purpose of this paper. The defining attribute of a modernist legal system is the need for positivist precepts that are codified by a legislature. The underlying rationale for formalised legislation is the need for certainty in law. Law is to be uniformly applied within the territory. The formalised legislation is to be enforced by hierarchized courts. Furthermore this codified law can be modified through provisions for amendment, if need be.

This modernist understanding is what informs the English common law. With the advent of colonialism, common law was imported to India. The modernist legal system was confronted by plural indigenous legal systems here that were starkly different in nature. In the given context, the relevant indigenous system is classical Hindu law. The classical precepts were interpreted by the British. These interpretations coupled with the sources of Classical Hindu law, constituted colonial Hindu law.

It is pertinent to note that these interpretations were undertaken through a modernist lens. The implication was the attempted modernisation of a traditional legal system.

The traditional system of Classical Hindu law did not exhibit any of the introduced features. To begin with not all of classical Hindu law was text based. The problem with the textual treatises was threefold. First, they were not codes enacted by a legislature, but written by various scholars. Second, they were not phrased as positivist precepts. Third, their multiplicity was accompanied with the lack of an established hierarchy between these texts.

Additionally classical Hindu law was the embodiment of dharma, which in itself was an amorphous concept. The constitutive elements ofdharma were law, religious rites, duties and obligations of members of a community, as well as morality. These elements do not however, exhaustively define dharma. There exist varying definitions of dharma, and in some cases even ancient texts dealing with dharma fail to articulate its definition. This is on account of the fact that the meaning of dharma, varied depending on the in which it is used Owing to the fact that classical Hindu jurisprudence was informed by dharma, the former was an amalgamation of law, religion and morality. Therefore it was categorised as jurisprudence that lacked the secularity exhibited by modern positivist law.

The co-existence of law and morality in classical Hindu law has led to various debates regarding its nature. Before explicating the nature of classical Hindu law, its sources must be elaborated on. As referred to, the sources are sruti, smriti, and acara.

Sruti is constituted by the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads. Vedas are divine revelations that contain no positive precept per se. They are considered as the spirit of law, and believed to be the source of the rules of dharma. The Vedas are constituted by the Rigveda, Samveda, Yajurveda and Athravaveda. Based on the Vedic texts, treatises have been written elucidating religious practices. These texts are known as the Brahmanas. The Aranyakas and the Upanishads engage in philosophical enquiries of the revelation in the Vedas.

Interpretations of the Sruti by various scholars are embodied in the Smriti. The connotations of smriti are twofold. First, it implies knowledge transmitted through memory, as opposed to knowledge directly revealed by divinity. Additionally, it is the term used to collectively reference the Dharmasutras and Dharmashastra.

Dharmasutras were essentially interpretations of revelation in only prose form, or a mixture of prose and verse. They detailed the duties and rituals to be carried out by a person, through the four stages, of his or her life. The duties laid down also varied depending on the caste of a person. They also laid down guidelines for determining punishments.

Dharmasastras on the other hand were in the verse form. Though their subject matter coincided with the Dharmasutra in terms of domestic duties and rituals, they had a wider ambit. The Dharmasastras also dealt with subjects such as statecraft, legal procedure for adjudicating disputes. In a limited way, they marked the diversification from strictly religious precepts, from those that were legal in nature. For instance the Manusmriti was an amalgamation of law and ritual. The Yajnawalkya Samhita however, has separate parts that deal with customary practices, legal procedure, and punitive measures. The Narada Smriti, in turn deals only with legal procedure and rules of adjudication.

It is opined that in due course of time, the Aryan civilisation diversified. Their life and literature were no longer limited to sacrificial practices, but took on a more 'secular' form. The Arthashastra is evidence of such diversification. Unlike the Dharmashastra, it deals with strategies to be employed in governance, regulations with regard to urban planning, commercialisation of surrogacy, espionage, among other things.

The third source of classical Hindu law, acara refers to customary practices and their authoritativeness was determined by the people. Their prevalence over textual tradition is contentious. Some opine that acara prevails over textual traditions. However, the opposing school of thought believes that customary practices prevail only if the text is unclear or disputed.

Other sources of classical Hindu law include the itihas (epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana), and digests written by scholars.

Given the diversity of sources and its non-conformity to positivism, the nature of classical Hindu law is a heavily contested issue. For instance, with regard to the legal procedure in the Dharmashastra, Maynes opines that these rules qualified as law in the modernist sense. Ludo Rocher however, opines that textual treatises would not qualify as law. Classical Hindu law can admittedly not be identified as strictly legal or strictly moral. However, it does in a limited way recognise the distinction between legal procedure and morality. This is to say, it is not merely a source of rituals, but also lays down precepts that are jurisprudentially relevant.

On account of its non-conformity with characteristics of a modernist legal system, classical Hindu law was displaced by its colonial version. The British attempted to accomplish this though the process of codification. The colonial attempts to codify Hindu law were carried forward by the Indian government post-independence. The result was the Hindu Code Bill. The context in which this codification took place must be examined in order to better comprehend this transmogrification. Post-independence, the idea of a Uniform Civil Code had been debated. However it was at odds with the Nehruvian notion of secularity. The codification of Hindu personal law was an attempt at modernising it, without infringing on the religious freedom of Hindus. The idea was to confine the influence of religion to the private sphere. What emerged was the Hindu Code Bill, which served as the blueprint for the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act and, the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act. Colonial Hindu law was thus displaced by modern Hindu law.

As Galanter observes however, modernisation through legislations may formalise or even modify classical precepts, but cannot erase them completely. For instance, Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which prescribes the ceremonial requirements for a Hindu marriage, replicates those prescribed in Classical Hindu law. Additionally a plethora of judicial decisions have relied on or taken into consideration, precepts of ancient Hindu jurisprudence.

It is evident thus that ancient precepts still inform modern Hindu law. Given their relevance, it would be erroneous to write off classical Hindu law as completely irrelevant in a modernist context.

Part II: Precepts of Privacy in Classical Hindu Law

As referred to, we have not come across a terminological equivalent of the term 'privacy' in the course of our research. The linguistic lacuna is admittedly a hurdle in articulating the pre-modern understanding of privacy as found in Hindu jurisprudence. It is not however, an argument against the very existence of privacy. The lack of pre-modern terminology necessitates the usage of modern terms in classifying the aspects of privacy detailed in Hindu jurisprudence.

Thus, broadly speaking, the aspects of privacy we have culled out from the material at hand are those of physical space/ property, thought, bodily integrity, information, communication, and identity. As will be demonstrated these aspects overlap on occasion and are by no means an exhaustive indication. In order to contextualise these aspects within the realm of Hindu jurisprudence, they are detailed below through specific illustrations.

A. Privacy of physical Space/ property

Akin to the modern legal system that first understood privacy in proprietary terms, Hindu jurisprudence too accorded importance to privacy in terms of physical space. This is further illustrated by the similarity between the common law notion of a man's house being his castle, and the institutional primacy accorded by the Naradsmriti to the household . The common denominator here is the recognition of a claim to privacy against the sovereign. This claim operated against society at large as well. For instance, an individual caught trespassing on someone else's property was liable to be fined.

These religious precepts were supplemented by those reflected in texts such as the Arthashastra. By way of illustration the house building regulations prescribed by it are largely informed by the recognition of a need for privacy. To begin with, a person's house should be built at a suitable distance from a neighbour's house, to prevent any inconvenience. In addition the house's doors and windows should ideally not face a neighbours doors and windows directly. The occupants of the house should ensure the doors and windows are suitably covered. Furthermore in the absence of a compelling justification, interference in a neighbour's affairs is penalised.Juxtaposed to religious texts that often perceived privacy as a concept driven by the imperative of purity, the Arthashastra is reflective of a secular connotation of privacy.

Though the household was privileged as the foundational institution in Hindu jurisprudence, claims of privacy extend beyond one's house to other physical objects as well, regardless of whether they were extensions of the household or not. For instance, both the Yajnawalkya Samhita and the Manusmriti condemn the usage of another person's property without his or her permission.

What is noteworthy in the context of personal property is that in an era infamous for the denigration of women, Hindu jurisprudence recognised a woman's claim over property. This property, also known as Stridhana, had varied definitions. In the Yajnawalkya Samhita for instance, it is conceptualised as, "What has been given to a woman by the father, the mother, the husband or a brother, or received by her at the nuptial fire, or given to her on her husband's marriage with another wife, is denominated Stridhana or a woman's property". In the Manusmriti, it is defined as "What was given before the nuptial fire, what was given on the bridal procession, what was given in token of love, and what was received from her brother, mother, or father, that is called the sixfold property of a woman".

Beyond mere cognizance of proprietary rights however, these precepts were also informed by the notion of exclusivity. Consequently, a woman's husband or his family were precluded from using her Stridhana, unless they were in dire straits. Additionally it was a sin for a woman's relatives to use her wealth even if the same was done unknowingly.

B. Privacy of Thought

In addition to the aspect of physical space, a claim to privacy vis-a-vis the intangible realm of thought was afforded by Hindu jurisprudence. In the modern context the link between solitude and privacy has been recognised as early as 1850 by Warren and Brandeis. The key distinction is that in the modern era this need for solitude was seen as a function of the increasing invasion of privacy. In the pre-modern era however, solitude was considered essential for self-actualisation, and not as a response to the increasing invasion of the private realm. Meditation in solitude was perceived as enabling existence in the highest state of being. In fact a life in solitude was identified as a pre-requisite for being liberated.

Though solitude itself is intangible, engaging in meditation would require a tangible solitary space. This is where the privacy of thought overlapped with the aspect of privacy of space. Accordingly, the Arthashastra prescribed that forest areas be set aside for meditation and introspection. It also recognised the need for ascetics to live within these spaces harmoniously, without disturbing each other.

It is evident, that as far as the aspects of privacy were concerned, there were no watertight compartments.

C. Privacy with respect to bodily integrity

A claim to privacy of thought can only be substantively realised when complemented by the notion of privacy with respect to bodily integrity, as corporeal existence serves as a precursor to mental well-being. The inference drawn from the relevant precepts concerning this aspect is that they were largely women-centric. Arguably they were governed by a misplaced patriarchal notion that women's modesty needed to be protected. At best they could be considered as implicit references to an expectation of privacy.

The Manusmriti states, "But she who…goes to public spectacles or assemblies, shall be fined six krishnalas". Restrictions operating during a woman's menstruation were twofold. Her family was prohibited from seeing her. Additionally cohabitation with such a woman was also forbidden. It should be pointed out that that these constructs had little to do with a woman's expectation of privacy. They were forbidden due to the attached implications of impurity that would vest in the defaulter. A woman's autonomy with regard to her body was not regarded as a factor meriting consideration.

However, there were constructs, albeit limited, which were more egalitarian in their approach and did recognise her autonomy. They established that women do have an expectation of privacy in terms of bodily integrity. Sexual assault was considered as an offence. Evidence of this is found in the Yajnawalkya Samhita which states, "If many persons know a woman against her will, each of them should be made to pay a fine of twenty four panas". In addition, the Arthashastra vested in commercial sex workers the right to not be held against their will. Further it expressly states that even a commercial sex worker cannot be forced to engage in sexual intercourse.

Women could make a claim to privacy not only against society at large, but also against their husbands. Ironically, while our contemporary legal system (i.e., the Indian legal system) fails to criminalise marital rape, the Manusmriti considered it an offence. Additionally, husbands were also prohibited from looking at their wives when the latter were in a state of relaxation.

D. Privacy of Information and Communication

While the three aspects explicated above were by and large restricted to the individual, the privacy of information and communication has been largely confined by Hindu jurisprudence to the realm of the sovereign. Both the Manusmriti and the Arthashastra acknowledge the importance of a secret council that aids the king in deliberations. These deliberations are to be carried on in a solitary place that was well-guarded. The decisions made in these deliberations are to be revealed on a need to know basis. That is to say, only persons concerned with the implementation of these decisions are to be informed. The Manusmriti also provides for private deliberation by the king on matters not involving governance. It provides, "At midday or midnight , when his mental and bodily fatigues are over, let him deliberate, either with himself alone or with his ministers on virtue, pleasure, and wealth".

Apart from governance, privacy of information also pertained to certain types of documents that were considered private in nature. These are documents that involve transactions such as partition, giving of a gift, purchase, pledge and debt. What is interesting about this precept is the resemblance it bears to the common law notion of privity. The common characteristic of the documents referred to, is that they concerned transactions undertaken between two or more persons. The rights or obligations arising from these transactions were confined to the signatories of these documents. It could be possible that the privatisation of these documents was aimed at guarding against disruption of transactions via third party intrusions.

The limited reference to private communications is found within the realm of governance, within the context of privacy of information. The only illustration of this that we have come across is the precept in the Arthashastra that requires intelligence to be communicated in code.

E. Privacy of Identity

The final aspect that warrants detailing is the privacy of identity. The notion of privacy of identity can be understood in two ways. The first deals with protection of personal information that could be traced back to someone, thus revealing his or her identity. The second recognises the component of reputation. It seeks to prevent the misappropriation or maligning of a person's identity and thus reputation. In ancient Hindu jurisprudence there is evidence of recognition of the latter. An illustration of the same is offered by the precept which states "For making known the real defects of a maiden, one should pay a fine of a hundred panas". Another precept prescribes that false accusations against anyone in general are punishable by a fine. Additionally, there is also a restriction operating against destroying or robbing a person of his or her virtue. In the modern context, the above would be understood under the rubric of defamation. These precepts are indicative of the fact that defamation was recognised as an offence way before the modern legal system afforded cognizance to the same.

Conclusion

The dominant narrative surrounding the privacy debate in India is that of the alien-ness of privacy. This paper has attempted to displace the notion that privacy is an inherently 'Western' concept that is the product of a modernist legal system. No doubt the common understanding of the legal conception of privacy is informed by modernity. In fact, the research conducted in support of this paper has been synthesised from privacy information through a modernist lens. The fact still remains however, that privacy is an amorphous context, and its conceptions vary across cultures.

To better appreciate the relevance of Classical Hindu law in a modernist context, the nature of Hindu law must be examined first. While Hindu jurisprudence might not qualify as law in the positivist sense of the term, its precepts continue to inform India's statues and judicial pronouncements.

Privacy is subjective and eludes a straitjacketed definition. On occasion this elusiveness is a function of its overlapping and varying aspects. At other times it stems from a terminological lacuna that complicates the explication of privacy. These impediments notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear that the essence of privacy is reflected in Hindu culture and jurisprudence. This may give pause to thought to those who seek to argue that 'collectivist' cultures do not value privacy or exhibit the need for it.

Daniel J. Solove, A Taxonomy of Privacy, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 154(3), January 2006.

Id.

Upendra Baxi, Who Bothers About the Supreme Court: The Problem of Impact of Judicial Decisions, available at http://clpr.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/whobothersabouttheSupremeCourt.pdf (Last visited on December 23, 2014) (The enforceability of rights often sets their individual enjoyment apart from their jurisprudential value); In India, the reading of privacy into Article 21 has not resulted in a mechanism to enforce a standalone right to privacy, See R.H. Clark, Constitutional Sources of the Penumbral Right to Privacy, available at http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2046&context=vlr (Last visited on December 23, 2014) (In the United States, the right to privacy was located in the penumbra of the right to personal autonomy).

See PUCL v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 568.

See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).

See The Indian Penal Code, 1850, Section 499.

See The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 Section 22; The Special Marriage Act, 1954, Section 33.

Bhairav Acharya & Vidushi Marda, Identifying Aspects of Privacy in Islamic Law, available at http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/identifying-aspects-of-privacy-in-islamic-law (Last visited on December 23, 2014).

See Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India (1973).

Donald R. Davis, Jr., The Spirit of Hindu Law (2010) (This importation must be viewed against the backdrop of the characteristics of the era of Enlightenment wherein primacy was accorded to secular reason and the positivist conception of law. Davis observes "One cannot deny the increasing global acceptance of a once parochial notion of law as rules backed by sanctions enforced by the state. This very modern, very European notion of law is not natural, not a given; it was produced at a specific moment in history and promulgated systematically and often forcibly through the institutions of what we now call the nation-state, especially those nations that were also colonial powers.)"; But see Alan Gledhill, The Influence of Common Law and Equity on Hindu Law Since 1800, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/755588 (Last visited on December 23, 2014); Werner Menski, Sanskrit Law: Excavating Vedic Legal Pluralism, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1621384 (Last visited on December 23, 2014) (However, this replacement of traditional legal systems did not extend to personal laws. Personal laws in India continue to be community-based, sometimes un-codified, draw from a diverse set of simultaneously applicable sources and traditional schools of jurisprudence.).

Supra note 8, Acharya & Marda.

Privacy International, A New Dawn: Privacy in Asia, available at https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/a-new-dawn-privacy-in-asia/background (Last visited on December 28, 2013) ("It is only recently that the debate around privacy was stuck in this "collectivist" vs. "individualistic" cultural discourse…we discovered that privacy concerns and the need for safeguards were often embedded deeply in a nation, and not just as a response to a modern phenomenon.").

Privacy International, A New Dawn: Privacy in Asia, available at https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/a-new-dawn-privacy-in-asia/background (Last visited on December 28, 2013)

J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Administration of Hindu Law by the British, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/177940 (Last visited on December 23, 2014).

Manusmriti, Chapter IV, 201.

Manusmriti, Chapter IV, 202.

Id.

Wael B. Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law 31 (2009).

Donald R. Davis, Jr., The Spirit of Hindu Law (2010).

Marc Galanter, The Displacement of Traditional Law in Modern India, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. XXIV, No. 4, 1968.

Id.

Supra note 20, Galanter.

Supra note 10, Menski.

Werner Menski, Hindu Law: Beyond Tradition and Modernity (2003).

Id.

Ashcroft as cited in Werner Menski, Hindu Law: Beyond Tradition and Modernity (2003).

Supra note 20, Galanter.

Id.

Id .

Supra note 19, Davis.

Id.

Id .

J. Duncan M. Derrett, Introduction to Modern Hindu Law (1963); Supra note 19, Davis.

Supra note 9, Lingat.

Id.

John D. Mayne, Hindu Law (1875).

Id.

Supra note 49, Mayne.

Id.

Supra note 19, Davis.

Id.

Supra note 49, Mayne.

Ludo Rocher, Studies in Hindu Law and Dharamasastra (2012).

For instance the Yajnawalkya Samhita has clear delineations in its chapters, segregating customary practices, legal procedure and punitive measures.

Madhu Kishwar, Codified Hindu Law: Myth and Reality, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/4401625 (Last visited on December 23, 2014).

Id .

Supra note 59.

Id.

Supra note 20, Galanter.

See The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Section 7.

Saroj Rani v. Sudarshan Kumar Chadda, AIR 1984 SC 1562 (reflected the importance accorded by classical Hindu law to marital stability); M Govindaraju v. K Munisami Goundu 1996 SCALE (6) 13(The Supreme Court looked to ancient Shudra custom to adjudicate on a matter of adoption); Rajkumar Patni v. Manorama Patni, II (2000) DMC 702 (The Madhya Pradesh High Court, relied on the definition of Stridhan by Manu.).

Supra note 8, Acharya & Marda.

Semayne v. Gresham, 77 Eng. Rep. 194, 195; 5 Co. Rep. 91, 195 (K.B. 1604).

As cited in Julius Jolly, The Minor Law Books 164 (1889), ("A householder's house and field are considered as the two fundamentals of his existence. Therefore let not the king upset either of them; for that is the root of the householders").

Manmath Nath Dutt, The Dharamshastra - Hindu Religious Codes, Volume 1, 103 (1978) (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter II 235-236: "He…who opens the doors of a closed house [without the permission of the master]…should be punished with fifty panas. Such is the law.").

L.N. Rangarajan, Kautalya: The Arthashastra 371 (1992) ("O be built at a suitable distance from the neighbours property so as not to cause inconvenience to the neighbour").

Id ., ("…doors and windows shall be made so as not to cause annoyance by facing a neighbour's door or window directly").

Supra note 72, Rangarajan, ("when the house is occupied the doors and windows shall be suitably covered").

Id., 376.

See Manusmriti, Chapter IV, 201-202.

Supra note 71, Dutt, 27 (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter I , 160: "One should avoid the bed, seat, garden-house and the conveyance belonging to another person.").

Supra note 71, Dutt, 89 (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter II, 146).

Manusmriti, Chapter IX, 194.

Supra note 71, Dutt Volume 2, 276 (Angiras Samhita, Chapter I, 71).

Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, Harvard Law Review, Vol. IV, December 15, 1890, No.5.

Id.

Manusmriti, Chapter IV, 258; Supra note 71, Dutt, 134 (Yajnawalkya Samhita Chapter III, 111: "Having withdrawn the mind, understanding, retentive faculty and the senses from all their objects, the soul, the lord…should be meditated upon.").

Manu Chapter VI, 44.

Supra note 71, Dutt, 186 (Harita Chapter VII, 6: "Situated in a solitary place with a concentrated mind, he should, till death mediate on the atman, that is situated both in the mind and the external world… ").

Supra note 72, Rangarajan, (Arthashastra, 2.2.2).

Supra note72, Rangarajan, (Arthashastra 3.16.33-36).

Manusmriti IX, 84

Supra note 71, Dutt, Volume 2, 350 (Samvarta Samhita,163).

Supra note 71, Dutt, Volume 1, 112 (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter II, 291).

Supra note 71, Dutt, Volume 1, 113 (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter II, 294).

Supra note 72, Ranjarajan (Arthashastra 2.27.14).

Supra note 72, Rangarajan (Arthashastra 4.13.38).

Manusmriti, X, 62

Manusmriti Part VII, Supra note 101, Rangarajan (Arthashastra 1.15.2-5, 1.15.13-17).

Supra note 72, Rangarajan (Arthashastra 1.15.2-5 : The scrutiny of governance related affairs was take place in a secluded and well-guarded spot, where it could not be overheard. No unauthorised person was allowed to approach these meetings.).

Supra note 72, Rangarajan (Arthashastra 1.15.13-17: "…Only those who have to implement it should know when the work is begun or when it has been completed.").

Supra note 72, Rangarajan.

Supra note 71, Dutt, Volume 1, 112 (Yajnawalkya Samhita, Chapter II, 292).

Supra note 71, Dutt, Volume 4, 919 (Vishnu Samhita, Chapter LII, 16).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/loading-constructs-of-privacy-within-classical-hindu-law

Living in a Fish Bowl

praskrishna — 2014-07-16T07:15:22Z

Though India needs a comprehensive law on the right to privacy, it may not be ready for something as avant garde as the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet, argues Shuma Raha

The article by Shuma Raha was published in the Telegraph on July 16, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

If you do a Google search for journalist and television personality Barkha Dutt, a raft of scurrilous information about her pops up. It isn’t tucked away somewhere on the 10th page either — it’s all up front, right there in “autosuggest”, almost prompting you to go and check it out. And thanks to Google’s search algorithm, the more people click on that link, it further strengthens the score for that “hit”.

Dutt says she has brought the matter to the attention of Google, but to no avail. “I have lost interest in the whole struggle,” she says. “But Google definitely needs to do something about the slanderous, inaccurate, fictional information out there that creates a narrative of its own.”

Well, in Europe at least, the tech giant has taken a step in that direction. Late last month, it started erasing search results that threw up information deemed to be “irrelevant”, “outdated” or “excessive”. The move came after the European Court of Justice ruled that Internet search engines would have to allow people the “right to be forgotten” in specific cases and accordingly, take down information about them.

The European Court ruling has triggered a huge debate since an individual’s right to be forgotten seems to be at complete loggerheads with people’s right to know. Nevertheless, it’s a landmark decision when it comes to right to privacy on the Internet. After all, the online space has perma-memory and inaccurate or irrelevant or outdated information about a person can be embedded there forever, damaging him or her in manifold ways.

So how far are we in India from securing the right to be forgotten on the Internet?

The short answer to that is, very far. That is because India does not have a well-defined privacy regime wherein one could envisage a court of law handing out a similar — and some would say a somewhat radical — order on a Google or a Bing. “The right to be forgotten is a bit too advanced for us,” says Sunil Abraham, director, Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit organisation that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy. “After all, we are yet to come up with a privacy and data protection regime that implements the best practices of European countries.”

Adds Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based lawyer, who has written extensively on privacy issues, “Sector specific privacy legislation do exist, but they do not provide substantive rights or efficient remedy in case of violations.”
No one disputes that India should get a right to privacy law, especially one that relates to the collection, processing and use of personal data. Right now the government’s surveillance mechanisms like the Central Monitoring System and the Lawful Interception and Monitoring Systems allow security agencies and income tax authorities to intercept communication, snoop on phone conversations, read emails and SMSes with little or no safeguards for privacy protection.

A right to privacy bill has, in fact, been in the works since as early as 2011. But the government has been dragging its feet over it. Early this year, a new version of the draft bill was “leaked” to the press. But few are happy with it. On the positive side, it raises the penalty for unlawful interception of communication (from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 crore) and increases penalties for other offences such as obtaining personal data under false pretexts. But crucially, it almost wholly exempts intelligence agencies from the purview of the law, thereby allowing them unbridled access to personal information. Of course, no one knows if this “leaked” draft is indeed the official one.

Experts say that the government should really formulate a right to privacy law based on the recommendations of a committee chaired by Justice A.P. Shah. The report, which was published in 2012, proposes that the right to privacy be statutorily extended to all Indians. It recommends, among other things, the appointment of privacy commissioners and the formulation of certain “national privacy principles” such as taking the consent of the individual prior to the collection of data, allowing him the choice to withdraw such consent, limiting the use of personal information to the stated purpose and so on. The privacy principles would apply to all data collectors in both private and public sectors.
There are, of course, a number of provisions in existing laws that relate to privacy. For example, Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951, sets down certain privacy safeguards such as maintaining details about the officer ordering an intercept of telecommunication.

Moreover, Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000, prescribes “punishment for the violation of privacy” (in the context of capturing “private” images of a person without his or her consent); Section 43A lays down that a “body corporate” will be liable to pay compensation in case it fails to protect personal data gathered in the course of its operation; and Section 79 stipulates that “intermediaries” — entities such as Google, Facebook, Twitter — would have to take down any information stored or transmitted by them that is found to be grossly harassing, defamatory, blasphemous, obscene, pornographic and so on, within 36 hours of being notified.

Of course, this section of the IT Act has been roundly criticised as arbitrary and Draconian, but that is another story.
The point is that despite the fair number of privacy provisions, in the absence of a comprehensive law, the untrammelled and unauthorised use of personal data cannot be ruled out. “Every country in the world collects personal data. But once the data are collected for a particular purpose they should not be used for any other purpose. The law has to be in a position to catch the violators,” says Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO of Data Security Council of India, an organisation that works to promote data protection and privacy best practices.

As always, the key issue is that an individual’s right to privacy has to be balanced with public interest. And it is in that context that experts feel that even if India were to have a privacy law, it is probably not ready for something akin to the European Court ruling on the right to be forgotten. As Gupta says, “It raises a real danger of public personalities blocking legitimate journalism on grounds of privacy. This is specially true in a country like India which permits a high degree of illegality in the name of secrecy and confidentiality.”

Abraham agrees with that view. “I’m not sure if the right to be forgotten will enhance privacy or usher in a level of censorship,” he says.

As Europe grapples with that debate, India’s privacy warriors are asking for something far more fundamental — a comprehensive law that guarantees the right to privacy to all.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-16-2014-living-in-a-fish-bowl

Live Chat: Win for Free Speech

praskrishna — 2015-03-26T16:07:06Z

Join us for a live chat at 5.30 pm on SC striking down the Section 66A of the IT Act which had permitted the arrest of people for posting "offensive content" on the internet.

The live chat transcript was published in the Hindu on March 24, 2015. Geetha Hariharan participated in the live chat.

In a victory for proponents of free speech, the Supreme Court today struck down Section 66 A of the IT Act, which had permitted the arrest of people for posting “offensive content” on the internet. However, the Court upheld Section 69A, which allows the government to block websites based on a set of rules.

What are your views on this ruling? Join us for a live chat today at 5.30 pm with:

Gautam Bhatia, a practicing lawyer and author of "Offend, shock or disturb: Free Speech under the constitution" forthcoming in OUP.

Geetha Hariharan, a Programme Officer at Centre for Internet and Society, focusing on Internet governance and freedom of expression.

Lawrence Liang, Lawyer and researcher at Alternative Law Forum working on free speech.

and G Ananth Krishnan, Coordinating Editor with The Hindu

The Hindu: Hi all, welcome to the live chat on the Supreme Court's much-celebrated decision to strike down Section 66 A of the IT Act. There are caveats of course: For instance, the Court has upheld Section 69A, which allows the government to block websites based on a set of rules.

5:30

The Hindu: Welcome to Gautam Bhatia, a practicing lawyer and author of "Offend, shock or disturb: Free Speech under the constitution" forthcoming in OUP.

5:31

The Hindu: Geetha Hariharan, a Programme Officer at Centre for Internet and Society, focusing on Internet governance and freedom of expression.