We are anonymous, we are legion

India sees biggest improvement in Internet freedom, says report

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T11:08:34Z

Big stride ascribed to removal of restrictions imposed in 2013; globally, Internet freedom sees decline.

The article by Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on December 5, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

India fared better this year when it came to freedom of the Net, while globally Internet freedom declined for the fourth consecutive year in 2014 with a growing number of countries introducing more aggressive online censorship and monitoring practices, said a report by Freedom House, an independent watchdog.

The global Freedom on the Net report 2014, which covered the period between 1 May 2013 and 31 May 2014 and was released on Thursday, said India scored 42 points this year, an improvement of five points over the previous reporting period.

It’s the largest increase in Internet freedom over the past year and was ascribed to the removal of temporary restrictions on access and content that had been imposed in 2013 to stem an exodus of people from north-eastern states from wherever else they were in India.

Of the 65 countries assessed, 36 saw a decline in Internet freedom. The most significant declines were in Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. Iran, Syria and China are the world’s worst abusers of Internet freedom, said Freedom House.

A low score indicates higher Internet freedom.

The US remained relatively free compared with the rest of the world with a total score of 19, the report said.

“Any report on Internet freedom that ranks US as free cannot be taken seriously,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society.

There is massive intellectual property rights (IPR)-related censorship in the US, which Freedom House does not consider censorship, and the total surveillance regime of the National Security Agency that resulted in self-censorship was also ignored by Freedom House, he said.

In India, curbs on content and arrests related to online publishing under Section 66A of the information technology (IT) Act declined in the past year.

There have been nine criminal complaints filed against social media posts in the period, but the Supreme Court did its bit by curtailing arrests for online expression under the IT Act.

Independently, the Supreme Court is assessing the constitutionality of provisions in the IT Act and secondary legislation that restrict content and criminalize speech online. Section 66A of the IT Act criminalizes a wide range of speech and led to several arrests for social media posts in 2012 and early 2013. On 2 December, the Supreme Court asked the government to clarify its stand on the constitutionality of these provisions by 9 December.

Several petitioners have also challenged parts of the IT Act, including rules introducing potential criminal liability for intermediary companies for content posted by third parties, as unconstitutional in the Supreme Court.

“Legislation and procedures to effectively protect privacy, meanwhile, remain lacking, and the scope of a privacy law currently being drafted is unclear,” said the Freedom House report.

India was expected to get a privacy law before the launch of the Unique ID, or Aadhar, programme, but this has not happened.

“Allegations of procedural abuses by state officials in surveillance cases have emerged in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, in the latter while the present Prime Minister was chief minister,” the report said. “Partly in response to these scandals, the government tightened procedures in January 2014, saying officials must issue interception orders to telecommunications providers in written form, though they still require no warrant or judicial oversight.”

Currently, the government can retrieve data from intermediaries such as Internet service providers, which are required to install infrastructure for surveillance and keyword scanning of all traffic passing through each gateway.

What can curb Net freedom substantially in India, according to the report, is the Indian government’s ambitious nationwide surveillance programme, the Central Monitoring System, which allows authorities to monitor individuals’ digital communications directly without issuing orders to service providers, written or otherwise—that is, “without judicial oversight”.

The move allows government agencies to intercept any online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations in real time by directly accessing interception equipment on intermediary premises.

The Indian government also requested user information from international Web-based platforms including Google Inc., which received 2,794 data requests from Indian government agencies from January to June 2014. Facebook Inc. got 3,598 such requests and Twitter Inc. 19.

Apoorva contributed to this story.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-december-5-2014-moulishree-srivastava-india-sees-biggest-improvement-in-internet-freedom

India Seeks to Limit Use of Maps and Satellite Images

praskrishna — 2016-05-28T12:38:45Z

Indians are discussing a plan to ban use of maps or satellite images of the country without approval from the government.

The plan’s critics have launched an online campaign called “Save The Map.” They say the proposed ban could affect many new businesses and services that use technology. The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill would require anyone who wants to use, publish or own maps or geospatial data to seek official permission. A special security committee would consider such requests. Indian officials say the proposed law would help protect military bases from enemies and terrorists. They deny it would cause problems for businesses.

But Internet experts say the law would affect anyone who uses mobile phones, laptop computers and online companies, such as ride services. They also fear that the ban would affect computer software programs and Apple or Google Map products. The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore also has criticized the bill. It says the measure would return India to where it was more than 30 years ago -- when businesses were forced to get licenses from government officials before they could begin to operate. Pranesh Prakash works at the center.

“What it does (is) it puts in place a license raj for all use of mapping technologies. That just does not make sense. No other country in the world has this regressive mapping law.” Technology experts from Bangalore launched the “Save The Map” campaign. It is calling on Indians to demand that the government change the planned law. The campaign is hoping to copy a successful campaign called “Save The Internet,” which pressured the government to ensure equal access to the Internet.

Indian officials have sought to calm critics, saying the bill is not final. The government has asked people to give ideas on how it should be changed by June 4. Officials note the country is dealing with an increasing number of security issues, including an attack at an air base in northern India earlier this year. Terrorists based in Pakistan were said to have carried out the attack. Junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju told a newspaper that the law is needed because India must have ways to “secure its boundary and territory.”

But Prakash notes that the measure would not stop terrorists from using geospatial data from sources outside India. “They need satellite imagery and they need maps, period. Now this law doesn’t actually prevent such maps from being created, it doesn’t actually prevent satellite images of India being captured. What it does is prevent Indians from doing so. So it actually won’t prevent foreign-based terrorists -- especially state-backed terrorists -- from attacking India.” Internet and policy experts say the government would not be able to stop others from creating maps or satellite images of sensitive locations in the country.

I’m Anne Ball.

Anjana Pasricha reported this story from New Delhi for VOANews.com. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. Read the original published by Voice of America on May 27, 2016

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/voice-of-america-may-27-2016-india-seeks-to-limit-use-of-maps-and-satellite-images

India seeks a tighter grip on social media

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T03:02:35Z

India, with the world's third largest number of Facebook users, is clamping down on social media after recent posting of inflammatory videos on Web sites.

Published in United Press International on August 24, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

But the United States urged New Delhi to find the right balance between freedom of speech and the need to maintain law and order, a report by The Times of India said.

The government's move to block sites it deems unacceptable comes after doctored videos showing apparent violence against Muslims in Assam created violent panic.

While officials say they believe the videos originated on Pakistani blogs, the issue highlighted the uneasy relationship between freedom of speech on the Internet and the government's need to damp down inter-ethnic tensions.

Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh said New Delhi will be raising the issue with Pakistani officials.

"I am sure they (Pakistan) will deny it but we have fairly accurate technical evidence to show that the images originated and were circulated from their territory," he said.

Last week Indian federal and state ministers as well as police authorities watched closely as Assamese Muslims living and working in Bangalore engulfed the train station seeking train ticket home after rumors of the Web site information swept through their community.

Rail authorities and train companies in Bangalore, in the southwest state of Karnataka, put on extra trains to Assam in the northeast to cope with the influx of people who said they feared an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Twitter promised to cooperate with the government after the Prime Minister's Office complained to it about objectionable content on six accounts resembling the PMO's official account, a Press Trust of India report said.

Twitter said it was "actively reviewing" the request and will seek information from the Ministry of Communication and IT "to locate the unlawful content and the specific unlawful tweet," the PTI report said.

Facebook said it will comply with requests from Indian authorities but only where posts broke its existing rules that apply in all countries, a report by the BBC said.

"We have received requests from Indian authorities and agencies and are working through those requests and responding to the agencies," Facebook said. "Content or individuals can be removed from Facebook for a variety of reasons including issuing direct calls for violence or perpetuating hate speech."

At stake for many Internet service providers, site developers and proxy servers is a slice of one of the world's potentially most lucrative advertising markets.

A report by Businessweek in May said India will have more users of Facebook -- which opened an office in India in 2010 -- than any other country by 2015.

India has around 46,300,000 Facebook users,Socialbakers, a social media analytics firm in London, says. This makes India the third-biggest Facebook market behind second-place Brazil with just more than 48 million users and first-place United States with nearly 157 million.

The growth of users in India is around 22 percent a month and will match the United States by the end of 2014, each having around 175 million users, Socialbakers said.

However, the United States has voiced concern that India may overstep a censorship mark in its attempt to stamp out offensive Web sites.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington has been monitoring the situation of Assamese Indians flooding back to Assam from southern India because of concerns about their personal safety.

The U.S. government is "going to obviously watch and see how that process goes forward."

"We are always on the side of full freedom of the Internet," Nuland said in a report by The Times of India.

"But as the Indian government continues to investigate these instances and preserve security, we also always urge the government to maintain its own commitment to human rights, fundamental freedoms, rule of law."

Nuland also said the U.S. government maintained "open lines to our own companies in India, as we do around the world, and we are obviously open to consultation with them if they need it from us."

The weight of the law may be against most of Internet intermediaries, Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society, said.

"The rules are very onerous on intermediaries, since they require them to act within 36 hours to disable access to any information that they receive a complaint about," Prakash wrote in an article The Indian Express newspaper in May 2011.

Any "affected person" according to technology laws can complain about issues including defamation, blasphemy, trademark infringement, threatening the integrity of India, disparaging speech or the blanket "in violation of any law."

It isn't mandatory to give the violator an opportunity to be heard before taking down their content.

"Since intermediaries would lose protection from the law if they didn't take down content, they have no incentives to uphold freedom of speech," Prakash said.

"They instead have been provided incentives to take down all content about which they receive complaints without a considered evaluation of the content."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-upi-com-aug-24-2012-india-seeks-a-tighter-grip-on-social-media

India second in requesting user info: Google

praskrishna — 2012-11-15T09:40:10Z

India is at second place after the US in terms of the government requests for user data from Google

Karthik Subramanian's article was published in the Hindu on November 14, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The Indian government made the second largest demand for Web user information — next only to the United States government — to Google in the six-month period from January to June this year, according to the ‘Transparency Report’ published by the Web services major on Tuesday.

During the six-month period, the Indian government — both by way of court orders and by way of requests from police— requested Google to disclose user information 2,319 times over 3,467 users/accounts. Google fully or partially complied with the request to the tune of 64 per cent. Only the U.S. government requested more data during the period — 7,969 requests over 16,281 accounts, compliance rate: 90 per cent.

It is the sixth time Google has brought out the bi-annual report detailing its interactions with the world government agencies. It details two categories of interactions : requests to divulge user data; and requests to pull down content. India ranked seventh in the list of requests to pull down data; experts say that the possible reason could be the government not having such powers under the Constitution.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said that the Google report was a damning indictment of the country’s government exceeding its constitutional bounds by demanding removal of material for defamation, government criticism, etc., without a valid court order. "There are no laws in our country that allows the executive or the police to remove such material without a court order."

Substantial spike

In all, 33 countries figure in the report. There was a substantial spike when compared to previous reports with respect to the number of requests from various governments to pull down content.

"In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 36,614 accounts,” wrote Dorothy Chou, Google’s senior policy analyst, on the Official Google Blog while presenting the report. “The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content."

Google is leading the cause for voluntary disclosure of the interactions it has with the governments. Other web services that put out similar transparency reports include micro-blogging site Twitter; cloud storage service Dropbox; and social networking site Linkedin.

Mr. Prakash said it was not enough if just the web services put out such reports. "The telecom service providers must voluntarily come out with such information," he added.

"There is a dearth of public information about the amount of legal interception and surveillance. This does not bode well in a democratic polity."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-sci-tech-internet-karthik-subramanian-nov-14-2012-india-second-in-requesting-user-info-google

India second in keeping tabs on netizens

praskrishna — 2012-11-15T09:04:01Z

India ranks second globally in accessing private details of its citizens, next only to the US, if the latest data from Google is to be believed.

The article by Ishan Srivastava was published in the Times of India on November 15, 2012, Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The transparency report by the internet search giant lists out requests it received from governments across the world to access information on the users of its various services.

In the first six months of 2012, India made 2,319 requests involving 3,467 users. In comparison, the US made 7,969 requests in the same period and Brazil, which comes third, sent 1,566 requests. Globally, there were 20,938 requests for user data during the January-June period. The data can include your complete Gmail account, chat logs, Orkut profile and search terms among others. These reports are prepared by Google every six months, and were started in July-December 2009.

The requests for user data from India doubled from 1,061 in July-December 2009 to 2,207 in July-December 2011.

"Though India is a large country with a significant number of internet users, this data is nonetheless an indicator of growing surveillance," said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based organization looking at issues of public accountability, internet freedom and openness.

"India lacks a general privacy law that helps set guidelines for such user requests, despite privacy being a constitutional right as part of the right to life," said Prakash.

India also actively sends requests to take down content which it deems defamatory and against national security. While the number of court orders for taking down web content has remained almost stagnant over the years, there has been a rise in the number of requests by the executive and police. Between January and June this year, there were 20 court orders and 64 requests from executive/police that resulted in 596 items being taken down from the web. In comparison, there were only eight court orders and 22 executive/police requests in January-June 2010, resulting in 125 items being taken down.

"The government does not always specify the reason for which they want access. They just want access, what they do with the information is not known to us," said a legal adviser to an MNC. "These requests come with a threat to our continued operation in India."

Falsified court orders are also being employed to seek removal of content. Three such court orders were sent to Google "that demanded the removal of blog posts and entire blogs for alleged defamation." One order was said have been issued by a local court in Andheri, Mumbai while the other two by the Delhi high court. But all the three were found to be fake.

Google says a single court order was responsible for removal of 360 items this year as they "contained adult videos that allegedly violated an individual's personal privacy." While such orders have a positive impact like curbing pornography and violent content, governments at every level have also tried to use these requests to take down unfavourable content or criticism.

In January-June 2011 period, Google received "requests from state and local law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos that displayed protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders". Google rejected a majority of these requests. It also received a request from a law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. Google did not remove them either.

"Prior to 2009, government had limited powers of interception. However, after 26/11 they gave themselves huge powers to block and monitor content," said Supreme Court lawyer Pavan Duggal. "Data privacy is non-existent in India." He said that the A P Shah Committee, which was formed to recommend principles for a privacy law, has submitted its report to the Planning Commission and now it is up to the government to take it to the next stage.

Both Prakash and Duggal said that technology companies in India, including telecom players, should come out with similar transparency reports as Google. A report by international watchdog Privacy International says that Bharti Airtel, in its 2010-2011 annual report, said it had received 422 appreciation letters from law enforcement agencies for assistance in lawful interceptions. "The Indian IT Act requires electronic audit by firms but the law is silent on how this audit is filed," said Duggal.

Globally, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Sonic.net and Twitter release transparency reports apart from Google.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-india-times-tech-tech-news-internet-ishan-srivastava-nov-15-2012-india-second-in-keeping-tabs-on-netizens

India ranks second globally in accessing private details of users

praskrishna — 2012-11-19T04:49:23Z

According to the latest transparency report released by Google, India ranks second in the world for accessing private details of its citizens, only after the U.S. The Google report lists out requests it received from governments across the world to access details of users of its various services.

Kul Bhushan's blog post was published in thinkdigit on November 15, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Google's data reveals India had made 2,319 requests involving 3,467 users in the first six months. The U.S. made 7,969 requests, while Brazil, which ranks third, made 1,566 requests during the same period. Worldwide 20,938 requests were made during the January-June period. The report says the information shared included complete Gmail account, chat logs, Orkut profile and search terms among others.

The requests for accessing user data from India had grown two-fold from 1,061 in July-December 2009 to 2,207 in July-December 2011, the report points out.

According to the report, India has been consistently sending requests to remove content which it brands as defamatory and against national security. The court orders, however, to take down content has remained almost stagnant over the years; though requests from the executive and police have grown.

In the first six months this year, there were 20 court orders and 64 requests from executive/police that resulted in 596 items being taken down from the web. During the January-June 2010 period, there were only eight court orders and 22 executive/police requests, resulting in 125 items being taken down. Read about Google's previous transparency report here.

"Though India is a large country with a significant number of internet users, this data is nonetheless an indicator of growing surveillance," Times of India quotes Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society ( CIS), a Bangalore-based organization looking at issues of public accountability, internet freedom and openness, as saying.

"India lacks a general privacy law that helps set guidelines for such user requests, despite privacy being a constitutional right as part of the right to life," added Prakash.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/thinkdigit-internet-kul-bhushan-nov-15-2012-india-ranks-second-globally-in-accessing-private-details-of-users

India Puts Tight Leash on Internet Free Speech

praskrishna — 2011-05-01T02:20:24Z

Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful.” This article by Vikas Bajaj was published in the New York Times on April 27, 2011.

An Internet cafe in New Delhi. New rules require Web sites and service providers to remove some content that officials and even private citizens find objectionable.

The new rules, quietly issued by the country’s Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list of criteria.

Critics of the new rules say the restrictions could severely curtail debate and discussion on the Internet, whose use has been growing fast in India.

The list of objectionable content is sweeping and includes anything that "threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states or public order."

The rules highlight the ambivalence with which Indian officials have long treated freedom of expression. The country’s constitution allows “reasonable restrictions” on free speech but lawmakers have periodically stretched that definition to ban books, movies and other material about sensitive subjects like sex, politics and religion.

An Indian state, for example, recently banned an American author’s new biography of the Indian freedom fighter Mohandas Gandhi that critics have argued disparages Mr. Gandhi by talking about his relationship with another man.

Although fewer than 10 percent of Indians have access to the Internet, that number has been growing fast — especially on mobile devices. There are more than 700 million cellphone accounts in India.

The country has also established a thriving technology industry that writes software and creates Web services primarily for Western clients.

Even before the new rules — known as the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011 — India has periodically tried to restrict speech on the Internet. In 2009, the government banned a popular and graphic online comic strip, Savita Bhabhi, about a housewife with an active sex life. Indian officials have also required social networking sites like Orkut to take down posts deemed offensive to ethnic and religious groups.

Using a freedom of information law, the Center for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, recently obtained and published a list of 11 Web sites banned by the Department of Information Technology. Other government agencies have probably blocked more sites, the group said.

The new Internet rules go further than existing Indian laws and restrictions, said Sunil Abraham, the executive director for the Center for Internet and Society. The rules require Internet “intermediaries” — an all-encompassing group that includes sites like YouTube and Facebook and companies that host Web sites or provide Internet connections — to respond to any demand to take down offensive content within 36 hours. The rules do not provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to take content down.

"These rules overly favor those who want to clamp down on freedom of expression," Mr. Abraham said. "Whenever there are limits of freedom of expression, in order for those limits to be considered constitutionally valid, those limits have to be clear and not be very vague. Many of these rules that seek to place limits are very, very vague."

An official for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an advocacy group based in New Delhi, said on Wednesday that it was considering a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the new rules.

"What are we, Saudi Arabia?" said Pushkar Raj, the group’s general secretary. "We don’t expect this from India. This is something very serious."

An official at the Department of Information Technology, Gulshan Rai, did not return calls and messages.

The rules are based on a 2008 information technology law that India’s Parliament passed shortly after a three-day siege on Mumbai by Pakistan-based terrorists that killed more than 163 people. That law, among other things, granted authorities more expansive powers to monitor electronic communications for reasons of national security. It also granted privacy protections to consumers.

While advocates for free speech and civil liberties have complained that the 2008 law goes too far in violating the rights of Indians, Internet firms have expressed support for it. The law removed liability from Internet intermediaries as long as they were not active participants in creating content that was later deemed to be offensive.

Subho Ray, the president of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, which represents companies like Google and eBay, said the liability waiver was a big improvement over a previous law that had been used to hold intermediaries liable for hosting content created by others. In 2004, for instance, the police arrested eBay’s top India executive because a user of the company’s Indian auction site had offered to sell a video clip of a teenage couple having sex.

"The new I.T. Act (2008) is, in fact, a large improvement on the old one," Mr. Ray said in an e-mail response to questions.

Mr. Ray said his association had not taken a stand on the new regulations. An India-based spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on the new rules, saying the company needed more time to respond.

Along with the new content regulations, the government also issued rules governing data security, Internet cafes and the electronic provision of government services.

Read the original article published by the New York Times here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-free-speech

India Proposes Restrictions on Tapping Telephone Calls

praskrishna — 2011-05-06T05:53:43Z

An Indian government report has recommended that interception of telephone calls by government agencies should be limited to situations when there is a "public emergency" or "public safety" is at stake. John Riberio's article appeared in the PC World, TechWorld and CIO. Pranesh Prakash, program manager from the Centre for Internet and Society has been quoted in these articles.

John Riberio's article was published in the following publications:

PC World [April 26, 2011]
TechWorld [April 26, 2011]
CIO [April 26, 2011]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tapping-telephone-calls

India Proposes Law to Give Indians Complete Control of their Digital Health Data

Admin — 2018-06-01T13:57:42Z

India’s health ministry has proposed a law to govern data security in the healthcare sector that would give individuals complete ownership of their health data.

The article by Madhur Singh was published as a cover story in IndiaSpend on May 31, 2018. Shweta Mohandas and Amber Sinha were quoted.

Individuals would have the absolute right to refuse or allow data to be generated, collected, accessed, transmitted or used. And data collectors such as hospitals would be prohibited from refusing treatment to those who do not want their data collected or used.

This would make India one of the world’s foremost jurisdictions in the regulation of healthcare data, at a time when governments around the world are scrambling to keep a check on who gets to generate and use data and how, especially as citizens do not completely understand the data privacy and security implications of the innumerable applications they wittingly or unwittingly use.

The draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act was proposed by the health ministry on March 11, 2018. The period for stakeholder comment ended April 21, and a bill is currently being finalised. Experts say the health ministry is possibly waiting for a final verdict from the Supreme Court on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar–on which it has just completed the second-longest oral hearing in the history of the court. The ruling is expected in July or August.

The verdict will guide India’s data privacy framework, which is already being prepared by the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India being chaired by Justice B. N. Srikrishna. It will also have implications for the health ministry’s proposed law.

Use of data

Digital health data (DHD), or electronic health records of individuals or the public (when aggregated), typically comprise information such as a patient’s age, contact information, vital signs, lab reports, medical history including immunisations, allergies, and current and past medications.

The use of DHD promises to revolutionise healthcare services by providing more comprehensive care using the most accurate records possible, possibly reducing costs and timelines for all involved.

The law would allow anonymised health data, which cannot be traced to individuals, to be used for specified public health purposes, such as early detection and rapid response to public health emergencies such as bioterror events and infectious disease outbreaks.

However, for data in identifiable form, the draft stipulates that explicit prior permission would be needed from the digital data owner before each transmission or use. For instance, often companies offer free medical checkups to all employees. By revealing a pregnancy or a serious chronic condition, these tests could imperil an employee’s situation with their employer. With the proposed law, an employee could refuse to allow the pathology laboratory to share their data with the employer.

In recognition of the serious privacy and security concerns over uses and misuses of digital health data, the proposed law would completely prohibit use of digital health data for ‘commercial purposes’, whether in an identifiable or anonymised form.

This would mean that insurance companies, employers, human resource consultants and pharmaceutical companies would not be allowed to access or use health data, the law firm Trilegal said in an analysis posted on its website on April 11, 2018.

“Currently, employers can process health data for employee benefits, office records and insurance purposes under labour legislations like Maternity Benefits Act, Employee Compensation Act and Employee State Insurance Corporation Act and as part of their internal policies,” Trilegal said, adding that the proposed law would allow the use of digital data only to the extent required by these laws. “However, access, use or disclosure of [digital health data] to employers or human resource consultants for any other purpose is prohibited,” Trilegal noted.

Similarly, insurance companies and drug makers would not be allowed to access or use digital health data, although use for academic, clinical and public health research would be allowed.

The central government would be tasked with establishing ‘health information exchanges’ that would regulate the exchange of DHD between various clinical establishments–hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, pathology laboratories, etc.–for purposes and in manners allowed under the law.

Data breach

The responsibility for ensuring data security and privacy would lie with the entity that has custody of the data, which could be penalised for data breach.

Currently, under Indian law, companies in India are not obligated to inform individuals of data breach, with the exception of banks, which are obligated to inform the Reserve Bank of India within six hours. The result is that individuals are often not aware that their details may have been compromised.

The draft law proposes to make breach notification mandatory. Data breaches would be ranked by severity, and the more serious kind would be punishable with a fine of at least Rs 1 lakh and a jail term of up to five years.

Clinical establishments and health information exchanges would have to notify the owner in case of a breach within three days. Data owners could claim compensation from the person who breached the data, and no limit has been prescribed for the compensation amount.

The draft also specifies punishment for various other offences such as unauthorised access and data theft of up to five years’ imprisonment.

Some concerns

The stringent provisions of the proposed law, particularly the blanket ban on use of DHD by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, has raised concerns among these industries.

“Most data protection laws allow healthcare institutes to process data so long as there exists a legitimate interest in doing so,” Rahul Kumar, country manager and director with security solutions company WinMagic India said, adding that provisions debarring insurance and pharmaceutical companies, “while being protective in nature might be excessively harsh under certain circumstances”.

The stringent privacy provisions also put the future of wearable devices in doubt, Shweta Mohandas of The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) told IndiaSpend, “Perhaps a revised draft of the law, or rules framed under the final law, would specify these details.”

The draft does not clearly define the security measures that must be followed to prevent data breach, Mohandas and Amber Sinha, also of the CIS, told IndiaSpend. However, a National Electronic Health Authority proposed to be set up under the law could possibly define a clear set standards for maintaining security, they said.

Also, the draft proposes to allow for the withdrawal of consent but does not say how data would be removed from the system, Sinha and Mohandas said, adding that the roles of the various bodies to be established must be clearly defined.

Most commentators expect the finalised bill, which will be drafted after taking into account stakeholder comment, will iron out these issues.

“This law in its current form and further in its revised version will go a long way to help the industry be more secure,” Kumar said, adding, “Compliance is known to bring in a level playing field for industries and also give the end user the confidence that the critical data is secure.”

Many commentators also have questioned the timing of the health ministry’s draft law, given that India is currently in the process of creating a framework and an overarching legislation on data privacy and security. “It is curious that the Ministry has chosen to not wait for the draft law, before framing and releasing their draft,” Sinha and Mohandas said, “This suggests a lack of coordination between the different ministries, and if due care is not taken, could lead to inconsistencies across sectoral regulations of data.”

However, they said, it is possible that the health ministry will wait for the Supreme Court verdict in the Aadhaar litigation before finalising the bill.

(Singh is a contributing editor with IndiaSpend.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-spend-madhur-singh-may-31-2018-india-proposes-law-to-give-indians-complete-control-of-their-digital-data

India Privacy Meet

praskrishna — 2012-07-02T10:48:54Z

Microsoft, DSCI and Greyhead came together to organise India Privacy Meet at Hotel LeMeridien on June 29, 2012 in New Delhi. Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the event.

Agenda

10:00a.m.- 10:10a.m.	Welcome and Introduction: Rahul Neel Mani, Editor & Co-founder Grey Head Media
10:10a.m.- 10:30a.m.	Conference Opening Remarks: Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO Data Security Council of India
10:30a.m.- 10:45a.m.	Theme Address: Deepak Rout, CSO & Director Privacy, Microsoft India
10:45a.m.- 11:00a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11:00a.m.- 12:00p.m.	Panel 1: Consumer Privacy – Creating the Right Balance

Brief: Data Privacy is perhaps the most concerning issue in the digital age. Consumer privacy or customer privacy, involves the handling and protection of sensitive personal information that individuals provide in the course of everyday commercial or professional transactions. This involves exchange or use of data electronically or by other means, including telephone, fax, writing, and word of mouth. With the advent and evolution of Internet and other electronic methods of mass communications, consumer privacy has become a major concern to deal with. Personal information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in identity theft, financial fraud, and other problems that collectively cost individuals, businesses, and governments. In addition, Internet crimes and civil disputes consume law enforcement and judicial resources, confound legislators and bureaucracy, and produce untold personal aggravation.

Key Discussion Areas:

Handling of Personal Information including Sensitive Personal Information
Customer education on understanding business models and motives behind collection and use of Personal Information?
Privacy legislation and striking the right balance between various objectives
Privacy by design, online tracking, and transparency issues
Role of Government, Academia and Citizen groups

Panelists:

Chair - Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India (DSCI)
Sivarama Krishnan, Executive Director, PwC India
Pankaj Agarwal, Head of IT Governance & CISO Aircel
Prashant Mali, Advocate & Cyber Law Expert
Deepak Rout, CSO & Director Privacy, Microsoft India
Vishal Jain, Director, Ernst & Young

12:00p.m.- 01:00p.m.	Panel 2: Citizen Privacy Transparency, Accountability and Social Progress

Brief: While citizens are adopting new technologies which are increasingly making it easier to share information more freely and thereby track individuals more easily, they are also demanding more accountability and openness. Experience indicates that having a more informed citizenry improves services, and accelerates innovation; thus the era of copious content has the potential to generate a host of new services and businesses. However, there is a need for greater transparency in the handling of citizen data and its legitimate use in governance and law enforcement. While new age technologies, if inappropriately used, have a potential impact on citizens’ privacy, they also arm us with the capability to protect citizen data and provide opportunities for privacy conscious and transparent usage of such data, provided there is an enabling environment created by informed and responsible privacy legislation.

Key Discussion Areas:

Core objectives for privacy legislation
Role of government in protecting citizen privacy
Citizen awareness of privacy concerns in today’s legal, business and technology landscape
Expectations of government and citizens on policies around usage and collection of personal data and ability to build profiles for being used for different purposes
Model privacy legislation

Panelists:

Chair - Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs
Na Vijaya Shankar, E-business Consultant & Cyber Law Specialist (Coordinator)
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society
Akhilesh Tuteja, Executive Director, KPMG India
A P Singh, DDG, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
Kailas Karthikeyan, Regulatory & Pub Policy Manager, Legal and Corp Affairs Microsoft

01:00p.m.- 01:10p.m.	Conference Closing Remarks by Deepak Rout, CSO & Director, Privacy Microsoft India Vote of Thanks
01:15p.m. onwards	Lunch

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/india-privacy-meet

India partially lifts Porn Ban?

praskrishna — 2015-09-20T06:30:34Z

India is said to have partially removed the porn ban. But many internet service providers have refused to restore access, due to a 'vague' government order.

The blog post by Nazhat Khan was published in DESI blitz on August 7, 2015.

India has partially lifted the ban of online pornography, just days after blocking user access to 857 adult websites.

The Indian government enforced the ban on July 30, 2015, only to reverse its decision on August 4, 2015. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Communications and IT Minister, clarifies the ban only targets websites promoting child pornography.

He says: “A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned.” Under the new order, internet service providers (ISPs) in India are allowed to unblock these 857 websites – except for those that contain child pornography.

This has caused another outrage. ISPs complain it is not within their capability and responsibility to do so. Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) explains: “ISPs have no way or mechanism to filter out child pornography from URLs, and the further unlimited sub-links.

“Hence, we request your good self to advise us immediately on the future course of action in this regard.

“Till your further directive, the ISPs are keeping the said 857 URLs disabled.”

An executive at an Indian ISP tells the Wall Street Journal: “How can we go ahead? What if something comes up tomorrow [on one of these sites], which has child porn, or something else?”

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, points out it is not right for the government to pass the ball over to private companies.

He says: “The onus cannot be put on the service providers. What the government is doing is inherently unfair, it is not what the law requires.” In effect, porn sites in India are still blocked. The Supreme Court and senior officials are yet to provide clearer directives for ISPs.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban

India No Haven For Net Freedom But It Did Not Oppose UN Move on Internet Rights

praskrishna — 2016-07-09T02:25:51Z

India hasn’t had the best record when it comes to Internet rights. The country regularly carries out Internet shutdowns under flimsy pretexts, is still fumbling when it comes to the drafting of a comprehensive privacy bill, and most recently came out with a geospatial information regulation bill that would establish ownership over all forms of location data.

The article by Anuj Srinivas was published in the Wire on July 6, 2016.

So, last week, when the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution on the “promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet”, it wasn’t surprising to see the wave of media criticism of the amendments that were proposed by countries such as China and Russia – and which were supported by India.

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian ran a story headlined “South Africa votes with China, Russia and India against Internet freedoms in UN resolution”. Private Internet Access’s headline was “These 17 Countries Don’t Believe that Freedom of Expression on the Internet is a Human Right”. Popular tech website The Verge noted that the resolution was opposed “by a minority of authoritarian regimes including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, as well as democracies like South Africa and India. These nations called for the UN to delete a passage in the resolution that ‘condemns unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to our dissemination of information online’.”

The Verge‘s report was followed up by a number of Indian publications including IndiaToday and Medianama – the latter incorrectly stating that the UNHRC resolution “recognised Internet usage as a basic human right – as well a host of other global publications.

The facts
There were two fundamental mistakes with some of these reports. Firstly, the resolution was adopted without vote (with oral revision) as noted by the UNHRC. Therefore, while there were a number of countries which co-sponsored the resolution and many that didn’t, it is completely wrong to state that India – as the Mail & Guardian reported – or any other country, voted against the resolution.

Secondly, as noted by the Centre for Internet and Society, none of the four amendments supported by India called for the deletion of a passage that condemned the prevention or disruption of Internet access and online information dissemination. Although it may fit neatly within India’s history of issuing Internet block orders, no country was opposed to this paragraph at the UNHRC forum (although many countries including India flout this clause in spirit back at home). No such amendment was proposed.

What then were these four amendments, which Article 19, an organisation that advocates freedom of expression, statedwould “substantially weaken the resolution”? Out of the four amendments (referred to as L85-88 in the UNHRC resolution), the first amendment (L85) – which sought to include a reference to fighting against the exploitation of children online – was withdrawn by Russia before it was considered by member states.

The other three amendments, while not completely endorsed by the countries that co-sponsored the resolution, do carry a certain level of nuance. Only one of the amendments (L86) can truly be described as diluting language regarding freedom of expression online, although this could have been potentially a result of procedural politics.

L88: Including Reference to Hate Speech
This amendment – proposed by Belarus, China, Iran and the Russian Federation – asks to introduce a new paragraph that states:

“Expresses its concern at the use of the Internet and information and communications technology to disseminate ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, and incitement to racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

Article 19 says of this amendment that it would “undermine the intended focus of the draft resolution on protecting human rights online, in particular freedom of expression..” While it is true that a few paragraphs of the resolution’s preamble include a reference to hate speech, it is difficult to see what harm this amendment would have brought in and even more difficult to accept that it would dilute the focus of the overall resolution.

Using the Internet and other online media technologies for incitement and as a means of propagating intolerance and xenophobia is a very real problem in India and other Asian countries, the most notable example of which was the role that social media played in the exodus of north-east Indian migrants from Bangalore four years ago. While shutdowns are obviously not the best way of dealing with this, it is important to acknowledge the role of the Internet as a medium in this aspect. In sum, this amendment certainly would not have diluted the resolution’s aim of promoting freedom of expression online.

L87: Human-Rights Approach
The second amendment replaces the term “human rights-based approach” with “comprehensive and integrated approach” in two paragraphs on expanding Internet access:

PP17: Stressing the importance of applying a comprehensive and integrated (human rights-based approach) in providing and expanding access to the Internet and for the Internet to be open, accessible and nurtured by multistakeholder participation,

OP5: Affirms also the importance of applying a comprehensive and integrated (human rights-based approach) in providing and in expanding access to Internet and requests all States to make efforts to bridge the many forms of digital divides..

This amendment was a little trickier. According to people involved in the country stakeholder discussions, whom The Wirespoke with, the aversion to a ‘human-rights’ approach towards expanding Internet access came as a result of China and Russia playing procedural politics. The language that was proposed in the amendment – “comprehensive and integrated” – while certainly not the strongest possible language that could have been used, would not have legally diluted the proposal to expand Internet access while maintaining an open and multistakeholder approach towards Internet governance.

Stepping back, what would a human rights-based approach in expanding Internet access look like? Would it include legitimising the act of zero-rating and the approval of schemes such as Facebook’s Free Basics? Both of which, incidentally, have been banned in India. While the proposed amendment certainly does not speak well of the motivations of China, Russia and India, the term is also vague enough that its mere removal doesn’t indicate a lack of support towards Internet freedom.

L88 – Right to privacy and removal of UDHR reference
This amendment, proposed by China and the Russian Federation, was more straightforward. In two paragraphs, it sought to add the specific term ‘right to privacy’, while in another paragraph it proposed removing reference to language from, and articles in, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Had the amendment been passed, the changes in the following paragraphs would have been made:

PP7: Noting that the exercise of human rights, in particular the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, on the Internet is an issue of increasing interest and importance as the rapid pace of technological development enables individuals all over the world to use new information and communication technologies,

OP15: Decides to continue its consideration of the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, on the Internet and other information and communication technology, as well as of how the Internet can be an important tool for fostering citizen and civil society participation, for the realisation of development in every community and for exercising human rights, in accordance with its programme of work.

OP1: Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression ~~which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice~~, and the right to privacy in accordance with articles 17 and 19 of the ~~Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the~~ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

On one hand, this amendment would have added specific reference to the right to privacy. That specific term doesn’t appear in the draft resolution, although there are a few references to privacy in general in the resolution’s preamble.

However, the addition of a ‘right to privacy’ is coupled with a watering down of clear references to the protection of freedom of expression. Cynical observers would rightly note that China and Russia are probably less concerned with online privacy and more irked with the clear support of freedom of expression “regardless of frontiers” and “in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”; which is probably why this particular proposed amendment combined both issues to improve its chances of passing. While there is little doubt that this amendment would have diluted the resolution’s focus on protecting freedom of expression, the alternative phrasing also doesn’t create legal loopholes that renders it useless. Moreover, it still contains reference to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, especially Article 19, which goes beyond Article 19 of the UDHR .

India, a guardian?
It would be naive and wrong to take a strong position either way. To state that the amendments supported by India are all antithetical to the spirit of the UNHRC resolution, as some have done, is simply incorrect. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean India, and even less, China and Russia, are guardians of Internet freedom.

The UNHRC resolution in its entirety is a fine document. While non-binding, it provides a foundation for claiming that the same rights people have offline “must also be protected online”. Other crucial sections state that governments “should ensure accountability for all human rights violations and abuses committed against persons for exercising their human rights online”, while condemning “measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online”.

While the amendments India supported may not wholly oppose this resolution, it is also true that successive Indian governments also do not have an admirable track-record of upholding the resolution’s aims. Freedom for online speech had to be reclaimed in the form of court judgements, with the current government still supporting regulations that would allow it clamp down on online freedom of expression. In certain states within the country, Internet shutdowns happen without public explanations or justifiable reasoning. Over the last four years, for instance, Jammu and Kashmir has lost 18 days of Internet access. While it may not have wholly opposed the UNHRC resolution, the country still has a ways to go in terms of Internet freedom.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-week-anuj-srinivas-july-6-2016-india-no-haven-for-net-freedom-but-did-not-oppose-un-move-on-internet-rights

India needs better cyber police

praskrishna — 2014-06-04T07:56:33Z

On Wednesday, one of the largest online shopping and auction portals, eBay, revealed that earlier this year, cybercriminals accessed details of 145 million of its customers.

The article by Surabhi Agarwal was published in the Business Standard on May 23, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Even though eBay's customers' financial details are said to be safe, the incident is being termed a "historic breach" given the enormity of the data compromised. Globally, eBay is being criticised not just for its laxity in securing the digital perimeter but also for reacting too late. The company has said that it first came to know of the breach "two weeks" ago. Records that have been accessed contain passwords as well as email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses and other personal information.

The situation is worse when it comes to reporting such instances in India, say cyber security experts. The Indian Information Technology Act requires companies to adopt "reasonable security measures" to protect consumers' sensitive personal information such as passwords and financial details. It also makes companies duty bound to report breaches and also defines liabilities in case a firm is found not to be adhering to best data security practices. However, implementation is patchy and most such instances go unreported.

Pavan Duggal, an advocate specialising in cyber security, says most users do not come to know if there has been a breach. "Awareness is also low among consumers about the legal recourse available in case their data has been compromised," he adds. Unlike in the West, lack of a proper data protection and privacy law in India is to be blamed for this. "Companies, too, are inclined not to report such instances as they fear being negatively impacted in the market," he points out.

In case of a breach, a user can contact the adjudicating officer, which is the state infotech secretary, for legal recourse. However, the onus is on the user to prove the breach. In the US, a consumer can get a subpoena (court order) issued against a company that makes it duty bound to provide details of the breach. "In India, the regime is too lax. It is very difficult to notify the government," says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society.

"There are stringent compliance requirements in countries such as the US. The laws in India need to come tougher if we want companies to become more serious about this," adds Duggal.

eBay has advised consumers, many of whom could be Indians, to immediately change their passwords. While people tend to use the same password across many sites, emails and phones numbers act as verifying tools for several financial transactions and could be misused. Moreover, unlike India, the US does not require additional authentication apart from credit card and CVV number, which makes transactions slightly more vulnerable. "It may be a good idea to include a one-time password as a security layer," says Abraham.

Over 200 million Indians are online. The Indian e-commerce market is estimated at $2 billion (Rs 12,000 crore) and is expected to cross $20 billion over the next four years.

"There is no such thing as 100 per cent protection in the digital world. The choice is between transacting online or not," says Akhilesh Tuteja, executive director of consulting firm KPMG. "Technology is becoming so sophisticated that what was good yesterday is not good today." A bigger dialogue is needed on people treating theft of digital assets just as they would physical assets, he adds.

The last big breach was reported at software maker Adobe Systems in October 2013, when it was uncovered that hackers accessed about 152 million user accounts. Last December Target said some 40 million payment card numbers and another 70 million customer records were hacked into.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-may-23-2014-surabhi-agarwal-india-needs-better-cyber-police

India needs an independent privacy law, says NGO Privacy India

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:46:22Z

India needs an independent privacy law though there are a number of provisions in existing legislations that protect a citizen's privacy, according to an NGO that is lobbying for the cause. The story was published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012.

Privacy India, a conglomerate of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Society in Action Group (SAG), with support from Privacy International, conducted a study of the existing laws in India related to privacy over a period of one and a half years in various cities.

A report, which will be released soon, has documented their findings about privacy laws and issues in India and high-level conclave and a national symposium on privacy will be held in Delhi on February 3 and 4.

Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan and NCPRI head Aruna Roy will take part in the discussions on privacy in transparency, e-governance initiatives, national security, banking and health issues.

"India doesn't have a privacy law, but there are provisions for it in different laws. During the course of the research, we found that the Indian judiciary has not been very strict in overseeing the implementation of the privacy clauses in various laws," CIS member Prashant Iyengar said, while reporting some of the findings of the study.

Stricter implementation of the existing laws could go a long way in curbing most privacy issues, Iyengar said.

Published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012. Prashant Iyengar is quoted in this.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/india-needs-an-independent-privacy-law-says-ngo-privacy-india

India must support UN's e-snooping move: Human rights activists

praskrishna — 2013-11-19T09:10:02Z

India is facing pressure from internet and human rights activists to support a United Nations resolution that calls for an end to electronic spying after revelations of mass illegal surveillance by the United States.

The article by Indu Nandakumar was published in the Economic Times on November 11, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The resolution, jointly submitted by Brazil and Germany - vocal opponents of US cyber spying - urged UN member states to act against excessive surveillance. Records leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden had exposed US eavesdropping on Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Internet activists and experts said the world's largest democracy must join the resolution as a reaction to unfair surveillance by the US. Confidential documents from Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor showed India was one of the victims of US snooping.

"Decision-makers in India haven't made a principled stand on the issue. They are still debating and deliberating," said Oleg Demidov, program director for international information security and global internet governance at the Russian Center for Policy Studies.

Demidov said India was unlikely to join the resolution as it has strong language and measures that need to be implemented immediately. "Joining this would mean a big political step." The resolution, while not legally binding, can still be a formal vote against US spying. A senior government official in New Delhi said Brazil and Germany on Friday held consultations with all UN member states including India on the draft resolution.

India will take 'detailed' look

He said India will take a "detailed look" at the resolution over the coming days before deciding whether it wants to be part of it. Revelations about US government snooping on communication between governments and individuals has caused global outrage over the past few months.

Popular email and internet service providers locating their servers in the US makes tapping into communication lines easier for that country. Brazil is considering legislation that would require internet companies to store data locally.

Latest documents revealed by Snowden showed that NSA had been monitoring data that travels between servers of Yahoo and Google, thus accessing personal data of millions of internet users across the world, including Indian users. It had prompted strong reaction from Google, whose executive chairman Eric Schimdt called such snooping "outrageous."

A representative for the German federal foreign office said the resolution was submitted to "protect human rights in the digital age more effectively" and that all member states are invited to co-sponsor the resolution.

"Indians should press their own government to forcefully object to the United States' surveillance policies and demand that those policies be brought into conformity with international law," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, an influential civil rights union based in New York. Jaffer said while no one questions the US government's right to engage judicially supervised surveillance, "dragnet surveillance of entire populations is a severe and unnecessary infringement on the privacy of millions."

He said that reforming the policies of NSA would require pressure from outside the US, especially foreign governments.

The pushback against mass surveillance is taking place in the backdrop of India and US looking to strengthen their economic relationship. Issues such as the US immigration reform bill which is seen as detrimental by India's $75 billion softw are export industry, and India's nuclear liability law, which US companies find unreasonable, have been irritants in bilateral relations.

Another senior government official said India's stance on US surveillance has been soft as any discussion on the subject would bring India's Central Monitoring System into the spotlight. The system, similar to the US government's PRISM project, gives the government access to phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations of individuals.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore based think-tank Centre for Internet and Society, said India must be a part of the efforts by Brazil and Germany.

"Surveillance needs to be addressed both at technological as well as policy levels." Former diplomat and foreign affairs expert G Parthasarathy acknowledged the need for international consensus to protect individual privacy but doubted whether snooping by governments will ever end.

"Yes, the Americans are over-doing it, but India cannot condemn it because we have been doing the same thing. India monitored conversations between (Pakistan army chief) Pervez Musharraf and his chief of general staff (Mohammed Aziz) during the Kargil conflict. The point is everyone does it, but Americans got caught."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-november-11-2013-indu-nandakumar-india-must-support-un-e-snooping-move