We are anonymous, we are legion

Improving Collective Intelligence

radha — 2011-04-05T04:19:02Z

CIS in collaboration with iMorph, Inc. and Program For the Future, is organizing a Tweetup on Dec 20th, 2009 at TERI from 4pm to 7pm.

The tweetup is to increase the awareness for "Improving Collective Intelligence".

Tools like Twitter and other social networks allow global participation of a large number of people in solving some of the World's pressing problems. This Tweetup is aimed at identifying some of these problems, brainstorming about ways to solve them and raise the awareness of the power of Collective Intelligence.

Specially, a Collective Intelligence Challenge organized by "The Program For The Future" will be the first step towards the effort. A description of the project (from the website - http://thetechvirtual.org/projects)

Develop a practical method, tool or technology that connects people so that they collectively act more intelligently. The challenge embraces all areas of human endeavor – not just technical domains like computing or engineering but also the arts, business, economics, education, government, health, law, philanthropy, science and other spheres. Winning entries will be displayed in the participating museums.

Participating museums: Tech Museum of Innovation, MIT Museum , Science Center Singapore, Citilab Barcelona, Global Women's Leadership Network

Indian Organizations - National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, Innovation Cell at KCG College of Technology

More Information

Contacts:
Dorai Thodla - dorait@gmail.com
Hrish Thota - dhempe@gmail.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/improving-collective-intelligence

Implications of post-Snowden Internet localization proposals

praskrishna — 2014-07-03T07:09:25Z

The Ninth Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Meeting will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on 2-5 September 2014. The venue of the meeting is Lütfi Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC).

Sunil Abraham will be speaking in this workshop organized by Internet Society and Center for Democracy and Technology at the IGF.

Examples include mandatory storage of citizens' data within country, mandatory location of servers within country (e.g. Google, Facebook), launching state-run services (e.g. email services), restricted transborder Internet traffic routes, investment in alternate backbone infrastructure (e.g. submarine cables, IXPs), etc.

Localization of data and traffic routing strategies can be powerful tools for improving Internet experience for end-users, especially when done in response to Internet development needs. On the other hand, done uniquely in response to external factors (e.g. foreign surveillance), less optimal choices may be made in reactive moves.

How can we judge between Internet-useful versus Internet-harmful localisation and traffic routing approaches? What are the promises of data localization from the personal, community and business perspectives? What are the potential drawbacks? What are implications for innovation, user choice and the availability of online services in the global economy? What impact might they have on a global and interoperable Internet? What impact (if any) might these proposals have on user trust and expectations of privacy?

The objective of the session is to gather diverse perspectives and experiences to better understand the technical, social and economic implications of these proposals.

Name(s) and stakeholder and organizational affiliation(s) of institutional co-organizer(s)

Organizer:
Nicolas Seidler, Policy advisor
Technical community
Internet Society
Co-organizer:
Matthew Shears
Civil society
Center for Democracy and Technology

Names and affiliations (stakeholder group, organization) of speakers the proposer is planning to invite

Mr. Chris Riley, Senior Policy Engineer, Mozilla Corporation, Private sector (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Jari Arkko, Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, Technical community (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Christian Kaufmann, Director Network Architecture at Akamai Technologies, Private sector (CONFIRMED)
Ms. Emma Llanso, Director of Free Expression Project, Center for Democracy and Technology, Civil Society (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society, India, Civil Society (CONFIRMED)
Mr. Thomas Schneider, Deputy head of international affairs, Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM), Government (CONFIRMED)

Name of Moderator(s)

Nicolas Seidler, Policy advisor, Internet Society

Name of Remote Moderator(s)

Konstantinos Komaitis

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/igf-2014-session-post-snowden-localisation

Implications of post-Snowden Internet Localization Proposals

praskrishna — 2014-10-05T08:59:27Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker in this workshop organized by Center for Democracy and Technology on September 2, 2014.

Following the 2013-2014 disclosures of large-scale pervasive surveillance of Internet traffic, various proposals to "localize" Internet users' data and change the path that Internet traffic would take have started to emerge.

Examples include mandatory storage of citizens' data within country, mandatory location of servers within country (e.g. Google, Facebook), launching state-run services (e.g. email services), restricted transborder Internet traffic routes, investment in alternate backbone infrastructure (e.g. submarine cables, IXPs), etc.

Localization of data and traffic routing strategies can be powerful tools for improving Internet experience for end-users, especially when done in response to Internet development needs. On the other hand, done uniquely in response to external factors (e.g. foreign surveillance), less optimal choices may be made in reactive moves.

How can we judge between Internet-useful versus Internet-harmful localisation and traffic routing approaches? What are the promises of data localization from the personal, community and business perspectives? What are the potential drawbacks? What are implications for innovation, user choice and the availability of online services in the global economy? What impact might they have on a global and interoperable Internet? What impact (if any) might these proposals have on user trust and expectations of privacy?

The objective of the session is to gather diverse perspectives and experiences to better understand the technical, social and economic implications of these proposals.

For full details see the IGF website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/implications-of-post-snowden-internet-localization-proposals

Implementing Indian languages in feature phones will be difficult

praskrishna — 2016-08-10T15:51:44Z

A recent government standard requiring support for inputting text in any one Indian language in mobile phones - along with Hindi and English - has manufacturers worried. The companies argue that the well-intentioned move may be difficult to implement, especially in the case of feature phones, because inventory and logistics will have to be planned for each state.

The article by Gulveen Aulakh and Neha Alawadhi was published in the Economic Times on August 10, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) said in June that all mobile phones must support the ability to type messages in English, Hindi and at least one additional Indian official language. It also requires message readability for all 22 Indian official languages. The objective is to enable widespread communication in local languages, especially for people who may not use English or Hindi with as much ease.

Handset makers said while such changes, which are yet to be notified, can be done easily through software in smartphones, it would be a big challenge for feature phones because of screen and keypad limitations, apart from managing supplies.

"It will be nightmarish to do planning for the number of models (with different languages) to be sold in each state, and plan inventory and logistics around that, so it's very challenging," said Gaurav Nigam, product head of Lava International, which has a phone with message-reading ability in all 22 Indian official languages.

Nigam said the BIS standard does not mandate the printing of vernacular languages on keypads, which would have created a massive hurdle for mobile phone manufacturers. "I might end up over-stocking in some states and lesser inventory in some states, which might lead to loss of sales since I won't be able to divert a Kerala-printed stock to Punjab or any other state," Nigam said. However, the government is hopeful of compliance.

An official said logistical and supply-chain issues can be addressed by companies. "We are talking to them and we are open to giving them a leeway of nine to 12 months to implement the order," said the official, requesting anonymity.

The official said although the government had started consultations on the premise that the third language should be imprinted on the keypad, it was felt in due course that other technologies could also be used. "Some lanFeature phones account for 65 per cent of the total mobile phone user base of about 700 million in India and are popular in rural areas and smaller towns. Sales of feature phones in the country declined to 150 million last year from 179-180 million, according to International Data Corporation, a US market research company.

The Indian Cellular Association, which represents mobile phone makers in India including Apple, Samsung Electronics, Micromax Informatics and Intex, said that it was talking to the BIS and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology on excluding the imprinting of vernacular language characters on keypads from the standard and allowing handset makers to develop solutions for local language input capability in phones.

"A formal communication or notification is expected soon from DeitY on implementing the rules," said Pravin Gondane, associate director at ICA. The department is expected to hold consultations with the industry by the month-end before it comes out with a notification that mandates the standard.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, suggested a middle ground where the government could map all reasonably popular input standards and document them so that customers can pick a phone they are comfortable with.

While awaiting the notification, the association has internally sent notices to all companies stating that printing on keypads may not be necessary, even for feature phones, Gondane said. Alternative solutions could include a keypad cover that lists vernacular language characters for text input and inputting of text through a virtual keypad.

While a task force set up by DeitY admits it's a challenge to implement this rule for feature phones because the number of keys is limited, it suggested that a common minimum framework to assign characters on 12 keys should follow international standards and incorporate Indian languages requirement on the same. The taskforce has issued best practices for designing Indian language text-entry mechanisms for phones with 12 keys, rather than lay out a standard for keypads.

Smartphones have touchscreens, making language reading and inputting changes a software requirement that's easy to implement. Samsung smartphones and feature phones are enabled with typing, reading and changing user interface in 14 local languages, said Manu Sharma, the company's VP of mobile business.guages can be easily printed on the keyboard, while others can be enabled through typing on the screen," the official said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-august-10-2016-gulveen-aulakh-neha-alawadhi-implementing-indian-languages-in-feature-phones-will-be-difficult

Impact of Industrial Revolution 4.0 - IT and Automotive Sector in India by the Dialogue and FES

Admin — 2019-08-27T00:13:32Z

On August 21, 2019, Aayush Rathi, attended a report launch event and focus group discussion on the "Impact of Industrial Revolution 4.0 - IT and Automotive Sector in India". Research conducted by the Dialogue in collaboration with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) were being presented.

At CIS, we have previously produced research on the future of work in these sectors. Aayush attended the event to understand how other researchers are approaching the subject of the future of work in terms of the methodological approach and the questions being asked and policy responses being proposed. In what may be treated as validation of our research design, FES and the Dialogue have addressed similar questions and adopted an empirical+desk based approach to do so as well.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/impact-of-industrial-revolution-4-0-it-and-automotive-sector-in-india-by-the-dialogue-and-fes

Imagine a Feminist Internet: Research, Practice and Policy in South Asia

Admin — 2019-02-27T01:52:55Z

Internet Democracy Project and Point of View co-organized a two-day Imagine a Feminist Internet event in Sri Lanka on 22011 and 22 February 2019. Ambika Tandon was a speaker and presented a paper 'Framing Reproductive Health as a Data Problem? Unpacking ‘Dataveillance’ in India' which was co-authored by herself and Aayush Rathi.

The panel also had a presentation by Dr. Anja Kovacs, and was moderated by Eva Blum-Dumontet from Privacy International. Ambika also participated in a committee that drafted a declaration for policymakers based on the presentations at the conference, which is yet to be finalised. The agenda can be seen here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/imagine-a-feminist-internet-research-practice-and-policy-in-south-asia

IISc students boycott UID, don’t want Big Brother to keep watch

praskrishna — 2011-08-23T08:24:14Z

The programme doesn’t have statutory backing. It is still in parliament

Nandan Nilekani may be Bangalore’s blue-eyed boy making waves at the national level with his Unique Identification Number (UID), but there’s one part of the city that’s not impressed: A section of students and faculty of Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

While many Bangaloreans have started enrolling for UID, the students are in boycott mode and say they will never do so.

Professor Shiv Sethi, astrophysics department, Raman Research Institute, said, “They (the authorities) have moved faster than us by starting the enrolment. It was during the discussion phase that we tried to impress upon them the loopholes of UID. Now that they have started the enrolment, it’s our turn to protest. We will meet and discuss with other like-minded people.”

IIScians say they don’t want to be under surveillance and that they are not comfortable with giving away their personal details since studies have proved how unsafe electronic data can be. The programme has been scrapped in the UK, they said.

In fact, when Nilekani visited IISc a few months back to deliver a lecture, the anti-UID group protested with placards and banners that read, ‘Beware, Big Brother is watching you’ and ‘Secure electronic archive is a myth’.

And now, apart from not signing up, some students are even considering burning copies of UID forms, a la team Anna burning copies of the draft Lokpal bill.

Prathamesh, a scholar, said: “UID is not going to solve problems of leakages. The government should universalise the PDS system to control misuse of subsidised foodgrain that find their way to restaurants. The project is fraught with loopholes and doesn’t have statutory backing. I will burn copies of the forms.”

Prathamesh added that the UID project was the brainwave of software companies who do not have a regular stream of revenue.

Even IISc alumni are putting up a fight. One of them who participated in the protest said, “I will not register. The programme does not have statutory backing. It is still in parliament. First, they said it was voluntary. Now, they are trying to link it to banks, LPG connections and other utilities.”

Sethi added, “A few people have approached the court. We will decide the next course of action.”

There are others who have doubts. Consumer activist Chandrasekhar of Malle-swaram feels that he needs to clarify all his doubts before enrolling. “I spoke with the officials. They told me it was voluntary. But now, it looks like they are linking it with other utilities.”

Nishant Shah, director, research, Centre for Internet Society, said, "We need to check for three issues: data retention, data protection and data privacy. Only after these issues are resolved can we have a UID for every citizen."

This article by Sameer Ranjan Bakshi was published in the Bangalore Mirror on August 23, 2011. The original story can be read here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/iisc-students-boycott-uid

IIGF Recruitment

praskrishna — 2015-04-29T16:14:46Z

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is conducting walk-in interviews on May 16, 2015 at 10 a.m. at NIXI Jasola office, Flat No. 6B, 6th Floor, Uppals M6 Plaza, New Delhi. NIXI is seeking candidates to fill the posts of Technology Analyst, Policy Analyst, Research Associate and Executive Assistants.

IIGF Recruitment Guidelines

The India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF) is the national forum constituted by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India for multi-stakeholder dialogue between the government, private sector, technical community, academia and civil society organizations on public-policy issues related to Internet Governance. IIGF would be reviewing the global Internet policy landscape and provide guidelines for matters related to Internet Governance, taking into account the technical development and the dynamically changing societal needs in the country.

Instrumental to furthering the aims of IIGF, NIXI would be providing the technical and administrative support, conducting research, training, and workshops and preparing white papers, technology reports etc. In particular, the following specific activities will be carried out:

Organisation of the annual IIGF event in a purposeful and inclusive manner.
Capacity building and awareness-raising on the public policy issues pertaining to Internet Governance.
Regular and sustained engagement with all stakeholders.
Making India a significant player in the global Internet Governance space.

In order to achieve the above goals, NIXI will provide the requisite support functions through specialised personnel, recruited for this task. Accordingly, a group of approximately 8-10 analysts/ associates and support staff would be recruited who will perform the following functions:

Develop an annual work plan of the IIGF activities
Provide technical, research and administrative support to the IIGF keeping in view the rapid global developments
Promote the IIGF activities of the members (sub-regional and national IGFs including other stakeholders);
Act as a knowledge management hub of the IIGF experiences, best practices, knowledge, expertise, needs and resources among sub-regional and national IGFs
Help convene India IGF meetings and
Develop and maintain active e-mail lists and website to provide updated India IGF related information to sub-regional and national IGFs including other international stakeholders.
Any other activity related to IG required from time to time would also be actively identified and pursued.

General expectations from recruited personnel: Positive attitude, excellent qualities to work in a team, perform as per the needs of the organization and ensuring healthy work culture. Prior experience and good track record will be added advantages.

Period of service: The selected candidates would initially be recruited for a contract period of 1 year which would be extended up to 3 years depending upon performance.

Technology Analyst – 2-3 nos. (Full-time/ part-time)
Qualifications: B.Tech/M.Tech Electronics & Communications/IT & Computer Science/MCA

Experience:Knowledge of Internet technologies – resources, telecommunication policies, procedures of inter-ministerial coordination, regulations and procedures.

Expectations: Ability to study, analyze and write national impact assessment reports taking into account global Internet Technology Standards and Processes from Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other standards bodies; to bring out Technology Roadmap recommendation documents on global Internet Governance and Technology related issues; monitor and participate in RFC process.

Remuneration: Rs.50,000 -75000 per month.

Policy Analyst – 2-3 nos. (Full-time/ part-time)

Qualifications: Law or public policy graduate. Cyber-law knowledge would be an added advantage.

Experience: Awareness and understanding of Public Policy issues pertaining to global Internet Governance, technology and governance related regulations, policies and procedures. Previous work-experience desirable.

Expectations: Ability to Study, analyze and write policy documents of global Internet Governance and Technology related issues, summarize and analyze them and convert it into usable knowledge, assist in all aspects of the planning/organization of IIGF events.

Remuneration: Rs.50,000 -75000 per month.

Research Associate – 2-3 nos. (Full-time/ part-time)

Qualifications: Graduates/Post Graduates Computing and information system/ Information Technology/Computer applications/B.Tech/M.Tech Electronics/Communication/IT, or other relevant disciplines, preferably with work experience.

Expectations: Aptitude to analyze problems and articulate solutions, undertake research on both policy and technical issues connected to IG, assist in all aspects of the planning/organization of the IIGF events.

Remuneration: Rs. 30,000 - 40000 per month.

Executive Assistants – 1 no.

Qualifications: Graduates in Computing and Information system, Information Technology, Computer Applications (MCA/BCA degree) preferably with 2 years work experience.

Experience: Excellent drafting skills, sound knowledge of English, commitment and maintaining confidentiality and secrecy are the important requirements. Those with experience in similar area of work in Govt./PSU /private sector will be preferred.

Expectations: Good communication skills, positive attitude, high commitment, maintaining confidentiality and secrecy, high commitments and spirit to excel at the main requirements. Prior working experience would be an added advantage.

Remuneration: Rs. 20,000 - 30000 per month.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/iigf-recruitment

IGF Academy Regional Workshop

praskrishna — 2016-08-06T15:30:53Z

Sunil Abraham will be a speaker at this event organized by LIRNE Asia in Colombo, Sri Lanka on August 4, 2016. He will speak on the status of freedom of expression, internet governance and multi-stakeholder processes

Sunil Abraham made a presentation at the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/igf-academy-regional-workshop

IGF 2009 - Main Session: Emerging Issues: Social Networks

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T13:46:50Z

Current laws don't seem to scale well to handle Web 2.0 issues

Session description: Discussion was centered on the development of social media (social networks, user-generated content sites, micro-blogging, collaboration tools, etc.) in order to explore whether these developments require to new or modified policy approaches. Key issues explored include privacy and data protection, rules applicable to user-generated content and copyrighted material, and freedom of expression and illegal content. The session also addressed the importance of the “terms of service” of large platforms, how they are developed and their relationship with emerging business models that are based on behavioral analysis.

Participants in the discussion included: Sunil Abraham, director of policy, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore; Rebecca MacKinnon, co-founder of the Global Network Initiative; Grace Bomu, manager, Kenya-Heartstrings and Fanartics Theatre Company, Kenya; Sergio Suiama, prosecutor, State of São Paulo, Brazil; Rachel O'Connell, VP of people networks and chief safety officer, Bebo.

November 18, 2009 - Sunil Abraham, an Internet policy expert from Bangalore, was a key panelist in this session who introduced the primary concerns tied to social networks today.

"I'm going to raise nine emerging issues about social media," he began, "and I categorize them into four categories: Intellectual property rights, morality laundering, the hegemony of the connected and the hegemony of text."

He noted that intellectual property law is completely outdated and cannot be applied in today's communications environment, saying it is "irrelevant." He added, "To take some examples, the right of the consumer to review, the right of the consumer to privacy, the right of the entrepreneur or enthusiast to make interoperable, complementary or competing products. All these rights used to be protected under the right to reverse-engineer. Issue 2 under IPR: On some corporate-mediated social media platforms, copyright takedown notices from one political party are acted on much more swiftly when compared to similar takedown notices from an opposing party. Issue 3, under IPR: Some rights holders, and in particular news organizations, use copyright takedown notices selectively to purge social media Web sites of content that opposes their editorial viewpoint. Issue 4 under intellectual property rights: The increased use of automated enforcement of copyright by rights holders is seriously undermining freedom of expression on the Internet, as in the case of the baby dancing to Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy.'"

He explained "morality laundering" - saying that, like policy laundering, it is "trying to impose a globally homogenized morality regime." He cited the example of breast-feeding photos on a social network being deleted because they were considered obscene. "Breast-feeding, I may remind you, is still a public activity in many southern countries," he said. "Photographs of public life on a beach in a country where nudism is the norm becomes child pornography in another country."

He said that religious traditions can sometime be reduced to a monoculture on community-managed social media platforms that "depend on editors to determine the truth," adding "That is because upper-crust and upper-class populations have greater access to the Internet. Literate communities will try to maintain their hegemony on the Internet. Community-managed social media platforms that depend on textual citation often ignore the knowledge of the oral communities of the global south."

Session moderator Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, asked Abraham if automated enforcement of social network policies should be outlawed. "I don't think it is possible for us to completely take out machine involvement in moderating content online," Abraham said, "whether it is from a freedom-of-speech perspective or a hate-speech perspective or from an intellectual-property-rights perspective. But I think the process has to become more transparent, so that the public will know what happened and why it happened and that there is due process and the possibility of appeal."

Davies had kicked off the session with a plea that participants try to think ahead in this discussion of social networks. "Our role today in this panel is to look to the future, and our mentors at the UN and at IGF have urged me to motivate, as much as possible, an imagining of the future," he said. "Our role, as we can see on the program, is to look at social networks and social spaces such as micro-blogging and Web 2.0, as we move through to the next - what are the issues that we're likely to confront. So our two goals, if I can suggest a focus, is: What have we brought out of this last few days that tells us something about the way the future will go? Particularly in terms of social interaction. And second, imagine that future."

Sergio Siuama, prosecutor for the State of São Paulo, Brazil, was asked to describe the privacy problem that developed there on Google's social network Orkut. "Social networks are the fourth most popular online activity, ahead of personal e-mail," he said. "Eighty percent of Brazilian Intenet users interact through social network sites. In Brazil as well in India and Pakistan, the most popular social networking service is Google's Orkut. More than 30% of Brazilian users access regularly use Orkut and about 25% of them are children and teenagers." He said many social networks accessed by people globally are transnational. "The most-accessed services in Brazil are provided by companies physically located in the United States," he said.

In 2005 Google set up a branch in São Paulo, but it was not enough to handle the business of 30 million users. Since 2004 Brazilian authorities have been receiving reports of cyberbullying, drug dealing, child pornogrphy and other human rights violations in Orkut's space. In 2006 the federal attorney's office started a collective lawsuit against Google. Google responded with a proactive plan. After two years of litigation, in July 2008, the parties settled on a collective agreement in which Google agreed, among other obligations, to comply with Brazilian legislation, to store traffic data for at least six months, to take down child-abuse images, to develop a proactive system of child-abuse images detection, removal and report to law enforcement, and to establish a customer-service office able to quickly respond to all users' complaints. Some of these obligations were adopted as standards for the whole of Latin America in a document - the memorandum of Montevideo.

Siuama raised several governance issues that arise from this case: Which criteria should be used to define the ability of a country to legislate over and sanction conducts committed on the Internet? Is it legitimate to enforce rules at a local company's office regarding a service operated from another country? What are the basic standards we should expect from ISPs to help cope with human rights violations on the Internet? Is any national law enforcement agency equipped to cope with crimes committed on social networking sites? Will it be necessary to ensure minimum levels of transparency and social accountability of networking services?

Panel member Rachel O'Connell, vice president of people networks and chief safety officer for Bebo, chaired the European Union's Safer Social Networking Cross-Industry Task Force - an effort by 18 social networking companies, including Facebook and Google, working with the European Commission and civil liberties, child welfare, law enforcement and parenting groups.

"We came up with seven principles that relate to education and ensuring that we have prominent and easily accessible safety messages and also addressing reporting abuse and providing people with the technologies and capabilities so they can use the Internet safely," she said. "We are doing a lot of filtering on the back end. We have moderation teams in place. We have very strong links with law enforcement. We look at the legal issues in each of the countries and the markets in which we operate and see how that ties up with being a US-based company. We're also aware of treaties like the multinational legal assistance treaty, in terms of working with law enforcement and investigators."

O'Connell said the industry has probably not been clear enough about how these procedures are implemented. She expects that the principles set out by the task force will make things more clear. "The number of signatories was 18 and now it's up to 23, and part of my role is to encourage companies to become signatories," she said. "It means you need to self-declare how you have implemented the principles and each of the substantive recommendations. These self-declarations are being reviewed by independent researchers, and their report will be released to coincide with Safer Internet Day in February."

She added that U.S. attorneys general have asked social networking companies to begin being more transparent and accountable. "Facebook has an internal auditor to ensure that they are meeting the requirements outlined by the attorneys general, and similarly MySpace has an agreement, so there is an incredible amount of work going on," she said. "That said, there is still a log of work to do, as there always will be. For example, AOL has been working closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and are diligent about working with law enforcement in other countries to ensure we can facilitate the investigative process. We also have a filtering process we run on the back end."

Grace Bomu, manager for Kenya-Heartstrings and Fanartics Theatre Company, Kenya, was on hand to talk about the positive influence of social networks. Her creative troupe uses them to do marketing, research and concept development. "From our Facebook page," she explained, "we're able to tell which issues the youth in Kenya are facing, and from those issues, we are able to develop a concept and sell our plays. On our Facebook page, people propose lines, other people propose they be actors, and this has really changed the way we do business. It's the actors who write the script, and our friends help us in writing the script.

"Another way the Internet helps us is using the mobile money payment systems. Our management uses a mobile phone to update the page, to make comments and so on. Friends came up with the idea that they could pay to attend plays using mobile money payment systems."

She said there are some negatives. Anonymous respondents and competitors write negative comments on the troupe's page, politicians sometimes try to use the page to advance their goals, "and we have had problem of balancing what some people call abusive language with what others say is artistic expression."

"We'd say that these tools have really helped news opening up culture, in growth of urban language and also in the contribution of topical issues," she concluded. "Tools are helping us to expand freedom of expression rather than caging it. So what we have done as a company is that we are coming up with - slowly, we are coming up with a code within us that we shall follow in balancing the competing interests."

Rebecca MacKinnon, Open Society Institute fellow and co-founder of the Global Network Initiative, noted that throughout the sessions of IGF-2009 people have been speaking out about the power of social networks as spaces where individual citizens can speak truth to power. "Spaces that help to make governments and other institutions more accountable to individuals," she said. "This is happening all over the world, across a range of political systems. But there are trends that are counteracting the potential of social networks to be a force that can truly help citizens participate in public life. This may be contributing to social networks acting as more opaque extensions of incumbent power in some situations, rather than as transparent conduits between citizens and institutions."

MacKinnon raised four key points. The first is the level of liability governments place on social networking services in regard to user-generated content.

While it is part of the groundrules for IGF that participants are encouraged to avoid singling out people or nations when meting out criticism, it was clear that she was referring to China when she said, "In some jurisdictions, international social networking sites end up being blocked because the sovereign government is not happy with some of the content being posted on the sites. And in some of those jurisdictions, what then ends up happening is that a robust set of domestic social networking sites evolve. And the social networking sites that are hosted domestically are held liable for all the content that their users are posting on the site. And so in order to comply with government requirements and the particular government's definition of what constitutes legal speech, these social networking sites end up having to develop large departments of people whose job it is to police content. international social networking sites that want to act - want to operate in certain jurisdictions have to make a choice, either to be blocked to users in that country because users may post things that the local government objects to, or agree to develop a locally hosted site in the local language which would then be subject to greater local jurisdiction and agree to police it. And there have been some cases where certain - and I have again been asked not to name and shame - but where certain companies have chosen to host locally and comply with government requests for political censorship in that regard. And so this is one challenge that social networking companies around the world are facing, is how to deal with this."

Other points she outlined were:

- Social network users are often not allowed to be anonymous. "There's at least one country where now anybody who uses a social networking site or Web service over a certain size has to register with their national ID number," she explained, "and many human rights groups have expressed concerns about some users who have been traced for political speech. At least one international social networking service decided to disable the local uploading of videos and comments onto its service, so people in that country have to use the international version of the service rather than the local service - so that this particular social networking site would not be in the position of handing people over for speech that might arguably be political."

- Administrators of social networking sites will sometimes perceive that something is going against the terms of service when the content has a much different intent. "There are political activists from a range of countries who found their Facebook accounts frozen because their pattern of activity resembled spamming," she said, "and this had an impact on their ability to conduct political activities. And there have been situations where activists in various countries post images of abuse by authorities against citizens and these are quite graphic and are deemed to be against terms of service. And the people concerned feel that 'if these sites do not let me speak truth to power, then were can I go?' So that's another sort of human-rights issue."

- A new multistakeholder group, the Global Network Initiative, is being co-founded by MacKinnon and others to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in ICTs. "Our approach recognizes that a lot of these issues are difficult to legislate for because they involve very nuanced contextual situations that differ greatly," she said. "Companies do feel there is a need to have some kind of assistance in doing the right thing. How can social networks fulfill their potential and serve their users so they feel they can use these services without becoming victims of oppression in various ways? The Global Network Initiative combines companies who have signed on as well as human rights groups, socially responsible investment funds and some academics to help companies proactively figure out how to anticipate free-expression issues in order to avoid problems and assist in making choices about how to structure businesses."

Pavan Duggal spoke from the floor of the session about the formation of a dynamic coalition on social networks, which came together after a session on legal issues and social media earlier in the day. "These issues not only relate to data protection and privacy," he said. "They also relate to the issue of jurisdiction and ownership, storage, retention and transmission of user-generated content. Do we have the right to be anonymous? Do we have a right to oblivion? Can there be a right to delete in the context of social media? Is there a right of purging children-generated content? Can there be a right to forget and to forgive in the context of information? We also discussed how the deadly cocktail mix of social media and cloud computing is venturing us into a wild, wild west as far as jurisprudential rules and principles are concerned. Which country, what data, which server, which law would apply, which would be effective remedy, which would be the relevant court and how would the ultimate adjudication be done?"

He said it is expected that national governments will try to legislate in this area. "While the Internet has made geography history, the fact still remains that national governments will try to legislate," he said. "It is time that respective stakeholders must come together, not just the players, the users, but also the industry, the government, the lawmakers, law enforcement."

For the UN video, click here

For the UN transcript, click here

For the original article, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/emerging-issues-social-networks

If you thought India is a country where freedom of speech and expression are fundamental rights, think twice!

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T15:52:42Z

Having contributed significantly in growing pollution and corruption indices, there's one place where India seems to hold the top spot is: imposing restrictions on social media contents. There have been over 5,800 restriction requests recorded in the second half of 2014, as per Facebook's Government Requests Report.

The article was published in Business Insider on March 17, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Economic Times has reported that data and content restrictions across the globe are on the rise and India seems to have topped the list. The content restrictions from India have been constantly on the rise—it rose to 5,832 from 4,960 in the first half.

Things are not any different across the globe. "The amount of content restricted for violating local law increased by 11% over the previous half, to 9,707 pieces of content restricted, up from 8,774," said Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of global policy management, and Chris Sonderby, deputy general counsel, in a statement on the social networking website.

Other countries from where Facebook has observed an increased number of content restrictions requests are Turkey and Russia. Surprisingly, FET reported that the number of content restriction requests from Pakistan came down to 54 in the second half of 2014 from 1,773 in the first half.

It is worth noting that India is the second largest market for Facebook, with 112 million users until last year, second only to the United States. While these figures are alarming, counsel for the Software Freedom Law Centre told ET , "...it would have been better if Facebook had also given us more information on the kind of data that was being asked for. Now we only have consolidated figures. So what kind of data was asked for, that would have been more useful."

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, on the other hand, feels that the number of content restriction requests is not only high on an absolute number, but even on a per-user basis.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-insider-march-17-2015-if-you-thought-india-is-a-country-where-freedom-of-speech-and-expression-are-fundamental-rights-think-twice

If the DIDP Did Its Job

asvatha — 2016-11-07T12:57:18Z

Over the course of two years, the Centre for Internet and Society sent 28 requests to ICANN under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP). A part of ICANN’s accountability initiatives, DIDP is “intended to ensure that information contained in documents concerning ICANN's operational activities, and within ICANN's possession, custody, or control, is made available to the public unless there is a compelling reason for confidentiality.”

Through the DIDP, any member of the public can request information contained in documents from ICANN. We’ve written about the process here, here and here. As a civil society group that does research on internet governance related topics, CIS had a variety of questions for ICANN. The 28 DIDP requests we have sent cover a range of subjects: from revenue and financial information, to ICANN’s relationships with its contracted parties, its contractual compliance audits, harassment policies and the diversity of participants in its public forum. We have blogged about each DIDP request where we have summarized ICANN’s responses.

Here are the DIDP requests we sent in:

Dec 2014	Jan/Feb 2015	Aug/Sept 2015	Nov 2015	Apr/May 2016
ICANN meeting expenditure	Revenue from gTLD auction	Implementation of NETmundial principles	IANA transition postponement	Board Governance Committee Reports
Granular revenue statements	Globalisation Advisory Groups	Raw data - Granular income data	Presumptive renewal of registries	Diversity Analysis
ICANN cyber attacks	Organogram	Compliance audits - registries	ICANN-RIR relationship	Compliance audits
Implementation of NETmundial outcome document	Involvement in NETmundial Initiative	Compliance audits - registrars		Harassment policy
Complaints to ICANN ombudsman	RIR contract fees	Registrar abuse contact		DIDP statistics *
		Verisign Contractual violations		gTLD applicant support program
		Contractual auditors		Root Zone Maintenance agreements
		Internal website

ICANN’s responses were analyzed and rated between 0-4 based on the amount of information disclosed. The reasons given for the lack of full disclosure were also studied.

DIDP response rating
0	No relevant information disclosed
1	Very little information disclosed; DIDP preconditions and/or other reasons for nondisclosure used.
2	Partial information disclosed; DIDP preconditions and/or other reasons for nondisclosure used.
3	Adequate information disclosed; DIDP preconditions and/or other reasons for nondisclosure used.
4	All information disclosed

ICANN has defined a set of preconditions under which they are not obligated to answer a request. These preconditions are generously used by ICANN to justify their lack of a comprehensive answer. The wording of the policy also allows ICANN to dodge answering a request if it doesn’t have the relevant documents already in its possession. The responses were also classified by the number of times a particular DIDP condition for non-disclosure was invoked. We will see why these weaken ICANN’s accountability initiatives.

Of the 28 DIDP requests, only 14% were answered fully, without the use of the DIDP conditions of non-disclosure. Seven out of 28 or 40% of the DIDPs received a 0-rated answer which reflects extremely poorly on the DIDP mechanism itself. Of the 7 responses that received 0-rating, 4 were related to complaints and contractual compliance. We had asked for details on the complaints received by the ombudsman, details on contractual violations by Verisign and abuse contacts maintained by registrars for filing complaints. We received no relevant information.

We have earlier written about the extensive and broad nature of the 12 conditions of non-disclosure that ICANN uses. These conditions were used in 24 responses out of 28. ICANN was able to dodge from fully answering 85% of the DIDP requests that they got from CIS. This is alarming especially for an organization that claims to be fully transparent and accountable. The conditions for non-disclosure have been listed in this document and can be referred to while reading the following graph.

On reading the conditions for non-disclosure, it seems like ICANN can refuse to answer any DIDP request if it so wished. These exclusions are numerous, vaguely worded and contain among them a broad range of information that should legitimately be in the public domain: Correspondence, internal information, information related to ICANN’s relationship with governments, information derived from deliberations among ICANN constituents, information provided to ICANN by private parties and the kicker - information that would be too burdensome for ICANN to collect and disseminate.

As we can see from the graph, the most used condition under which ICANN can refuse to answer a DIDP request is F. Predictably, this is the most vaguely worded DIDP condition of the lot: “Confidential business information and/or internal policies and procedures.” It is up to ICANN to decide what information is confidential with no justification needed or provided for it. ICANN has used this condition 11 times in responding to our 28 requests.

It is also necessary to pay attention to condition L which allow ICANN to reject “Information requests: (i) which are not reasonable; (ii) which are excessive or overly burdensome; (iii) complying with which is not feasible; or (iv) are made with an abusive or vexatious purpose or by a vexatious or querulous individual.” This is perhaps the weakest point in the entire list due its subjective nature. Firstly, on whose standards must this information request be reasonable? If the point of a transparency mechanism is to make sure that information sought by the public is disseminated, should they be allowed to obfuscate information because it is too burdensome to collect? Even if this is fair given the time constraints of the DIDP mechanism, it must not be used as liberally as has been happening. The last sub point is perhaps the most subjective. If a staff member dislikes a particular requestor, this point would justify their refusal to answer a request regardless of its validity. This hardly seems fair or transparent. This condition has been used 9 times in our 28 requests.

Besides the DIDP non-disclosure conditions, ICANN also has an excuse built into the definition of DIDP. Since it is not obliged to create or summarize documents under the DIDP process, it can simply claim to not have the specific document we request and thus negate its responsibility to our request. This is what ICANN did with one of our requests for raw financial data. For our research, we required raw data from ICANN specifically with regard to its expenditure on staff and board members for their travel and attendance at meetings. As an organization that is answerable to multiple stakeholders including governments and the public, it is justified to expect that they have financial records of such items in a systematic manner. However, we were surprised to learn that ICANN does not in fact have these stored in a manner that they can send as attachments or publish. Instead they directed us to the audited financial reports which did little for our research. However, in response to our later request for granular data on revenue from domain names, ICANN explained that while they do not have such a document in their possession, they would create one. This distinction between the two requests seems arbitrary to us since we consider both to be important to public.

Nevertheless, there were some interesting outcomes from our experience filing DIDPs. We learnt that there has been no substantive work done to inculcate the NETmundial principles at ICANN, that ICANN has no idea which regional internet registry contributes the most to its budget, and that it does not store (or is not willing to reveal) any raw financial data. These outcomes do not contribute to a sense of confidence in the organization.

ICANN has an opportunity to reform this particular transparency mechanism at its Workstream 2 discussions. ICANN must make use of this opportunity to listen and work with people who have used the DIDP process in order to make it useful, effective and efficient. To that effect, we have some recommendations from our experience with the DIDP process.

That ICANN does not currently possess a particular document is not an excuse if it has the ability to create one. In its response to our questions on the IANA transition, ICANN indicated that it does not have the necessary documents as the multi stakeholder body that it set up is the one conducting the transition. This is somewhat justified. However, in response to our request for financial details, ICANN must not be able to give the excuse that it does not have a document in its possession. It and it alone has the ability to create the document and in response to a request from the public, it should.

ICANN must also revamp its conditions for non-disclosure and make it tighter. It must reduce the number of exclusions to its disclosure policy and make sure that the exclusion is not done arbitrarily. Specifically with respect to condition F, ICANN must clarify how information was classified as confidential and why that is different from everything else on the list of conditions.

Further, ICANN should not be able to use condition L to outright reject a DIDP request. Instead, there must be a way for the requester and ICANN to come to terms about the request. This could happen by an extension of the 1 month deadline, financial compensation by requester for any expenditure on ICANN’s part to answer the request or by a compromise between the requester and ICANN on the terms of the request. The sub point about requests made “by a vexatious or querulous individual” must be removed from condition L or at least be separated from the condition so that it is clear why the request for disclosure was denied.

ICANN should also set up a redressal mechanism specific to DIDP. While ICANN has the Reconsideration Requests process to rectify any wrongdoing on the part of staff or board members, this is not adequate to identify whether a DIDP was rejected on justifiable grounds. A separate mechanism that deals only with DIDP requests and wrongful use of the non-disclosure conditions would be helpful. According to the icann bylaws, in addition to Requests for Reconsideration, ICANN has also established an independent third party review of allegations against the board and/or staff members. A similar mechanism solely for reviewing whether ICANN’s refusal to answer a DIDP request is justified would be extremely useful.

A strong transparency mechanism must make sure that its objective are to provide answers, not to find ways to justify its lack of answers. With this in mind, we hope that the revamp of transparency mechanisms after workstream 2 discussions leads to a better DIDP process than we are used to.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/if-the-didp-did-its-job

If MNCs make early inroads, they will keep market share: Sunil Abraham, CIS

praskrishna — 2014-10-24T15:03:03Z

The article by J. Anand was published in the Financial Express on October 23, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

The recent visits of the high-profile CEOs of internet/technology companies have made it clear that India, with its 200-million internet users, is increasingly becoming important for the multinational corporations (MNCs). Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a bit skeptical and feels some of these companies are trying to influence the internet policy-making of the country. Sunil Abraham, executive director of CIS, talks to FE’s Anand J regarding the government’s use of social media, the regulations and the plan for a Digital India. Edited excerpts:

We see a heightened interest in India from technology/internet companies, with their top CEOs visiting the country. What do you think is the reason?

In India, with little domestic competition, if these companies make early inroads, they will be able to keep the market share. The other reason is, the Indian government has made several proposals such as data localisation, mandatory data routing and so on, which have been demonised by the West as something that will balkanise the internet. Because India represents a big market, companies might be indulging in some amount of tokenism in the form of data centres. This is to show the government that they are willing to listen and lead the conversation to an agenda item that they are comfortable with and block some of the more dramatic proposals. The third reason could be that internet penetration might grow dramatically in the country and if the policy levers are moved appropriately, it will grow even more.

What is your stand on the government proposals?

In some ways, I agree with MNCs that some of the government proposals could break the architecture of internet. But then there are other proposals that are completely kosher. The domestic routing of an email if it travels within India is good as it will be difficult for the NSA to intercept then. From an internet design perspective, more fibre is good.

Data localisation though will result in balkanisation and might not yield desirable results. For instance, if you are watching a YouTube video, all the information about the user is stored by Google and all of that is stored outside the country. They might store some of this information as cache in a Google server temporarily. From a surveillance perspective, this user data called metadata is what the NSA might want. Even when it is collected in a local server, it might still be sent upstream.

What about the Indian government doing surveillance then?

There are different views on the surveillance capabilities of the Indian government. Some think that today the Indian government has the capability of engaging in mass surveillance. Others like me think that it can only do targeted surveillance and not mass surveillance. It does not have the infrastructure to pull that off and if it is doing targeted surveillance, it is mostly in compliance with the local laws.

Is the increasing use of social media by the government for its communication with citizens a concern?

If the government uses this private infrastructure to communicate with its citizens, there could be a variety of challenges and complications. First, all of these government communications must be mirrored on the government infrastructure as well. Otherwise, there is a concern around data retention. The government needs to have a copy in case a person goes to RTI for all the government communications to citizens. Secondly, the government is unwittingly becoming the salesperson for these global corporations.

Mark Zuckerberg has said that internet is a human right. Do you agree?

Internet is not a human right according to the UN. TV and Radio were never rights. All the basic human rights are to be protected irrespective of the communication medium of choice and will be legitimate even 100 years from now. The success of telecommunication and internet is market generated. If it becomes a human right, the companies are not delivering a service, but a human right and this complicates the issue. There will be new demands from citizens and litigations by citizens. If everybody demands 1GB every month, state does not have those resources.

India is a phone internet market. Indian internet is tied to Google now. Does the Android dominance — with a market share of around 90% — concern you?

It is hugely worrisome and yet another monopoly. It is not “free” software. From a privacy and national security perspective, it is a terrible development. Considering that it is based on Linux, there should have been several national and international competitors.

Has the era of hetergeneous internet with a million websites passed?

Internet is no longer decentralised; 80% of users’ time is now spent on a few products. And anywhere on internet, ad networks are tracking you. We ended up with the world’s biggest surveillance machine and surveillance is the business model of internet. It is very difficult to change this as we face the inertia of user behaviour.

What do you think of the government’s Digital India plan?

The government can use the billions from the Universal Service Obligation fund for broadband connectivity. The markets cannot handle back haul infrastructure and in most countries, some amount of state investment is necessary. Some of the open access details have to be worked out. The government seems to have a monopoly position in execution. We agree with the vision that every Indian should have a smartphone by 2019 and have a broadband connection too.

What are the regulations you want to see in place in India?

Internet users are currently overregulated with restrictions on what you can say. Let what is illegal offline be illegal online too. And government needs to think of enforceability.

The regulatory infrastructure for the government is limited. We want powerful companies to be regulated and follow global norms. The regulatory best practices are emerging from Europe in terms of competition, privacy, data protection, etc, and we need to follow them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-october-23-2014-j-anand-if-mncs-make-early-inroads-they-will-keep-market-share

If data is the new oil, how much does an Indian citizen lose?

Admin — 2018-04-03T15:42:31Z

Surveillance capitalism is the business model of the Internet, so what exactly are we talking about here?

The article by Saurya Sengupta was published in the Hindu on March 31, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

“We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” That was the former executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, trying to convince users that the tech giants did care about their privacy, ironically enough. But that was in 2010.

Fast forward eight years, and a lot has changed. The world has been rattled by revelations that the personally identifiable data of about 50 million Facebook users was breached by an analytics firm. Since then, the skeletons haven’t stopped tumbling out, with the news that the NaMo app asks for as many as 22 permissions from users, and that the official Congress app, since deleted, was vulnerable to data breach.

Bruce Schneier, an American security technologist and fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, in his book Data and Goliath, says: “Google knows what kind of porn each of us searches for, which old lovers we still think about, our shames, our concerns, and our secrets.”

So, what does any of this mean for us, the lay users?

It may be helpful to start by asking what this ‘data’ is. “Whenever you use any service on your phone or browser, you end up giving a lot more information than you consciously recall. This includes not just the content of your interactions, but also metadata and so on,” says Nayantara Ranganathan, manager of the Internet Democracy Project’s Freedom of Expression programme. Metadata is, simply put, data about your data. So, for example, your location information, what time you were home, how many times you made calls to a certain number, and so on.

“This is known as behavioural data,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet & Society, “which includes how fast or slow you scrolled, how long you stayed on a page, how many times you went to a particular part of a website, and so on.”

Bhajan or you?

This is not just data gathered by the large Facebook and Gmail apps, but also by a lot of the smaller ones. An app that plays bhajans, for example, may mine your data and share it. And what do the third parties do with this? Well, the idea is to simply embed you further in a consumerist panopticon.

To FB or not to be

As #DeleteFacebook gets louder, users agonise about leaving Facebook on Facebook, irony be damned
Truth is, quitting FB won't help. Because it's also about Google Photos and Maps and Candy Crush and Which Disney Villain Are You
In the absence of laws, you've no control of what apps can do with your data. Even after you've 'deleted' it
Facebook doesn't take responsibility for data collected by apps, and refers users to app developers instead
Quitting FB and other apps might be a privilege and not an option for most

“Surveillance capitalism is the business model of the Internet, and all social media apps make their money collecting data on users and monetising that,” says Schneier.

“Lots of apps have no revenue generation. Their only benefit is data,” says Manan Shah, founder and CEO of Avalance Global Solutions, a cyber security firm. In fact, he says, apps like WhatsApp are the obvious suspects while the smaller ones, like the bhajan one, slip under the radar.

All of it is part of ‘lead generation’ — the process of identifying potential customers for a service or business. “A call-centre is useless without data,” Shah says. “If I want to sell you an antivirus, for instance, a company will identify filters — who owns a computer, who has already purchased an antivirus, and so on. I can then target that user. This filtered data is often your full name, bank details, data about your debit and credit cards. Abraham says there is another fairly obvious purpose for all this data collection – to get you to spend as much time on the said platform as possible.

This explains why, for example, when you Google something, the suggested searches are often tailored in an eerie manner. If you search for a word, the second search suggestion will offer to get that word translated into the local language. So if you’re in Chennai, Tamil, or into Marathi if you’re in Mumbai.

This a product of profiling your location data as well as behavioural data. “Imagine the kind of insights your location information over the course of a month can expose: your residence, where you spend your mornings, your route to work, your loved one’s residence, and more,” says Ranganathan.

“Users are often not aware that they’ve given their consent to sharing this data,” says Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist. “The terms and conditions of every app are so complicated and voluminous that often you have no way of knowing what something is being used for and what you’ve given your permission to. That’s a failure of the kind of consent we have today,” he says. If an app developer, quips Pahwa, puts in a condition saying the user will name their first child after the app, the user is more than likely to click on ‘I agree’.

While the failure to make consent transparent is illegal, data collection in itself is a grey area. And what constitutes ‘misuse’ of data is murky because of the lack of regulations and clear outlines. “What if a salon has your phone number and sends an SMS saying your haircut is due,” asks S. Anand, CEO of data science firm Gramener. “Would you consider that misuse?”

It gets more ominous.

We’ll use it some day

At present, India has no law to stop apps from sharing your data with data brokers or data analytics firms. “The tendency has been to collect as much data as you can, even if it isn't relevant to your business today, because it might be some day or, better still, it might be valuable to others,” says Amba Kak, a Mozilla technology policy fellow. “This is why we need a law to say — collect what you need, not what you want.”

As an Indian citizen, your data today is breached, misused or sold, there is little you can do about it. “At most, users can be more vigilant about the apps they download, what permissions they give, and evaluate whether there are better alternatives,” says Ranganathan.

“One can approach a court and seek redress under the IT Act,” says Abraham, “but only if you have suffered a loss of property or money. If your data has been breached or leaked, and you haven’t suffered a monetary or property loss, there’s nothing you can do.”

The Justice Srikrishna committee, set up in July, is right now working on a draft data protection bill. The committee published a white paper last November, and a final report is expected by end of May. “The white paper itself looks fantastic,” Abraham tells me.

An ideal data protection law, says Kak, “will reflect the Supreme Court’s recent decision that all interference with the right to privacy must be necessary and proportionate.”

If data sharing is inevitable in the digital age, then it could be made illegal, for instance, to share data that can identify individuals. Anand says, “This could be done by replacing all names with a new random name or by aggregating total purchases by store and product rather than by individual purchase.”

So in an era where we have been casually asked to accept that ‘data is the new oil’, who is the biggest loser? “Framing 'data' as the new oil is dangerous,” says Ranganathan. Kak agrees: “This is a tired analogy that doesn't seem to get us anywhere except to recognise that data is a source of profit for the private sector.” She would rather go with Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci’s definition where we think of data privacy like clean air or safe drinking water. “It is a public good that we need to safeguard as a collective through laws that make controllers of data accountable,” says Kak.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-march-31-2018-saurya-sengupta-if-data-is-new-oil-how-much-an-indian-citizen-lose

If all goes well, Indian IT Act may enter 21st century

praskrishna — 2016-10-06T16:49:12Z

The government is aiming to refresh the main law governing information technology by giving it a revamp which it hopes will bring it in tune with the times and address criticisms about its weaknesses, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

The article by Surabhi Agarwal was published in the Economic Times on October 6, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

The move is triggered by the realisation that the Information Technology Act passed in 2000 and last amended eight years ago may be wanting in many respects due to advances in technology and its ubiquitousness in nearly every aspect of life.

The government will take a first step by constituting a committee whose job will be to make suggestions to refresh the law. The magnitude of fraud, terrorism, bullying and stalking in cyber space has grown along with advances in technology and its adoption, and these are some of the areas where the law could do with an update.

The government's massive push on Digital India is also leading to significant digitisation of government services and records. In 2000, when the Act was first passed, there were a mere 5 million internet users in the country. India has surpassed the US to become the second-largest Internet market with 436 million users as of June 2016.

"It has been realised that we need more provisions on things such as mobile security, internet of things," the official said. "The last amendment came in 2008, so almost a decade has passed." This person said that there is confusion among various law enforcement agencies regarding the ambit of the IT Act.

Fresh provisions are also required in fields such as how long agencies – both state as well as private – should hold citizens' information, which has been shared by them, for any kind of authentication through means such as emails. Supreme Court advocate and cyber security expert Pavan Duggal called the IT Act an "outdated" piece of legislation.

"The Act and the amendments are in the pre-social media era. Current realities, challenges and the policy aspects of cyberspace have not been addressed," he said. There are no provisions, for instance, for mandatory reporting of cyber-crime and cyber-security breaches, he said. Besides, there are the challenges posed by the dark net where everything from weapons to drugs are being peddled.

"Cyber bullying is the number one problem in Indian schools and universities which is not addressed in the Act. There have been no convictions for cyber stalking which is extremely prevalent in India," Duggal said, suggesting measures such as the setting up of special courts for cyber crime and terror.

In the past couple of years, the government has come under fire for several attempts to bring in laws on encryption, contain pornography and the spread of obscene material online. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said that while the move to change the Act is welcome, it should be done in an "inclusive" manner with the "widest possible public consultation" and not by a committee which consists only of government representatives.

Subho Ray, president of IAMAI said that while the definition of intermediaries needs to be reviewed and the list expanded, citizens' fundamental rights need to kept in mind while trying to bring back a modified form of Section 66A (it dealt with offences on the internet), which was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

The ministry of electronics and IT is currently trying to form a committee with experts from the private sector, the source said, and cautioned about the prospect of a "long-haul" before changes come about. Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) said that India's data protection laws under Section 43A of the IT Act must be upgraded and this would help Indian companies which export IT-enabled services.

"We also need to apply the principle of equivalence more clearly, which says that if something is illegal offline, it should also be illegal online," said Abraham.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-surabhi-agarwal-october-6-2016-if-all-goes-well-indian-it-act-may-enter-twenty-first-century