We are anonymous, we are legion

Fake Narendra Modi apps aplenty, but it’s up to users to protect themselves

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T04:24:24Z

The app, hosted on Google Play store, automatically gets excessive permission including full network access and ability to take pictures and videos once downloaded.

The article was published by Indian Express on December 2, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted. Also see Nandini Yadav's blog post in BGR on December 3, 2016.

The app, hosted on Google Play store, automatically gets excessive permission including full network access and ability to take pictures and videos once downloaded.

A “Narendra Modi” app, purportedly offered by the Government of India, caught the attention of Internet expert Pranesh Prakash on Thursday as the app developer was found to be using a Bangladesh-based web host and e-mail address. Suggesting that this could be the work of a con-artist, Prakash underlined that granting access to fake apps could lead to security breach. The app, hosted on Google Play store, automatically gets excessive permission including full network access and ability to take pictures and videos once downloaded. The original NaMo, however, only gets access to read, modify and delete the user’s media files. The “fake” app was downloaded more than 1 lakh times and has an average rating of 4.4 from over 2,000 reviews. A simple search on the play store throws up dozens of Narendra Modi apps, some even calling themselves fake apps. The original app was published by Narendramodi.in and Government Of India. But there are scores of other apps trying to imitate the original.

Pranesh, who is Policy Director at The Centre for Internet and Society, also questioned how users can differentiate between fake and genuine apps when even the official app was registered using a gmail address. While the Government of India Narendra Modi app has been published using info@narendramodi.press, the one by Narendramodi.in has been published using a simple Gmail app. He also highlighted how the play store was flooded with fake banking apps, with one such “SBI app” gaining full access to the user’s files. Incidentally, the fake Modi Ki Note app which has been in the limelight since the demonetisation on high value notes and issue of new ones itself has many duplicates.

In the last two days, the Congress and its vice-president Rahul Gandhi fell victim to hacking as their verified Twitter accounts were compromised. Profane content was shared from both accounts, targeting the Gandhi and his family. This lead to the Congress questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s digital India push as security remains a huge concern.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/indian-express-december-2-2016-fake-narendra-modi-apps-aplenty-but-it-is-up-to-users-to-protect-themselves

Fairness, Transparency and Accountable AI

Admin — 2018-05-20T14:26:59Z

Amber Sinha participated remotely in the inaugural meeting of Fairness, Transparency and Accountable AI working group of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence on May 10, 2018. The meeting was held at DeepMind's office in London.

Agenda of the meeting here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/fairness-transparency-and-accountable-ai

Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces

praskrishna — 2013-10-21T09:02:02Z

This workshop is being organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group. Sunil Abraham is one of the panelists for this workshop.

The Internet Governance Forum 2013 is being held at Bali from October 22 to 25. The overarching theme for the 2013 IGF meeting is: "Building Bridges"- Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development".

Read the original published on IGF website. Also read it on Internet & Jurisdiction website.

Theme: Legal Frameworks and Cyber-crime (Spam, Cyber-security, etc.)

This workshop is organized by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process launched in January 2012, which engages key actors from states, international organizations, companies, civil society, academia and the technical community from all around the world to address the tension between the cross-border Internet and national jurisdictions.

Over 2,5 billion Internet users interact in shared cross-border online spaces where they can post content potentially accessible worldwide. On the one hand platforms’ Terms of Service try to set transnational rules on acceptable postings, but on the other hand content that is legal in one jurisdiction can be illegal or sensitive in other territories. No clear frameworks exist yet to handle the tensions between these competing normative orders or values and enable peaceful cohabitation in cross-border cyberspaces. This challenge constitutes a rare issue of common concern for all stakeholder groups.

Building upon the intersessional work conducted by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project since the 2012 IGF, the roundtable will address the following topics:

Can commonly agreed interoperability procedures ensure fair process in interactions between platforms, public authorities, technical operators and users regarding seizures, content takedowns and access to user data? regarding seizures, content takedowns and LEA access to user data? - See more at: http://www.internetjurisdiction.net/igf2013-workshop/#sthash.q6PQ3uMn.dpuf

How could appropriate multi-stakeholder frameworks be developed?

Note: This roundtable is listed above under the “legal frameworks and cybercrime” track. However it equally touches upon other thematic areas: Human Rights/ Freedom of Expression on the Internet (addressing takedown procedures); Internet Governance Principles (eg. fair process and accountability) and Principles of Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation (the development of mutual frameworks).

Has the proponent organised a workshop with a similar subject during past IGF meetings?

Yes

Indication of how the workshop will build on but go beyond the outcomes previously reached

At the IGF 2012, after a year of interaction with different stakeholders, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project organized two workshops titled: “What is the Geography of Cyberspace?” and “What frameworks for cross-border online communities and services?” These sessions explored the roots of the tension between the Internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions and examined how to address this common concern. Both these two workshops and the ongoing dialogue facilitated by the I&JProject in 2013 (including several preparatory meetings around the world) confirmed the need to explore how to develop appropriate frameworks to handle the tension in a multi-stakeholder setting. Therefore, the I&J Project will gather involved stakeholders at the 2013 workshop “Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces” to discuss the way forward: How could appropriate frameworks be developed and what commonly agreed interoperability procedures could ensure fair process?

Background Paper: No background paper provided

Session Type: Roundtable

Mr. Bertrand De La Chapelle, Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society, France, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG

Mr. Paul Fehlinger, Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society, Germany, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG

Have the Proponent or any of the co-organisers organised an IGF workshop before?

Yes

The link(s) to the workshop report(s):

Panelists

Please click on biography to view the biography of the panelist:

Fiona Alexander, Department of Commerce, NTIA, Female, Government, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Anne Carblanc, OECD, Female, Intergovernmental Organizations, France, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Elvana Thaci, Council of Europe, Female, Intergovernmental Organizations, France, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet & Society, Male, Civil Society, India, Asia-Pacific Group
Biography
Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communications, Female, Civil Society, South Africa, African Group
Biography
Carlos Affonso Pereira Da Souza, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Male, Technical Community, BRAZIL, Latin American and Caribbean Group – GRULAC
Biography
Ross Lajeunesse, Google, Male, Private Sector, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG Biography
Ebele Okobi, Yahoo, Female, Private Sector, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Linda Corugedo Steneberg, European Commission, Belgium, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography

Agenda

Can commonly agreed interoperability procedures ensure fair process in interactions between platforms, public authorities, technical operators and users regarding seizures, content takedowns and access to user data?
How could appropriate multi-stakeholder frameworks be developed?

Inclusiveness of the Session

The format of the workshop is going to be an open roundtable discussion between a diverse group of stakeholders on the basis of a structured agenda, without formal presentations. Taking stock of the preparatory process with meetings around the world, the participants will be able to discuss the outcomes of the multi-stakeholder dialogue process, explore the components of possible frameworks and how to move forward. The objective is to produce a structured but fluid and dynamic discussion that includes the audience in the debate.

Suitability for Remote Participation

In addition to the remote participation tools provided by the IGF, the session will be covered live on Twitter with a dedicated hashtag and questions can also be submitted through tweets to open the discussion and engage new stakeholders. Moreover, participants of the Internet & Jurisdiction dialogue process around the world will be encouraged to participate remotely in the discussion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-workshop-42-fair-process-frameworks-for-cross-border-online-spaces

Factcheck: No, phones of users who provided only Aadhaar as proof of identity won’t be disconnected

Admin — 2018-10-28T06:13:12Z

Ever since the Supreme Court’s judgment on Aadhaar, which prohibited the use of the 12-digit biometrics-linked unique identity number by private entities as well as its linking with phone numbers and bank accounts, telecom companies and their customers in particular are wondering what this means for them.

The blog post by Kanishk Karan was published in Scroll.in on October 18, 2018. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

On Thursday, the Times of India reported that crores of mobile phone connections face the “prospect of disconnection” if their SIM cards are not backed up by identity documents other than Aadhaar. The report also appeared on TimesNowHindi. The reports prompted the Union government to issue a statement insisting that the disconnection concerns are “completely untrue and imaginary”. But questions still remain about what comes next.

Joint statement

The news reports said that 50 crore mobile phone customers – who had used only Aadhaar to verify their identity as part of the Know Your Customer verification process, which became mandatory for all phone numbers last year – will need to re-verify their identity using alternative documents or face disconnection. This is because the Supreme Court verdict had concluded that linking Aadhaar to mobile connections, even voluntarily, is illegal.

In a joint press statement on Thursday, the Department of Telecommunication and Unique Identification Authority of India, the body that oversees Aadhaar, refuted this claim. The statement said that a “few news reports” have tried to create “unnecessary panic” by claiming that phone numbers may be at risk of disconnection. It insisted that those customers who used only Aadhaar for their verification process could use other documents to re-verify their identities, without being worried about their phones being disconnected. “In any case her/his mobile no. will not be disconnected,” the statement said. “What Supreme Court has done is that it has prohibited issue of new SIM cards via Aadhaar eKYC process due to lack of a law. There is no direction to deactivate the old mobile phones.”

The statement made it clear that telecom companies cannot ask for Aadhaar as proof of identity when issuing new SIMs. The authorities also used the statement to clarify a few other questions that have come up following the September 26 Aadhaar verdict.

Aadhaar data

One of the big sources of confusion that the verdict created was the Aadhaar data that telecom companies had already collected while carrying out Know Your Customer verification for phone numbers over the last year. The verdict seemed to suggest that all such data needs to be deleted within a certain time frame.

But the joint statement insists that this direction only applies to UIDAI and not to telecom companies. “The Court has also not asked to delete all the eKYC data of telecom customers after six months,” it said. The statement claims that the verdict only orders the UIDAI to delete the authentication data it holds, and, in fact, says that telecom companies are mandated to keep that data and that “there is no need” for them to delete it.

But not everyone agrees with this interpretation of the judgment.

Prasanna S, one of the lawyers who appeared on behalf of those petitioning against Aadhaar in the Supreme Court, said that the statement’s claim that telecoms do not need to delete Aadhaar data is wrong.

The Aadhaar ruling was a 4:1 majority judgment with Justice DY Chandrachud the sole dissident.

“The government and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India [should have issued] direction on the directive given by the Supreme Court to delete data within two weeks,” he said, referring to the portion of Chandrachud’s dissenting opinion in the verdict. Chandrachud had disagreed with the majority on a number of issues. But all five judges on the bench had agreed that linking Aadhaar to phone numbers was unconstitutional and posed a grave threat to privacy, liberty and autonomy of individuals. In his order, Chandrachud issued directions for Aadhaar data to be deleted within two weeks, which some lawyers believe should be binding even though it was in the dissenting opinion.

New authentication app

Since telecom companies can no longer use Aadhaar-based verification to authenticate new customers, the statement also said that the Department of Telecom and UIDAI are working on a mobile application that will perform the gask instead. According to the statement, when carrying out the authentication of a new SIM, the application will capture a “live photograph”, including location coordinates and a time stamp. Along with the live photograph, the application will require other government-issued identification documents such as voter ID or passport.

While that may solve the problem of having a simple authentication process instead of Aadhaar, questions have been raised about whether this procedure is vulnerable to fraud.

Pranesh Prakash, a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, said as of now it is unclear how the government would find a way to prevent “a single live photo being used multiple times”. If the same photo is used for issuing three SIM cards by the agent, would the government be any wiser, he wondered. Prakash said that, rather than the technology infrastructure, the important area to focus here is the security loopholes in the identity verification process.

Earlier this year, UIDAI had introduced a number of new provisions, including the virtual ID and face authentication, saying it will make fraud and data leaks less likely, as well as make it easier for those who are facing trouble with biometric authentication. Later, the directive was put on hold by the Department of Telecom. Thursday’s statement suggests a similar application, using live photos, but does not say when this technology will be rolled out.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll-kanishk-karan-october-18-2018-factcheck-no-phones-of-users-who-provided-only-aadhaar-as-proof-of-identity-wont-be-disconnected

Facial Recognition Technology in India

Elonnai Hickok, Pallavi Bedi, Aman Nair and Amber Sinha — 2021-09-02T16:21:24Z

The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, University of Essex, UK and the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) have jointly published a research paper on facial recognition technology. Authors, Elonnai Hickok, Pallavi Bedi, Aman Nair and Amber Sinha, examine technological tools such as CCTV and FRT which are increasingly being deployed by the government.

Executive Summary

Over the past two decades there has been a sustained effort at digitising India’s governance structure in order to foster development and innovation. The field of law enforcement and safety has seen significant change in that direction, with technological tools such as Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) and Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) increasingly being deployed by the government.

Yet for all its increased use, there is still a lack of a coherent legal and regulatory framework governing FRT in India. Towards informing such a framework, this paper seeks to document present uses of FRT in India, specifically by law enforcement agencies and central and state governments, understand the applicability of existing legal frameworks to the use of FRT, and define key areas that need to be addressed when using the technology in India. We also briefly look at how the coverage of FRT has increased beyond law enforcement; it now covers educational institutions, employment purposes, and it is now being used for providing Covid-19 vaccines.

We begin by examining use cases of FRT systems by various divisions of central and state governments. In doing so, it becomes apparent that there is a lack of uniform standards or guidelines at either the state or central level - leading to different FRT systems having differing standards of applicability and scope of use. And while the use of such systems seems to be growing at a rapid rate, questions around their legality persist.

It is unclear whether the use of FRT is compliant with the fundamental right to privacy as affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2017 in Puttaswamy. While the right to privacy is not an absolute right, for the state to curtail this right, the restrictions will have to comply with a three-fold requirement— first, being the need for explicit legislative mandate in instances where the government looks to curtail the right. However, the FRT systems we have analysed do not have such a mandate and are often the result of administrative or executive decisions with no legislative blessing or judicial oversight.

We further locate the use of FRT technology within the country’s wider legislative, judicial and constitutional frameworks governing surveillance. We also briefly articulate comparative perspectives on the use of FRT in other jurisdictions. We further analyse the impact of the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill on the deployment of FRT. Finally, we propose a set of recommendations to develop a path forward for the technology’s use which include the need for a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework that governs the use of FRT. Such a framework must take into consideration the necessity of use, proportionality, consent, security, retention, redressal mechanisms, purpose limitation, and other such principles. Since the use of FRT in India is also at a nascent stage, it is imperative that there is greater public research and dialogue into its development and use to ensure that any harms that may arise in the field are mitigated.

Click to download the entire research paper here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hrbdt-and-cis-august-31-2021-facial-recognition-technology-in-india

Facial Recognition Technology in India

Elonnai Hickok, Pallavi Bedi, Aman Nair and Amber Sinha — 2021-09-02T16:17:44Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/facial-recognition-technology-in-india.pdf

Facebook: Limiting access to social media can restrict freedom of speech

praskrishna — 2013-08-08T04:07:38Z

In its counter-affidavit to the PIL in the Delhi high court, Facebook has argued that limiting access to social media can limit an individual's freedom of speech and expression.

Kim Arora's article was published in the Times of India on August 1, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The PIL, among other things, deals with the issue of minors accessing Facebook services, arguing that under the Indian Contract Act 1872, minors can't enter into a contract. The PIL will be heard next on Friday.

Last year, the UN Human Rights Council had passed a resolution declaring access to Internet as a human right. Facebook has argued making a similar point for access to social media. "The Internet is increasingly becoming a platform for citizens including minors to interact and voice their opinions and, therefore, a meaningful interpretation of the right to freedom of speech and expression would include the freedom to access social media," the counter-affidavit says.

"It can be argued that in a technologically mediated society, social media and communication infrastructure is essential to exercise freedom of expression," says Sunil Abraham, director, Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society.

Cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal sees it as "hyperbole". "The issue still remains that a minor doesn't have the capacity to act under the Contract Act," he says. Lawyers say that if a contract is entered into for free service in exchange of personal information, it is a "consideration" (like cash or kind) under the Indian Contract Act 1872. The Act says, "All agreements are contracts if they are made by the free consent of parties competent to contract, for a lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not hereby expressly declared to be void." It then lists minors as incompetent to contract, and says, "The agreement, if any party is minor, is void ab initio." However, Abraham points out that "It is not an offence to enter a void contract."

To weed out fake profiles and children's profiles, the PIL, filed by former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya, argues that "obligation is cast upon Facebook and other social networking sites to verify the authenticity of each and every subscribers (sic) which is mandatory for Mobile companies in telecommunication sector.

Mumbai-based professor of law Saurav Datta feels this sort of authentication could have serious privacy implications. "There is no way they can verify users without impinging on their privacy. The goal of the PIL is wrong. We need to protect children, not keep people out," says Datta.

Abraham says that a possible way to deal with this can be on the lines of Canadian privacy law where a privacy commissioner can raise such concerns with the service provider directly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-aug-1-2013-kim-arora-facebook-limiting-access-to-social-media-can-restrict-freedom-of-speech

Facebook: A Platform with Little Less Sharing of Personal Information

nishant — 2016-06-05T02:38:22Z

As Facebook becomes less personal, what happens to digital friendship?

The article was published in the Indian Express on May 8, 2016.

Facebook is worried. Even though usage is growing, something strange is happening on the social network. For the first time since it started its journey as a website to rate datable people on college campuses, to becoming the global reference point that defined friendship in the connected age, people are sharing less personal information on Facebook. For a social media network that positions itself largely as a space where our everyday, banal doings become newsworthy articulations, this is surprising news. But it is true. On Facebook, the traffic is high, but most of it is now sharing of external information. People are sharing links to news, to listicles, to videos, to blogs entries, to pictures and to information that they find interesting, but they are writing less and less about what it is that they are doing and feeling.

Ironically, this coincides with the latest change in Facebook’s “response” options, where the ubiquitous “Like” button can now expand to other emojis where you can also be appropriately angry, sad, surprised, or happy about the shared content. Even as Facebook is trying to get its users to qualify how they feel and give emotional value to their likes, people seem to be sharing even less of their private lives on Facebook.

One of the key ways of understanding this drop in people sharing their personal information is through the concept of “context collapse”. It has been a concern since the first instances of disembodied digital communication. In our everyday life, we make sense of information based on the different contexts that surround us. The person who authors the information, the setting within which that information reaches us, the emotional state that we are in when encountering the information, our sense of where we are when processing it, and the preparedness we have for receiving this information are all crucial parameters by which we make sense of the meaning of the information and also our response to it.

In the case of Facebook, the context within which information and transactions have made sense is “friendship”. The site’s USP was that you could bring in a variety of information, but you were always sharing it with friends. You could have a large audience, but this audience is formed of people you know, people you trust, people you add to your friend groups — there is a sense of intimacy, privacy, and casualness that marks the flow of information. You are able to talk, in an equal breath, about what you had for breakfast, your crush on a celebrity, your random acts of charity, and your strong political rant, one after the other, without requiring to think about what you are posting and how others will receive it.

However, Facebook is not really a friendship platform. It is a company interested in selling our interactions and data to advertisers who can target us with content and information based on the patterns of our behaviour. To serve its advertisers better, Facebook started privileging “verified” information trying to ensure news and content producers higher attention and more eyeballs. This was further strengthened by their continued integration with third party vendors, who could push and pull information into the social world of Facebook, and is seen as one of the biggest reasons for this drop. Any newsfeed in the last few months has had equal amounts of professional and amateur content, leading to a context collapse, where you no longer feel like your Facebook feed is a private and intimate conversation with friends.

Similarly, Facebook’s expansive integration of its products —WhatsApp chats, Instagram updates, and Tumblr posts all can collapse into one — produced a confusing space where the personal information that you were once happy to share with your friends, is suddenly being shared along with news and information. Also, digital behaviour works on mirroring, and we often shape our updates to match what we see on our timelines. If we more and more see external content rather than personal statuses, we also start sharing more third party news and links, thus producing a domino effect of everybody shying away from extremely personal or intimate moments.

Facebook, for the millennials, has been the context within which friendship got structured. Its own transitions have now collapsed that context, leading people to think of it as a content aggregator. It is going to be interesting to see what happens to our digital friendships and networks if Facebook is no longer the space where they are housed.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-nishant-shah-may-8-2016-facebook-a-platform-with-little-less-sharing-of-personal-information

Facebook’s Libra: A bit too ambitious?

Rajmohan Sudhakar — 2019-07-02T05:14:56Z

Power desperately finds ways to propagate at the slightest hint of losing lustre, which the social network is beginning to experience at the moment.

The article by Rajmohan Sudhakar was published in the Deccan Herald on June 30, 2019. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

A social network must remain a social network and first prove it is indeed one. Not a bank. Damning revelations concerning ethics, privacy and transparency notwithstanding.

For a tech giant with an exclusive window to our private lives, launching its own currency is of course the natural course, to coax us back into compliance, away from brewing skepticism.

Facebook’s sketchy white paper on Libra, its proposed virtual currency, probably drawing much from the libertarian Bitcoin, is no doubt an attempt to capitalise on the 2.4 billion users it has collected in such a short span, eventually to wield a grip on the still vulnerable global financial system gradually recovering from a crisis.

However, the brute power of big tech looms large over sovereign nation states.

In his piece in The Atlantic, professor Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School writes Libra will replicate all the current problems generated by Facebook. “In the name of eliminating inefficiency and injustice in the financial system around the globe, Facebook’s new cryptocurrency threatens to replay what’s become a familiar story—of tech companies blithely reshaping the world around them, and significantly increasing their power over people’s lives, while being accountable to no one,” the professor goes on to say.

Power finds ways to propagate at the slightest hint of losing lustre, which the social network is beginning to experience at the moment.

To salvage that lost credibility, Facebook has teamed up with a group of corporates including Visa, Uber, Spotify, PayPal and the like to form the Libra Association, a Geneva-based not-for-profit, just to disrupt and dominate the global economic future.

Given the social network’s massive reach, the proposal, if realised, could transform international payments. That said, the intent is suspect.

“The main concern with Facebook entering the cryptocurrency market is a question of competition law. Facebook can use its market dominance in online advertising, end-to-end encrypted messaging and social media to engage in anti-competitive behaviour, warns Sunil Abraham of The Centre for Internet and Society, a Bengaluru-based not-for-profit.

Facebook stands 90th in the world in terms of GDP, along with many other firms of such standing which would want to effect and dictate global monetary policy if the project goes ahead and realises its commercial goal, which in all likelihood is very much possible. Because, Facebook has built its applications and networks already. It doesn’t require to sign people up. Lambs for slaughter indeed.

The argument that the network puts forward of uplifting billions excluded from the financial ecosystem in the emerging world, in earnest is a genuine cause. But, one doesn’t need a brand new private currency pepped up by a big tech consortium for that. For instance, in India, where the network has at least 300 million users, Libra cannot operate within the existing norms. Moreover, a foreign private entity controlling the sovereign is rather dystopian.

“So far, India has taken quite a conservative policy towards cryptocurrencies because of concerns from a counter-terrorism and taxation perspective. It is perhaps good that policymakers were waiting and watching. Now the policy will have to address the challenge posed by Facebook entering this market,” notes Abraham.

“Cryptocurrency is ‘virtual money’ which should only be used for non-financial purposes along the lines of loyalty points, airline miles, etc. which could be exchanged for real cash transactions such as discounts. It poses the danger of fraud. If Facebook uses Libra to clock up loyalty points, that’s fine. But can’t link it to your bank account,” cautions Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.To digress, bitcoin works as people trust it over government-regulated money. It has no reserve. It appreciates if more people are using it. Now, Facebook is offering a tweak. Unlike Bitcoin, Libra will have a reserve set up by the consortium. In short, don’t trust the government, not the liberal bitcoin, but a private entity with a reserve.
Facebook’s argument may be convincing provided the clout, security infrastructure and reach. But what is worrying is Facebook-led big tech now wants to be a virtual country, with its own economy, not having to bow down to nation states and regulators, because they think they are powerful enough to do so.
This would definitely have banks and regulators in a fix. “While Facebook might have a surveillance friendly position on KYC requirements for users, it might be in greater consumer interest for the government to ensure there is an interoperable competitive oligopoly of cryptocurrency service providers that prevent the winner takes all phenomenon,” observes Abraham.
What’s Libra anyway?
Libra is a virtual currency proposed by a Facebook-led private consortium, with a reserve, unlike the Bitcoin. That means Libra would have an initial capital funded by the consortium to help make it a stable currency such as the dollar. Users could trade globally enjoying lower costs, enhanced speed and high security - on platforms run by Facebook (Calibra) and associates. According to Facebook, Libra is intended to ensure financial inclusion. But how this will be achieved in countries like India, where the currency would not charm the people, government or regulators easily, is not yet quite clear.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-june-30-2019-rajmohan-sudhakar-facebook-s-libra-a-bit-too-ambitious

Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash

praskrishna — 2015-09-29T16:35:02Z

In India and Indonesia, users criticize Internet.org initiative, saying it violates the principles of net neutrality.

The article by Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 24, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

When Muhammad Maiyagy Gery heard about a new mobile app from Facebook Inc. that provides free Internet access in his native Indonesia, he was excited.

But after testing it, the 24-year-old student from a mining town on the eastern edge of Borneo soon deleted the app, called Internet.org, frustrated that he was unable to access Google. com and some local Indonesian sites.

Mr. Gery said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is an “inspiration in the tech world,” but added that the company’s free Internet effort is “inadequate.”

Mr. Gery’s reaction illustrates the unexpected criticism Facebook has encountered to its bold initiative to bring free Internet access to the world’s four billion people who don’t have it, and to increase connectivity among those with limited access. He is one of many users who say a Facebook-led partnership is providing truncated access to websites, thwarting the principles of what is known in the U.S. as net neutrality—the view that Internet providers shouldn’t be able to dictate consumer access to websites.

Since Mr. Zuckerberg’s announcement of the $1 billion project two years ago, Facebook has launched Internet.org in 19 countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa by teaming up with mobile carriers and technology giants including Samsung Electronics Co. , chip maker Qualcomm Inc. and telecom-equipment firm Ericsson AB. Facebook says that through the initiative, in which it is also experimenting with drones and satellites to deliver Web access, some nine million people have come online.

Users with data-enabled feature phones can access a special website through a mobile browser, while those with smartphones can download the app from Google’s Play Store. Though arrangements vary by country, the Internet.org app typically provides a simplified, low-data version of Facebook, its Messenger service and selected local websites offering services like jobs, health information and sports updates. Facebook says it works with mobile operators, which provide free data, and governments to pick sites for the platform.

While some applaud the Internet initiative, the U.S. company is dealing with a backlash from users in some of its fastest-growing markets like Indonesia and India, which are key to its future expansion.

In response to the criticism, Mr. Zuckerberg earlier this year wrote an opinion article that appeared in two Indian newspapers defending the project. He argued that the initiative is compatible with the principles of net neutrality, and that if people “can’t afford to pay for connectivity, it is always better to have some access and voice than none at all.”

But criticism about the initiative has placed Facebook in an awkward position. The social network along with other tech companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. are members of the U.S. industry group Internet Association, which advocates for net neutrality, among other issues. In markets like Indonesia and India, critics say Facebook is more interested in controlling which websites users can tap into than in ensuring free Internet access. “It’s not Internet.org. It’s walled garden.org,” said Sunil Abraham, head of the Bangalore, India-based Center for Internet and Society.

Facebook wants to be seen as a pioneer “of the open and free Internet and not the opposite,” said Neha Dharia, an analyst at telecommunications research firm Ovum.

On Thursday, Facebook said it was changing the name of the Internet.org app and mobile website to Free Basics by Facebook in order to better distinguish it from the company’s wider Internet.org initiative. Asked whether the change was related to criticism of the project, a Facebook spokeswoman said that the name will “more intuitively describe the product to consumers.”

Chris Daniels, Facebook’s vice president in charge of the project, said in a recent interview that he has been surprised by the criticism of the project, noting that many people have gained access to the Web.

This spring in India, travel website Cleartrip, news channel NDTV and a mobile news app pulled their content from the platform amid concerns over net neutrality.

Cleartrip referred inquiries about its reasons for leaving the initiative to an April statement it posted on its website. In that statement, the company said the backlash in India “gave us pause to rethink our approach to Internet.org and the idea of large corporations getting involved with picking and choosing who gets access to what and how fast.”

Vishal Anand, chief product officer at mobile news app Dailyhunt, said that “While we appreciate the effort to give people Internet access, we fully support the principles of net neutrality.” He declined to elaborate on the company’s specific objections to Internet.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wsj-september-24-2015-newley-purnell-resty-woro-uniar-facebook-free-internet-access-program-in-developing-countries-provokes-backlash

Facebook’s Free Basics Shuts Down In Egypt, Continuing Troubled Run

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T06:11:51Z

The report was published by TV Newsroom on January 1, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

“This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests – there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics”, he said. Initiatives like Internet.org are attempting to change that, but not without backlash. A similar proposal called zero internet was put forward later by Airtel.

Facebook now has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

“The India fight is helping shape debates elsewhere”, said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based nonprofit advocacy group.

That prompted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to write an op-ed piece published in the Times of India that asks, “Who could possibly be against this?” There was fulsome praise for Modi from the young internet billionaire. Etisalat Egypt could not be reached for comment at this time. “For example, Facebook can just provide 50 or 100 megabytes for their data connection free every month”.

On Wednesday, Trai extended the last date for submission of comments and counter comment to 7 and 14 January, respectively.

But Zuckerberg is not having a walk in the park with this Free Basics proposition. It sounds a perfectly good idea.

Internet.org is a partnership, led by Facebook and including Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera, Nokia and Qualcomm. Through a deal between Facebook and local mobile operators, the data to access those services is free.

The coalition has said that Facebook is misleading users and cautioned that the free service could be replete with advertising if and when it’s implemented. Similarly, signature drives are going on by those staunchly opposed to it. Now the problem for this is that we had asked for response to the specific question of differential pricing… instead we have got responses on supporting Free Basics.

Those campaigning to protect net neutrality in India suggest data providers should not favour some online services over others by offering cheaper or faster access.

The founders and executives mention that the difference in pricing through zero rating “affects the ability of new players to compete” with well-established companies. A situation where the haves can access the Internet and enjoy its tremendous opportunities and the have nots are kept out. Zuckerberg said that India’s progress depends on providing Web access to the 1 billion Indians without it.

Listing three main flaws within the programme, the scientists urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to “completely reject” Facebook’s “free fundamentals” proposal. Such as providing a tiered system of broad band access.

It would make sense for the government to target free Internet services while it clamps down on physical gathering places.

Read the original here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook2019s-free-basics-shuts-down-in-egypt-continuing-troubled-run

Facebook’s Free Basics hits snag in India

praskrishna — 2016-02-15T02:33:26Z

Indian regulators have dealt a major blow to Facebook’s controversial Free Basics online access plan by forbidding so-called differential pricing by internet companies, in effect banning the programme in the country.

The article by James Crabtree with additional reporting by Tim Bradshaw was published in Financial Times on February 8, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Free Basics, a plan to make access to parts of the internet free, has been at the centre of a fierce row in the country between the social network and local start-ups and advocates for net neutrality — the idea that all web traffic should be treated equally and technology companies should not be allowed to price certain kinds of content differently from others.

Last December, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ordered Facebook to put its Free Basics programme on hold pending a review.

On Monday, Trai published the results of its deliberations, introducing a complete ban on any form of differential pricing.

The ruling is the latest in a series of regulatory battles pitting net neutrality campaigners against telecom and internet companies, and is likely to be viewed as a test case for other emerging markets in which programmes similar to Facebook’s are yet to be challenged in the courts.

It also marks the most significant setback yet for Free Basics, which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2014 as the centrepiece of plans to help poorer people access the internet in emerging economies. It operates in more than 30 countries.

Facebook had launched a high-profile public campaign to defend its programme, which offered stripped-down access to sites such as BBC News or Facebook’s own app to customers of Reliance Communications, the US company’s local telecoms partner.

But critics attacked the programme as an attempt to become a gatekeeper for tens of millions of internet users.

In a post to his Facebook page on Monday, Mr Zuckerberg said the company “won’t give up on” finding new ways to boost internet access in India.

“While we’re disappointed with today’s decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world. Internet.org has many initiatives, and we will keep working until everyone has access to the internet,” he wrote.

Trai’s ruling was welcomed by anti-Facebook campaigners, a group that included the founders of many Indian start-ups including online retailers such as Flipkart, Paytm and restaurant search service Zomato, which had declined to offer their services as part of the Free Basics platform.

Analysts also hailed the Indian regulator’s ruling as a landmark. “This is the most broad and the most stringent set of regulations on differential pricing which exists anywhere in the world,” said Pranesh Prakash of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society, a think-tank.

India has become an increasingly important focus for the company’s global business, with the country becoming its second-largest market by users last year.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-times-february-8-2016-james-crabtree-facebooks-free-basics-hits-snag-in-india

Facebook’s Fight to Be Free

praskrishna — 2016-01-31T09:11:52Z

In India, Mark Zuckerberg can’t give Internet access away.

The article by Adi Narayan and Bhuma Shrivastava was published in Bloomberg Businessweek on January 15, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Thanks mostly to its mobile-ad profits, Facebook has had a great couple of years. According to its most recent earnings report, in November, the company’s quarterly ad revenue rose 45 percent, to $4.3 billion, from the same period in 2014. It has more than 1.5 billion monthly users, just over half of all the people online anywhere. Keeping up its rate of user growth—more than 100 million people each year—will only get tougher.

A big part of the problem is that a lot of potential new eyeballs are in places where Internet access is patchy at best. Some of Facebook’s grander projects anticipated that issue: It has satellites and giant solar-powered planes that beam Wi-Fi down to areas that don’t have it. And then there’s Free Basics, the two-year-old project Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has called an online 911. In about three dozen countries so far, Free Basics—also known as Internet.org—includes a stripped-down version of Facebook and a handful of sites that provide news, weather, nearby health-care options, and other info. One or two carriers in a given country offer the package for free at slow speeds, betting that it will help attract new customers who’ll later upgrade to pricier data plans.

Facebook says Free Basics is meant to make the world more open and connected, not to boost the company’s growth. Either way, online access is an especially big deal in India, where there are 130 million people using Facebook, 375 million people online, and an additional 800 million-plus who aren’t. (The social network remains blocked in China.) That may help explain why Zuckerberg spent part of the first few weeks of his paternity leave appealing personally to Indians to lobby for Free Basics. On Dec. 21 the Indian government suspended the program, offered in the country by carrier Reliance Communications, while it weighs public comments and arguments from Internet freedom advocates who say preferential treatment for Facebook’s services threatens to stifle competition.

“An emerging country like India needs to provide the consumer with incentives to get onto the Internet.” —Neha Dharia, an analyst at consulting firm Ovum

Since the government’s telecommunications regulator announced the suspension, Facebook has bought daily full-page ads in major newspapers and plastered billboards with pictures of happy farmers and schoolchildren it says would benefit from Free Basics. Zuckerberg has frequently made the case himself via phone or newspaper op-ed, asking that Indians petition the government to approve his service. “If we accept that everyone deserves access to the Internet, then we must surely support free basic Internet services,” the CEO wrote in a column published in the Times of India, the nation’s largest daily paper, shortly before the new year. “Who could possibly be against this?”

Opponents, including some journalists and businesspeople, say Free Basics is dangerous because it fundamentally changes the online economy. If companies are allowed to buy preferential treatment from carriers, the Internet is no longer a level playing field, says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Indian mobile-payment company Paytm. A spokesman for Sharma confirmed that Zuckerberg called to discuss the matter but declined to comment further.

India’s Internet base will grow with or without Facebook’s help, says Nikhil Pahwa, a tech blogger and co-founder of the Save the Internet coalition, which opposes Free Basics. “We don’t see Free Basics as philanthropy. We see it as a land grab,” says Pahwa. When dealing with the famously protectionist Indian government, that’s a pretty good argument. An April attempt by India’s top mobile carrier to underwrite data costs for certain apps drew heavy criticism, and the carrier, Bharti Airtel, has put the program on hold.

None of that means Facebook can’t help get more Indians online, says Neha Dharia, an analyst at consulting firm Ovum. “An emerging country like India needs to provide the consumer with incentives to get onto the Internet,” she says. “What Facebook Free Basics is doing is a bit extreme, but what you do need is a bit of a middle path.”

Internet sampler packages such as Free Basics can also help carriers like Reliance, the fourth-largest in India, upgrade their often-struggling networks, Dharia says. That’s a symbiotic process, because customers may quickly grow frustrated with the bare-bones service and demand more. Free Basics doesn’t have Gmail, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, or Bollywood music streaming. (Video will account for 64 percent of India’s data traffic by March 2017, consulting firm Deloitte estimates.) It’s meant to be a steppingstone. Facebook says about 40 percent of Free Basics users start paying for data plans within a month.

But again, if Free Basics catches on in India, people may just keep paying for data to use more Facebook and forget about some of those other services, says Dharia. “Facebook is the Internet” to a lot of people in India, she says. Google, whose services are most conspicuously absent from the Free Basics roster, declined to comment.

India’s telecommunications regulator says Facebook’s advocates and opponents have until Jan. 14 to file public comments; it’s received about 2.4 million responses so far, most of them form letters supporting Free Basics. The government’s decision could also ripple beyond India, says Pranesh Prakash, a Free Basics opponent and the policy director at the nonprofit Centre for Internet & Society in Bengaluru. In the weeks since India suspended Free Basics, Egypt, which had done the same back in October, once again shut down the Facebook plan, though the government wouldn’t say why. The India fight “will be a reputational challenge for Facebook,” says Prakash. “It will set the tone for Free Basics debate in other countries.”

The bottom line: Facebook’s free data plan in India faces strong opposition from local businesses and Internet freedom advocates.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-businessweek-adi-narayan-bhuma-shrivastava

Facebook’s fake news clean-up hits language barrier

Admin — 2018-04-17T16:15:03Z

The sheer diversity of India’s ethnic languages could defeat Facebook’s move to get content moderators and use artificial intelligence (AI) to counter the spread of misinformation on its platform ahead of the general elections next year, experts said.

The article by Nilesh Christopher was published in the Economic Times on April 13, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

More than a third of Indian users engage on the social media platform in local languages. Experts are sceptical about the extent to which AI tools could be effective in curbing fake news, given that Facebook’s AI engine is primarily trained to recognise English.

“If the whole country speaks the same language, it is not a problem. But India is a country with multiple languages and their dialects and the 20,000 global numbers at the face of it doesn’t sound enough,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Centre for Internet and Society.

In July 2017, India became the largest user base for Facebook with over 241million users, with a majority of them accessing the social network on their smartphones. Facebook has not shared updated user numbers since then.

On the use of AI in weeding out fake news, Abraham says that such tools usually work only in languages where there is a history of natural language processing. “Languages like English have a huge corpora (large databases of digitised content from the language). In such cases, the AI analyses the language and will be more accurate,” said Abraham. “Whereas in Indic languages, there is no training data. How they would use AI is not clear. For many Indian languages, the basic infrastructure doesn’t exist."

“I don’t know exactly what FB claimed. But understanding local languages, Indian languages, is still an unsolved problem — either in non-free software or free software,” says Anivar Aravind, executive director of Indic Project, a nonprofit initiative working on language engineering and digital rights of native-language users. Interestingly, the two Facebook-owned platforms: WhatsApp and FB have become the preferred social medium to spread false information and largely through regional languages.

Facebook declined to comment.

On Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in his testimony to the US congress promised measures such as building and deploying AI tools that take down fake news and increasing the content moderation team to around 20,000. He cited the forthcoming elections in India to point out that Facebook would verify every political advertiser and said, “to make sure that that kind of interference that the Russians were able to do in 2016 is going to be much harder for anyone to pull off in the future.”

Currently, Facebook has around 15,000 moderators who review content to identify fake news on the platform, Zuckerberg said last week. The social media giant has been accused of not protecting user privacy and allowing voter-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest personal information of 87 million Facebook users without explicit permissions.

Cambridge Analytica has been accused of voter manipulation in several countries, including India.

Content moderators in India are seeing business grow driven by internet platforms scrambling to curb fake news across the globe. “Zuckerberg’s mention to prevent misinformation by increasing scrutiny before elections is positive. They are the market leaders. This is likely to create more awareness and it is encouraging to hear Facebook take a proactive role,” said Suman Howladar, Founder of Foiwe Info Global Solutions, a content moderation company.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-nilesh-christopher-april-13-2018-facebooks-fake-news-clean-up-hits-language-barrier

Facebook, privacy and India

sunil — 2013-09-26T11:40:00Z

Does Facebook's decision to open out user information and data to third party websites amount to an invasion of privacy and should users' seriously consider getting out of the site? Sunil Abraham doesn't think so.

Even if you aren’t a Facebook user (and most likely than not you are), chances are that you’ve at least heard that there are problems related to privacy settings on the site. The net has been abuzz with indignation over a decision by Facebook to open out user information and data to third party websites. A number of high profile Facebook users (and many more low profile ones) completely deactivated their accounts after the changes were announced by Founder and Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and critics immediately pointed out that users were losing control of their personal information.

There have been a slew of articles condemning the move, and highlighting “dramatic” changes to the sites privacy policy. Most alarming perhaps being this slideshow compiled by Matt McKeon.

All these are legitimate concerns, but how worried should we be really? Should you be seriously considering getting off the site? “As long as you are a little smart about what you upload on Facebook, there is no need to do anything as drastic as deleting your account”, says Sunil Abraham the executive director of the Centre for Internet & society, based out of Bangalore. Abraham said that the issue has shown people the risk of uploading certain types of photographs and content on to the net, but most importantly highlights the need for a privacy commission in India.

“The EU has a commission which makes certain directives to sites like Facebook from time to time, which are then adhered to. India should also seriously consider setting up a similar commission, he said.

Facebook has mantained that its privacy settings are prominently displayed and can be easily accessed by users. But critics say that it is much too long and convoluted. The BBC reports that the policy in its current form has 50 different settings, 170 options and runs to 5,830 words, making it longer than the US Constitution. And the sheer volume of outrage has prompted a rethink of the privacy policy by Facebook, which since held an internal meeting to discuss the affair.

Abraham agrees that the issue of privacy is a complex one, but noted that the definition of what constituted “privacy” varied from culture to culture. “In India, it is perfectly normal for someone to ask someone else how much they earn, while such a question would be completely outside the boundaries of propriety in most Western countries”, he said. The issue with Facebook, he says, is that its desicion to change its privacy settings was tantamount to a breach of contract. “People who joined Facebook did so because they were comfortable with the settings and regulations available on the site. For Facebook to suddenly change that violates the spirit of that contract”, he said.

Meanwhile the founder and chief executive of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has written an article in the Washington Post today directly addressing issues relating to privacy controls on the popular social networking site.

“The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark,”said Zuckerberg.

Read the article in Livemint

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