We are anonymous, we are legion

DesiSec: Cybersecurity and Civil Society in India

Laird Brown — 2015-06-29T16:25:43Z

As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia, the Centre for Internet & Society conducted a series of interviews with cyber security actors. The interviews were compiled and edited into one documentary. The film produced by Purba Sarkar, edited by Aaron Joseph, and directed by Oxblood Ruffin features Malavika Jayaram, Nitin Pai, Namita Malhotra, Saikat Datta, Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang, Anja Kovacs, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and, Ravi Sharada Prasad.

Originally the idea was to do 24 interviews with an array of international experts: Technical, political, policy, legal, and activist. The project was initiated at the University of Toronto and over time a possibility emerged. Why not shape these interviews into a documentary about cybersecurity and civil society? And why not focus on the world’s largest democracy, India? Whether in India or the rest of the world there are several issues that are fundamental to life online: Privacy, surveillance, anonymity and, free speech. DesiSec includes all of these, and it examines the legal frameworks that shape how India deals with these challenges.

From the time it was shot till the final edit there has only been one change in the juridical topography: the dreaded 66A of the IT Act has been struck down. Otherwise, all else is in tact. DesiSec was produced by Purba Sarkar, shot and edited by Aaron Joseph, and directed by Oxblood Ruffin. It took our team from Bangalore to Delhi and, Dharamsala. We had the honour of interviewing: Malavika Jayaram, Nitin Pai, Namita Malhotra, Saikat Datta, Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang, Anja Kovacs, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and, Ravi Sharada Prasad. Everyone brought something special to the discussion and we are grateful for their insights. Also, we are particularly pleased to include the music of Charanjit Singh for the intro/outro of DesiSec. Mr. Singh is the inventor of acid house music, predating the Wikipedia entry for that category by five years. Someone should correct that.

DesiSec is released under the Creative Commons License Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC by 3.0). You can watch it on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/123722680 or download it legally and free of charge via torrent. Feel free to show, remix, and share with your friends. And let us know what you think!

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/desi-sec-cybersecurity-and-civil-society-in-india

Designing a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN’s Policy Development Processes

Collin Kure, Akriti Bopanna and Austin Ruckstuhl — 2019-10-03T14:43:28Z

As co-chairs of Cross Community Working Party on Human Rights (CCWP-HR) at International Corporation of Names and Numbers (ICANN), Akriti Bopanna and Collin Kurre executed a Human Rights Impact Assessment for ICANN's processes. It was the first time such an experiment was conducted, and unique because of being a multi-stakeholder attempt.

This report outlines the iterative research-and-design process carried out between November 2017 and July 2019, focusing on successes and lessons learned in anticipation of the ICANN Board’s long-awaited approval of the Work Stream 2 recommendations on Accountability. The process, findings, and recommendations will be presented by Akriti and Austin at CCWP-HR’s joint session with the Government Advisory Council at ICANN66 in Montreal during 2nd-8th November.

Click to download the full research paper here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/designing-a-human-rights-impact-assessment-for-icann2019s-policy-development-processes

Design Concerns in Creating Privacy Notices

saumyaa — 2018-06-06T13:45:40Z

The purpose of privacy notices and choice mechanisms is to notify users of the data practices of a system, so they can make informed privacy decisions.

This blog post was edited by Elonnai Hickok.

The Role of Design in Enabling Informed Consent

Currently, privacy notices and choice mechanisms, are largely ineffective. Privacy and security researchers have concluded that privacy notices not only fail to help consumers make informed privacy decisions but are mostly ignored by them. [1] They have been reduced to being a mere necessity to ensure legal compliance for companies. The design of privacy systems has an essential role in determining whether the users read the notices and understand them. While it is important to assess the data practices of a company, the communication of privacy policies to users is also a key factor in ensuring that the users are protected from privacy threats. If they do not read or understand the privacy policy, they are not protected by it at all.

The visual communication of a privacy notice is determined by the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design of that online platform. User experience design is broadly about creating the logical flow from one step to the next in any digital system, and user interface design ensures that each screen or page that the user interacts with has a consistent visual language and styling. This compliments the path created by the user experience designer. [2] UI/UX design still follows the basic principles of visual communication where information is made understandable, usable and interesting with the use of elements such as colours, typography, scale, and spacing.

In order to facilitate informed consent, the design principles are to be applied to ensure that the privacy policy is presented clearly, and in the most accessible form. A paper by Batya Friedman, Peyina Lin, and Jessica K. Miller, ‘Informed Consent By Design’, presents a model of informed consent for information systems. [3] It mentions the six components of the model; Disclosure, Comprehension, Voluntariness, Competence, Agreement, Minimal Distraction. The design of a notice should achieve these components to enable informed consent. Disclosure and comprehension lead to the user being ‘informed’ while ‘consent’ encompasses voluntariness, competence, and agreement. Finally, The tasks of being informed and giving consentshould happen with minimal distraction, without diverting users from their primary taskor overwhelming them with unnecessary noise.[4]

UI/UX design builds upon user behaviour to anticipate their interaction with the platform. It has led to practices where the UI/UX design is directed at influencing the user to respond in a way that is desired by the system. For instance, the design of default options prompts users to allow the system to collect their data when the ‘Allow’ button is checked by default. Such practices where the interface design is used to push users in a particular direction are called “dark patterns”.[5] These are tricks used in websites and apps that make users buy or sign up for things that they did not intend to. [6] Dark patterns are often followed as UI/UX trends without the consequences on users being questioned. This has had implications on the design of privacy systems as well. Privacy notices are currently being designed to be invisible instead of drawing attention towards them.

Moreover, most communication designers believe that privacy notices are beyond their scope of expertise. They do not consider themselves accountable for how a notice comes across to the user. Designers also believe that they have limited agency when it comes to designing privacy notices as most of the decisions have been already taken by the company or the service. They can play a major role in communicating privacy concerns at an interface level, but the issues of privacy are much deeper. Designers tend to find ways of informing the user without compromising the user experience, and in the process choose aesthetic decisions over informed consent.

Issues with Visual Communication of Privacy Notices

The ineffectiveness of privacy notices can be attributed to several broad issues such as the complex language and length, their timing, and location. In 2015, the Center for Plain Language [7] published a privacy-policy analysis report [8] for TIME.com [9], evaluating internet-based companies’ privacy policies to determine how well they followed plain language guidelines. The report concluded that among the most popular companies, Google and Facebook had the more accessible notices, while Apple, Uber, and Twitter were ranked as less accessible. The timing of notices is also crucial in ensuring that it is read by the users. The primary task for the user is to avail the service being offered. The goals of security and privacy are valued but are only secondary in this process. [10] Notices are presented at a time when they are seen as a barrier between the user and the service. People thus, choose to ignore the notices and move on to their primary task. Another concern is disassociated notices or notices which are presented on a separate website or manual. The added effort of going to an external website also gets in the way of the users which leads to them not reading the notice. While most of these issues can be dealt with at the strategic level of designing the notice, there are also specific visual communication design issues that are required to be addressed.

Invisible Structure and Organisation of Information

Long spells of text with no visible structure or content organisation is the lowest form of privacy notices. These are the blocks of text where the information is flattened with no visual markers such as a section separator, or contrasting colour and typography to distinguish between the types of content. In such notices, the headings and subheadings are also not easy to locate and comprehend. For a user, the large block of text appears to be pointless and irrelevant, and they begin to dismiss or ignore it. Further, the amount of time it would take for the user to read the entire text and comprehend it successfully, is simply impractical, considering the number of websites they visit regularly.

The privacy policy notice by Apple [11] with no use of colours or visuals.

The privacy policy notice by Twitter [12] no visual segregator

Visual Contrast Between Front Interface and Privacy Notices

The front facing interface of an app or website is designed to be far more engaging than the privacy notice pages. There is a visible difference in the UI/UX design of the pages, almost as if the privacy notices were not designed at all. In case of Uber’s mobile app, the process of adding a destination, selecting the type of cab and confirming a ride has been made simple to do for any user. This interface has been thought through keeping in mind the users’ behaviour and needs. It allows for quick and efficient use of the service. As opposed to the process of buying into the service, the privacy notice on the app is complex and unclear.

Uber mobile app screenshots of the front interface (left) and the policy notice page (right)

Gaining Trust Through the Initial Pitch

A pattern in the privacy notices of most companies is that they attempt to establish credibility and gain confidence by stating that they respect the users’ privacy. This can be seen in the introductory text of the privacy notices of Apple and LinkedIn. The underlying intent seems to be that since the company understands that the users’ privacy is important, the users can rely on them and not read the full notice.

Introduction text to Apple’s privacy policy notice [13]

Introduction text to LinkedIn’s privacy policy notice [14]

Low Navigability

The text heavy notices need clear content pockets which can be navigated through easily using mechanisms such as menu bar. Navigability of a document allows for quick locating of sections, and moving between them. Several companies miss to follow this. Apple and Twitter privacy notices (shown above), have low navigability as the reader has no prior indication of how many sections there are in the notice. The reader could have summarised the content based on the titles of the sections if it were available in a table of contents or a menu. Lack of a navigation system leads to endless scrolling to reach the end of the page.

Facebook privacy notice, on the other hand is an example of good navigability. It uses typography and colour to build a clear structure of information that can be navigated through easily using the side menu. The menu doubles up as a table of contents for the reader. The side menu however, does not remain visible while scrolling down the page. This means while the user is reading through a section, they cannot switch to a different section from the menu directly. They will need to click on the ‘Return to top’ button and then select the section from the menu.

Navigation menu in the Facebook Data Policy page [15]

Lack of Visual Support

Privacy notices can rely heavily on visuals to convey the policies more efficiently. These could be visual summaries or supporting infographics. The data flow on the platform and how it would affect the users can be clearly visualised using infographics. But, most notices fail to adopt them. The Linkedin privacy notice [16] page shows a video at the beginning of its privacy policy. Although this could have been an opportunity to explain the policy in the video, LinkedIn only gives an introduction to the notice and follows it with a pitch to use the platform. The only visual used in notices currently are icons. Facebook uses icons to identify the different sections so that they can be located easily. But, apart from being identifiers of sections, these icons do not contribute to the communication of the policy. It does not make reading of the full policy any easier.

Icon Heavy ‘Visual’ Privacy Notices

The complexity of privacy notices has led to the advent of online tools and generators that create short notices or summaries for apps and websites to supplement the full text versions of policies. Most of these short notices use icons as a way of visually depicting the categories of data that is being collected and shared. iubenda [17], an online tool, generates policy notice summary and full text based on the inputs given by the client. It asks for the services offered by the site or app, and the type of data collection. Icons are used alongside the text headings to make the summary seem more ‘visual’ and hence more easily consumable. It makes the summary more inviting to read, but does not reduce the time for reading.

Another icon-based policy summary generator was created by KnowPrivacy. [18] They developed a policy coding methodology by creating icon sets for types of data collected, general data practices, and data sharing. The use of icons in these short notices is more meaningful as they show which type of data is collected or not collected, shared or not shared at a glance without any text. This facilitates comparison between data practices of different apps.

Icon based short policy notice created for Google by KnowPrivacy [19]

Initiatives to Counter Issues with the Design of Privacy Notices

Several initiatives have called out the issues with privacy notices and some have even countered them with tools and resources. The TIME.com ranking of internet-based companies’ privacy policies brought attention to the fact that some of the most popular platforms have ineffective policy notices. A user rights initiative called Terms of Services; Didn’t Read [20] rates and labels websites’ terms & privacy policies. There is also the Usable Privacy Policy Project which develops techniques to semi-automatically analyze privacy policies with crowdsourcing, natural language processing, and machine learning. [21] It uses artificial intelligence to sift through the most popular sites on the Internet, including Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, and annotate their privacy policies. They realise that it is not practical for people to read privacy policies. Thus, their aim is to use technology to extract statements from the notices and match them with things that people care about. However, even AI has not been fully successful in making sense of the dense documents and missed out some important context. [22]

One of the more provocative initiatives is the Me and My Shadow ‘Lost in Small Print’ [23] project. It shows the text for the privacy notices of companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. and then ‘reveals’ the data collection and use information that would closely affect the users.

Issues with notices have also been addressed by standardising their format, so people can interpret the information faster. The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) [24] was one of the initial efforts in enabling websites to share their privacy practices in a standard format. Similar to KnowPrivacy’s policy coding, there are more design initiatives that are focusing on short privacy notice design. An organisation offering services in Privacy Compliance and Risk Management Solutions called TrustArc, [25] is also in the process of designing an interactive icon-based privacy short notice.

TrustArc’s proposed design [26] for the short notice for a sample site

Most efforts have been done in simplifying the notices so as to decode the complex terminology. But, there have been very few evaluations and initiatives to improve the design of these notices.

Recommendations

Multilayered Privacy Notices

One of the existing suggestions on increasing usability of privacy notices are multilayered privacy notices. [27] Multilayered privacy notices comprise a very short notice designed for use on portable digital devices where there is limited space, condensed notice that contains all the key factors in an easy to understand way, and a complete notice with all the legal requirements. [28] Some of the examples above use this in the form of short notices and summaries. The very short notice layer consists of who is collecting the information, primary uses of information, and contact details of the organisation.[29] Condensed notice layer covers scope or who does the notice apply to, personal information collected, uses and sharing, choices, specific legal requirements if any, and contact information. [30] In order to maintain consistency, the sequence of topics in the condensed and the full notice must be same. Words and phrases should also be consistent in both layers. Although an effective way of simplifying information, multi-layered notices must be reconsidered along with the timing of notices. For instance, it could be more suitable to show very short notices at the time of collection or sharing of user data.

Supporting Infographics

Based on their visual design, the currently available privacy notices can be broadly classified into 4 categories; (i) the text only notices which do not have a clearly visible structure, (ii) the text notices with a contents menu that helps in informing of the structure and in navigating, (iii) the notices with basic use of visual elements such as icons used only to identify sections or headings, (iv) multilayered notices or notices with short summary before giving out the full text. There is still a lack of visual aid in all these formats. The use of visuals in the form of infographics to depict data flows could be more helpful for the users both in short summaries and complete text of policy notices.

Integrating the Privacy Notices with the Rest of the System

The design of privacy notices usually seems disconnected to the rest of the app or website. The UI/UX design of privacy notices requires as much attention as the consumer-facing interface of a system. The contribution of the designer has to be more than creating a clean layout for the text of the notice. The integration of privacy notices with the rest of the system is also related to the early involvement of the designer in the project. The designer needs to understand the information flows and data practices of a system in order to determine whether privacy notices are needed, who should be notified, and about what. This means that decisions such as selecting the categories to be represented in the short or condensed notice, the datasets within these categories, and the ways of representing them would all be part of the design process. The design interventions cannot be purely visual or UI/UX based. They need to be worked out keeping in mind the information architecture, content design, and research. By integrating the notices, strategic decisions on the timing and layering of content can be made as well, apart from the aesthetic decisions. Just as the aim of the front face of the interface in a system makes it easier for the user to avail the service, the policy notice should also help the user in understanding the consequences, by giving them clear notice of the unexpected collection or uses of their data.

Practice Based Frameworks on Designing Privacy Notices

There is little guidance available to communication designers for the actual design of privacy notices which is specific to the requirements and characteristics of a system. [31] The UI/UX practice needs to be expanded to include ethical ways of designing privacy notices online. The paper published by Florian Schaub, Rebecca Balebako, Adam L. Durity, and Lorrie Faith Cranor, called, ‘A Design Space for Effective Privacy Notice’ in 2015 offers a comprehensive design framework and standardised vocabulary for describing privacy notice options. [32] The objective of the paper is to allow designers to use this framework and vocabulary in creating effective privacy notices. The design space suggested has four key dimensions, ‘timing’, ‘channel’, ‘modality’ and ‘control’. [33] It also provides options for each of these dimensions. For example, ‘timing’ options are ‘at setup’, ‘just in time’, ‘context-dependent’, ‘periodic’, ‘persistent’, and ‘on demand’. The dimensions and options in the design space can be expanded to accommodate new systems and interaction methods.

Considering the Diversity of Audiences

For the various mobile apps and services, there are multiple user groups who use them. The privacy notices are hence not targeted to one kind of an audience. There are diverse audiences who have different privacy preferences for the same system. [34] The privacy preferences of these diverse groups of users’ must be accommodated. In a typical design process for any system, multiple user personas are identified. The needs and behaviour of each persona is used to determine the design of the interface. Privacy preferences must also be observed as part of these considerations for personas, especially while designing the privacy notices. Different users may need different kinds of notices based on which data practices affect them.[35] Thus, rather than mandating a single mechanism for obtaining informed consent for all users in all situations, designers need to provide users with a range of mechanisms and levels of control. [36]

Ethical Framework for Design Practitioners

An ethical framework is required for design practitioners that can be followed at the level of both deciding the information flow and the experience design. With the prevalence of ‘dark patterns’, the visual design of notices is used to trick users into accepting it. Design ethics can play a huge role in countering such practices. Will Dayable, co-director at Squareweave, [37] a developer of web and mobile apps, suggests that UI/UX designers should “Design Like They’re (Users are) Drunk”. [38] He asks designers to imagine the user to be in a hurry and still allow them access to all the information necessary for making a decision. He concludes that good privacy UX and UI is about actually trying to communicate with users rather than trying to slip one past them. In principle, an ethical design practice would respect the rights of the users and proactively design to facilitate informed consent.

Reconceptualising Privacy Notices

Based on the above recommendations, a guiding sample for multilayered privacy notices has been created. Each system would need its own structure and mechanisms for notices, which are integrated with its data practice, audiences, and medium, but this sample notice provides basic guidelines for creating effective and accessible privacy notices. The aesthetic decisions would also vary based on the interface design of a system.

Sample Fixed Icon for Privacy Notifications

A fixed icon can appear along with all privacy notifications on the system, so that the users can immediately know that the notification is about a privacy concern. This icon should capture attention instantly and suggest a sense of caution. Besides its use as a call to attention, the icon can also lead to a side panel for privacy implications from all actions that the user takes.

Sample Very Short Notice on Desktop and Mobile Platforms

The very short notices can be shown when an action from the user would lead to data collection or sharing. The notice mechanism should be designed to provide notices at different times tailored to a user’s needs in that context. The styling and placement of the ‘Allow’ and ‘Don’t Allow’ buttons should not be biased towards the ‘Allow’ option. The text used in very short and condensed notice layers should be engaging yet honest in its communication.

Sample Summary Notice

The summary or the condensed notice layer should allow the user to gauge at a glance, how the data policy is going to affect them. This can be combined with a menu that lists the topics covered in the full notice. The menu would double up as a navigation mechanism for users. It should be visible to users even as they scroll down to the full notice. The condensed notice can also be supported by an infographic depicting the flow of data in the system.

Sample Navigation Menu

All the images in this section use sample text for the purpose of illustrating the structure and layout

The full notice can be made accessible by creating a clear information hierarchy in the text. The menu which is available on the side while scrolling down the text would facilitate navigation and familiarity with the structure of the notice.

Conclusion

The presentation of privacy notices directly influences the decisions of users online and ineffective notices make users vulnerable to their data being misused. But currently, there is little conversation about privacy and data protection among designers. Design practice has to become sensitive to privacy and security requirements. Designers need to take the accountability of creating accessible notices which are beneficial to the users, rather than to the companies issuing them. They must prioritise the well-being of users over aesthetics and user experience even. The aesthetics of a platform must be directed at achieving transparency in the privacy notice by making it easily readable.

The design community in India has a more urgent task at hand of building a design practice that is informed by privacy. Comparing the privacy notices of Indian and global companies, Indian companies have an even longer way to go in terms of communicating the notices effectively. Most Indian companies such as Swiggy, [39] 99acres, [40] and Paytm [41] have completely textual privacy policy notices with no clear information hierarchy or navigation. Ola Cabs [42] provides an external link to their privacy notice, which opens as a pdf, making it even more inaccessible. Thus, there is a complete lack of design input in the layout of these notices.

Designers must engage in conversations with technologists and researchers, and include privacy and other user rights in design education in order to prepare practitioners for creating more valuable digital platforms.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/design-concerns-in-creating-privacy-notices

Design and Uses of Digital Identities - Research Plan

Amber Sinha and Pooja Saxena — 2019-08-17T07:58:44Z

In our research project about uses and design of digital identity systems, we ask two core questions: a) What are appropriate uses of ID?, and b) How should we think about the technological design of ID? Towards the first research question, we have worked on first principles and will further develop definitions, legal tests and applications of these principles. Towards the second research question, we have first identified a set of existing and planned digital identity systems that represent a paradigm of how such a system can be envisioned and implemented, and will look to identify key design choices which are causing divergence in paradigm.

Read the research plan here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/digtial-identities-research-plan

Deployment of Digital Health Policies and Technologies: During Covid-19

pallavi — 2022-07-21T14:49:56Z

In the last twenty years or so, the Indian government has adopted several digital mechanisms to deliver services to its citizens.

Digitisation of public services in India began with taxation, land record keeping, and passport details recording, but it was soon extended to cover most governmental services - with the latest being public health. The digitisation of healthcare system in India had begun prior to the pandemic. However, given the push digital health has received in recent years especially with an increase in the intensity of activity during the pandemic, we thought it is important to undertake a comprehensive study of India's digital health policies and implementation. The project report comprises a desk-based research review of the existing literature on digital health technologies in India and interviews with on-field healthcare professionals who are responsible for implementing technologies on the ground.

The report by Privacy International and the Centre for Internet & Society can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deployment-of-digital-health-policies-and-technologies-during-covid-19

Department of Telecommunications Order u/s. 69A IT Act Blocking 32 URLS

pranesh — 2014-12-31T14:36:01Z

On December 17, 2014, the Dept. of Telecommunications blocked 32 URLs (as it was ordered to do so by the by Dept. of Electronics & IT — specifically the Designated Officer under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and under the Information Technology (Procedures and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009), those being: 01) https://justpaste.it/ 02) http://hastebin.com 03) http://codepad.org 04) http://pastie.org 05) https://pasteeorg 06) http://paste2.org 07) http://slexy.org 08) http://paste4btc.com/ 09) http://0bin.net 10) http://www.heypasteit.com 11) http://sourceforge.net/projects/phorkie 12) http://atnsoft.com/textpaster 13) https://archive.org 14) http://www.hpage.com 15) http://www.ipage.com/ 16) http://www.webs.com/ 17) http://www.weebly.com/ 18) http://www.000webhost.com/ 19) https://www.freehosting.com 20) https://vimeo.com/ 21) http://www.dailymotion.com/ 22) http://pastebin.com 23) https://gist.github.com 24) http://www.ipaste.eu 25) https://thesnippetapp.com 26) https://snipt.net 27) http://tny.ct (Tinypaste) 28) https://github.com (gist-it) 29) http://snipplr.com/ 30) http://termbin.com 31) http://www.snippetsource.net 32) https://cryptbin.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/2014-12-17_DoT-32-URL-Block-Order.pdf

Department of Labour Interaction Program: Online Business Platforms

Bharath Gururagavendran — 2019-10-29T06:05:56Z

The Department of Labour convened an interaction program of sorts at Vikas Soudha in Bangalore on 21st October, 2019 to hear the issues plaguing the emergent gig economy.

The blog post was edited by Ambika Tandon.

The meeting was called to hear and address the grievances of gig workers, (employed by online business platforms) in the presence of their employers. The meeting was presided by the esteemed Labour Minister, Shri. Suresh Kumar, and the Secretary to the Labour Department, Shri Manivannan. The Minister began by disclosing that union members and delivery partners employed by online delivery companies (Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Flipkart, etc.) had approached his office, with several complaints pertaining to the legal treatment or lack thereof, of gig workers across the nation. They also further identified the day-to-day concerns that they had to face (i.e. health & pay-related issues) as a consequence of their non-recognition under the labour law frameworks in the country.

"The majority of the delivery boys that aggregators (e.g. Swiggy, Ola, Uber, etc.) employ are full-time workers who depend solely on these companies for their income." That was the refrain of most of the spokespeople supporting the cause of gig workers. These were some of the representatives who spoke on behalf of the gig workers employed by online aggregators:

Mr. G. S. Kumar (Food Delivery Partners Association)
Mr. Tanveer Pasha (Ola driver)
Mr. M. Manjunath (Auto Chalaka Okkuta)
Mr. Amit Gupta (Brand Strategist)
Ms. Kaveri (Researcher)
Mr. Basavaraj (Food Delivery Association)

"The delivery partners employed by online aggregators should be treated as full-time employees"

Mr. G.S Kumar, an office-bearer at the Food Delivery Partners Samithi set the context for the conversation, by identifying at the very outset that the term "delivery partners" is a misnomer and that they are largely full-time employees. They are further straddled with family commitments, health concerns, and dwindling pay structures. As such, he proclaimed that they are deserving of the protections statutorily available to employees (in the traditional sense of the term) under the extant labour legislations. It was also specifically highlighted by Mr. K.S. Kumar, that in status quo, delivery boys cannot avail of ESI, or PF benefits.

Furthermore, the protections the companies make available are also quite abysmal, for instance a Rs. 2 lakh accidental cover that's rarely ever paid. The practical exigencies of their itinerant lifestyles inhibit them from maintaining strict compliance with the protocols that are unfortunately condition precedents to obtaining the benefits they so desperately require. The language of these policies in the fine print often contains conditions that are quite hard to satisfy, and as such, the benefits remain inaccessible to the vast majority of drivers employed by these online business platforms. Adding value to this criticism of Mr. K.S. Kumar, Mr. Basavaraj later clarified that conditions such as requiring 24 hours of admittance for the processing of insurance claims, makes it nigh impossible for drivers plying the roads to ever materially avail of health or accidental insurance.

"Ola/Uber drivers face serious health risks, as they ply the roads of Bangalore, and require functional insurance"

Tanveer Pasha, a member of the Ola/Uber Drivers Association, discussed the lived experiences of these delivery boys who ply the road, travelling nearly fifteen to twenty kilometres for each trip in peak Bangalore traffic. He narrated stories of trauma and violence faced by drivers, such as instances of heart attacks and accidents, which made the conversation a little heated. The minister then deftly interjected, by requesting them to be solution-centric, while discussing their grievances, as this aids the government's ability to balance the competing interests of both the aggregators and the gig workers.

"A Government ombudsman is required to address the grievances of gig workers"

To that effect, M. Manjunath from the Auto and Taxi Association asserted that insurance is a basic right that should be provided to the employees. Amit Gupta, Brand Strategist, spoke on behalf of his sister, previously employed at Swiggy, and stated that an ombudsman empowered to take complaints, even from gig workers, should be created. He believed this was imperative given that aggregators are de facto free to violate the terms and conditions prescribed in the employment order, as they have the resources to see the case through in court, whereas employees don't have much recourse, outside of trade unions. He concluded that for these delivery partners devoid of the right to collectivize, it becomes crucially important to maintain at the very least, a Government ombudsman.

"Aggregators should not profit off of the positive network effects gained through delivery partners, and simultaneously deny their right to protest unfair business practices"

Ms. Kaveri, a researcher on the conditions of gig workers, brought to light some of the more egregious problems that are faced by these workers. For instance, they are removed from employment, at a moment's notice if they attempt to protest, and to that effect, she stated that Zomato had fired an employee that very day because he was supposed to participate in the meeting and make his case. She further specified that it was patently unfair to allow these aggregators to profit off of the positive network effects gained solely because of the delivery partners, and subsequently engage in cost-cutting practices like reducing the incentives that they receive.

In response to these claims, the Labour Minister invited representatives of online platforms to shed some clarity on the concerns raised by the gig workers they employ.

These were some of the representatives who spoke on behalf of the online aggregators:

Mr. Manjunath (Flipkart)
Mr. Panduranga (Legal Team, Swiggy)
Mr. Ashok Kumar (Zomato)

"Flipkart does provide significant benefits to its fixed-term contractors"

Mr. Manjunath clarified his position on these issues, with regards to Flipkart, by stating that there is a tripartite classification amongst people who work there:

a) Full-time employees

b) Fixed Term Contractors (e.g. 8 or 10-month contract)

c) Interns

He further affirmed that even for fixed term contractors, Flipkart offers ESI, and PF benefits. He also specified that they don't hire more employees or fixed-term contractors during peak season, but rather hire only interns to meet demand, as it offers the inexperienced interns a chance to gain industry exposure as well.

"Swiggy empowers the agency of its delivery partners, and provides necessary benefits"

Mr. Panduranga, from the legal department at Swiggy, in direct response to the concerns about Swiggy, stated that the gig economy is emergent and that Swiggy and other such aggregators are merely technology platforms, facilitating end-to-end services (between different stakeholders, e.g. customer-driver-restaurant). In that sense, he clarified that the delivery partners they employ have the right to accept or deny deliveries and that there is no compulsion to commit to the work. Moreover, he specified that merely logging off the app frees up a delivery partner of his or her time. He opined that they have the freedom to work for multiple companies, and the process of joining and leaving is highly flexible. In that sense, he stated that a large number of students and after-office hours employees are the ones employing these apps as a means to generating quick cash flows (and as such, should not be treated as full-time employees). He also mentioned that there is up to 1 lakh for medical expenses, (which are currently being disbursed), and Rs. 5 lakhs for accidental death coverage as well. Mr. Ashok Kumar from Zomato also reaffirmed the statements of Mr. Panduranga.

"Incentive and disincentive structures coercively compel gig workers to work hours akin to full-time employees"

Mr. Basavaraj from the Food delivery Association/Samithi, along with all the other representatives clarified that it is extremely unlikely that the majority of gig workers are part-time and only in it for generating quick money. Instead, the majority of gig workers work 9-12-hour workdays, and in that sense, are really no different from traditional employees. Basavaraj stated that an examination of the travel logs of delivery partners will make it clear whether the majority of workers are part-time or full time. He also pointed out that incentive and disincentive structures coercively compel drivers to work long hours with poor working conditions. For example, drivers who don't operate during peak hours do not receive the incentives they are promised. Further, the manner of advertisement of these jobs is itself insidious, as the salary offering is inclusive of the money one would receive if they also met their incentive-targets. Basavaraj specified that the deceptive advertising of these companies is what leads to massive hordes of gig workers working, in essence, full-time jobs, and as such, they must require the protection of their rights enshrined under labour legislations.

There was also collective agreement from the spokespeople making a case on behalf of the gig workers, that the benefits provided on paper (health insurance for accident cases) are rarely ever provided, and that the process of acquiring the same is rife with hassles. However, this was met with fervent opposition from the spokespeople representing the online aggregators, who contended that these insurance payments were being sanctioned freely without inconvenience.

Concluding Observations of the Labour Minister

The Labour Minister, Shri. Suresh Kumar, identified that this is an emergent issue; one that requires serious consideration, as the gig economy is here to stay. He reaffirmed the social responsibility of the Government to inspect this matter and set up a legal framework, as it concerns the deprivation of agency for lakhs of people working as gig workers in the state, and across the country. He also affirmed that he is cognizant of the business interests at play. To that effect, he declared that the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Shri. Balakrishnan would examine the relevant data at hand, hold necessary meetings with both parties, and submit a report on the creation of a prospective framework to regulate gig economies within one month. He stated that the Government will set up a framework with governing rules and regulations, based on the report submitted. He concluded by emphasizing the necessity for both parties to be trusting of one another and not render the working dynamic adversarial, however oppositional their competing interests maybe, as trust is a constitutive component of conflict resolution.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/department-of-labour-interaction-program-online-business-platforms

Demystifying Data Breaches in India

Pawan Singh — 2022-10-17T16:14:03Z

Despite the rate at which data breaches occur and are reported in the media, there seems to be little information about how and when they are resolved. This post examines the discourse on data breaches in India with respect to their historical forms, with a focus on how the specific terminology to describe data security incidents has evolved in mainstream news media reportage.

Edited by Arindrajit Basu and Saumyaa Naidu

India saw a 62% drop in data breaches in the first quarter of 2022. Yet, it ranked fifth on the list of countries most hit by cyberattacks according to a 2022 report by Surfshark, a Netherlands-based VPN company. Another report on the cost of data breaches researched by the Ponemon Institute and published by IBM reveals that the breach of about 29500 records between March 2021 and March 2022 resulted in a 25% increase in the average cost from INR 165 million in 2021 to INR 176 million in 2022.

These statistics are certainly a cause for concern, especially in the context of India’s rapidly burgeoning digital economy shaped by the pervasive platformization of private and public services such as welfare, banking, finance, health, and shopping among others. Despite the rate at which data breaches occur and are reported in the media, there seems to be little information about how and when they are resolved. This post examines the discourse on data breaches in India with respect to their historical forms, with a focus on how the specific terminology to describe data security incidents has evolved in mainstream news media reportage.

While expert articulations of cybersecurity in general and data breaches in particular tend to predominate the public discourse on data privacy, this post aims to situate broader understandings of data breaches within the historical context of India’s IT revolution and delve into specific concepts and terminology that have shaped the broader discourse on data protection. The late 1990s and early 2000s offer a useful point of entry into the genesis of the data security landscape in India.

Data Breaches and their Predecessor Forms

The articulation of data security concerns around the late 1990s and early 2000s isn’t always consistent in deploying the phrase, ‘data breach’ to signal cybersecurity concerns in India. The terms such as ‘data/ identity theft’ and ‘data leak’ figure prominently in the public articulation of concerns with the handling of personal information by IT systems, particularly in the context of business process outsourcing (BPO) and e-commerce activities. Other pertinent terms such as “security breach”, “data security”, and ‘“cyberfraud” also capture the specificity of growing concerns around outsourced data to India. At the time, i.e. around mid-2000s regulatory frameworks were still evolving to accommodate and address the complexities arising from a dynamic reconfiguration of the telecommunications and IT landscape in India.

Some of the formative cases that instantiate the usage of the aforementioned terms are instructive to understand shifts in the reporting of such incidents over time. The earliest case during that period concerns a 2002 case concerning the theft and sale of source code by an IIT Kharagpur student who intended to sell the code to two undercover FBI agents who worked with the CBI to catch the thief. A straightforward case of data theft was framed by media stories around the time as a cybercrime involving the illegal sale of the source code of a software package, as software theft of intellectual property in the context of outsourcing and as an instance of industrial espionage in poor nations without laws protecting foreign companies. This case became the basis of the earliest calls for the protection of data privacy and security in the context of the Indian BPO sector. The Indian IT Act, 2000 at the time only covered unauthorized access and data theft from computers and networks without any provisions for data protection, interception or computer forgery. The BPO boom in India brought with it employment opportunities for India’s English-speaking, educated youth but in the absence of concrete data privacy legislation, the country was regarded as an unsafe destination for outsourcing aside from the political ramifications concerning the loss of American jobs.

In a major 2005 incident, employees of the Mphasis BFL call centre in Pune extracted sensitive bank account information of Citibank’s American customers to divert INR 1.90 crore into new accounts set up in India. The media coverage of this incident calls it India’s first outsourcing cyberfraud and a well planned scam, a cybercrime in a globalized world, and a case of financial fraud and a scam that required no hacking skills, and a case of data theft and misuse. Within the ambit of cybercrime, media reports of these incidents refer to them as cases of “fraud”, “scam” and “theft''.

Two other incidents in 2005 set the trend for a critical spotlight on data security practices in India. In a June 2005 incident, an employee of a Delhi-based BPO firm, Infinity e-systems, sold the account numbers and passwords of 1000 bank customers to the British Tabloid, The Sun. The Indian newspaper, Telegraph India, carried an online story headlined, “BPO Blot in British Backlash: Indian Sells Secret Data,” which reported that the employee, Kkaran Bahree, 24, was set up by a British journalist, Oliver Harvey. Harvey filmed Bahree accepting wads of cash for the stolen data. Bahree’s theft of sensitive information is described both as a data fraud and a leak in the above 2005 BBC story by Soutik Biswar. Another story on the incident calls it a “scam” involving the leakage of credit card information. The use of the term ‘leak’ appears consistently across other media accounts such as a 2005 story on Karan Bahree in the Times of India and another story in the Economic Times about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) sting operation similar to the one in Delhi, describing the scam by the fraudsters as a leak of the online information of Australians. Another media account of the coverage describes the incident in more generic terms such as an “outsourcing crime”.

The other case concerned four former employees of Parsec technologies who stole classified information and diverted calls from potential customers, causing a sudden drop in the productivity of call centres managed by the company in November 2005. Another call centre fraud came to light in 2009 through a BBC sting operation in which British reporters went to Delhi and secretly filmed a deal with a man selling credit card and debit card details obtained from Symantec call centres, which sold software made by Norton. This BBC story uses the term “breach” to refer to the incident.

In the broader framing of these cases generally understood as cybercrime, which received transnational media coverage, the terms “fraud”, “leak”, “scam”, and “theft” appear interchangeably. The term “data breach” does not seem to be a popular or common usage in these media accounts of the BPO-related incidents. A broader sense of breach (of confidentiality, privacy) figures in the media reportage in implicitly racial terms of cultural trust, as a matter of ethics and professionalism and in the language of scandal in some cases.

These early cases typify a specific kind of cybercrime concerning the theft or misappropriation of outsourced personal data belonging to British or American residents. What’s remarkable about these cases is the utmost sensitivity of the stolen personal information including financial details, bank account and credit/debit card numbers, passwords, and in one case, source code. While these cases rang the alarm bells on the Indian BPO sector’s data security protocols, they also directed attention to concerns around the training of Indian employees on the ethics of data confidentiality and vetting through psychometric tests for character assessment. In the wake of these incidents, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an Indian non-governmental trade and advocacy group, launched a National Skills Registry for IT professionals to enable employers to conduct background checks in 2006.

These data theft incidents earned India a global reputation of an unsafe destination for business process outsourcing, seen to be lacking both, a culture of maintaining data confidentiality and concrete legislation for data protection at the time. Importantly, the incidents of data theft or misappropriation were also traceable back to a known source, a BPO employee or a group of malefactors, who often sold sensitive data belonging to foreign nationals to others in India.

The phrase “data leak” also caught on in another register in the context of the widespread use of camera-equipped mobile phones in India. The 2004 Delhi MMS case offers an instance of a date leak, recapitulating the language of scandal in moralistic terms.

The Delhi MMS Case

The infamous 2004 incident involved two underage Delhi Public School (DPS) students who recorded themselves in a sexually explicit act on a cellular phone. After a fall out, the male student passed the low-resolution clip on to his friend in which his female friend’s face is seen. The clip, distributed far and wide in India, ended up on the famous e-shopping and auction website, bazee.com leading to the arrest of the website’s CEO Avinash Bajaj for hosting the listing for sale. Another similar case in 2004 mimicked the mechanics of visual capture through hand-held MMS-enabled mobile phones. A two-minute MMS of a top South-Indian actress taking a shower went viral on the Internet in 2004, the year when another MMS of two prominent Bollywood actors kissing had already done the rounds. The MMS case also marked the onset of a national moral panic around the amateur uses of mobile phone technologies, capable of corrupting young Indian minds under a sneaky regime of new media modernity. The MMS case, not strictly the classic case of a data breach - non-visual information generally stored in databases - became an iconic case of a data leak framed in the media as a scandal that shocked the country, with calls for the regulation of mobile phone use in schools. The case continued its scandalous afterlife in a 2009 Bollywood film, Dev D and another 2010 film, Love, Sex and Dhokha,

Taken together, the BPO data thefts and frauds and the data leak scandals prefigure the contemporary discourse on data breaches in the second decade of the 21st century, or what may also be called the Decade of Datafication. The launch of the Indian biometric identity project, Aadhaar, in 2009, which linked access to public services and welfare delivery with biometric identification, resulted in large-scale data collection of the scheme’s subscribers. Such linking raised the spectre of state surveillance as alleged by the critics of Aadhaar, marking a watershed moment in the discourse on data privacy and protection.

Aadhaar Data Security and Other Data Breaches

Aadhaar was challenged in the Indian Supreme Court in 2012 when it was made mandatory for welfare and other services such as banking, taxation and mobile telephony. The national debate on the status of privacy as a cultural practice in Indian society and a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution led to two landmark judgments - the 2017 Puttaswamy ruling holding privacy to be a constitutional right subject to limitations and the 2018 Supreme Court judgment holding mandatory Aadhaar to be constitutional only for welfare and taxation but no other service.

While these judgments sought to rein in Aadhaar’s proliferating mandatory uses, biometric verification remained the most common mode of identity authentication with most organizations claiming it to be mandatory for various purposes. During the same period from 2010 onwards, a range of data security events concerning Aadhaar came to light. These included app-based flaws, government websites publishing Aadhaar details of subscribers, third party leaks of demographic data, duplicate and forged Aadhaar cards and other misuses.

In 2015, the Indian government launched its ambitious Digital India Campaign to provide government services to Indian citizens through online platforms. Yet, data security breach incidents continued to increase, particularly the trade in the sale and purchase of sensitive financial information related to bank accounts and credit card numbers. The online availability of a rich trove of data, accessible via a simple Google search without the use of any extractive software or hacking skills within a thriving shadow economy of data buyers and sellers makes India a particularly vulnerable digital economy, especially in the absence of robust legislation. The lack of awareness around digital crimes and low digital literacy further exacerbates the situation given that datafication via government portals, e-commerce, and online apps has outpaced the enforcement of legislative frameworks for data protection and cybersecurity.

In the context of Aadhaar data security issues, the term “data leak” seems to have more traction in media stories followed by the term “security breach”. Given the complexity of the myriad ways in which Aadhaar data has been breached, terms such as data leak and exposure (of 11 crore Indian farmers’ sensitive information) add to the specificity of the data security compromise. The term “fraud” also makes a comeback in the context of Aadhaar-related data security incidents. These cases represent a mix of data frauds involving fake identities, theft of thumb prints for instance from land registries and inadvertent data leaks in numerous incidents involving government employees in Jharkhand, voter ID information of Indian citizens in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and activist reports of Indian government websites leaking Aadhaar data.

Aadhaar-related data security events parallel the increase in corporate data breaches during the decade of datafication. The term “data leak” again alternates with the term “data breach” in most media accounts while other terms such as “theft” and “scam” all but disappear in the media coverage of corporate data breaches.

From 2016 onwards, incidents of corporate data breaches in India continued to rise. A massive debit card data breach involving the YES Bank ATMs and point-of-sale (PoS) machines compromised through malware between May and July of 2016 resulted in the exposure of ATM PINs and non-personal identifiable information of customers. It went undetected for nearly three months. Another data leak in 2018 concerned a system run by Indane, a state-owned utility company, which allowed anyone to download private information on all Aadhaar holders including their names, services they were connected to and the unique 12-digit Aadhaar number. Data breaches continued to be reported in India concurrent with the incidents of data mismanagement related to Aadhaar. Some prominent data breaches included a cyberattack on the systems of airline data service provider SITA resulting in the leak of Air India passenger data, leakage of the personal details of the Common Admission Test (CAT) applicants, details of credit card and order preferences of Domino’s pizza customers on the dark web, leakage of COVID-19 patients’ test results leaked by government websites, user data of Justpay and Big Basket for sale on the dark web and an SBI data breach among others between 2019 and 2021.

The media reportage of these data breaches use the term “cyberattack” to describe the activities of hackers and cybercriminals operating within a shadow economy or the dark web. Recent examples of cyberattacks by hackers who leak user data for sale on the dark web include 8.2 terabytes of 110 million sensitive financial data (KYC details, Aadhaar, credit/debit cards and phone numbers) of the payments app MobiKwik users, 180 million Domino’s pizza orders (name, location, emails, mobile numbers), and Flipkart’s Cleartrip users’ data. In these incidents again, three terms appear prominently in the media reportage - cyberattack, data breach, and leak. The term “data breach” remains the most frequently used epithet in the media coverage of the lapses of data security. While it alternates with the term “leak” in the stories, the term “data breach” appears consistently across most headlines in the news stories.

The exposure of sensitive, personal, and non-personal data by public and private entities in India is certainly a cause for concern, given the ongoing data protection legislative vacuum.

The media coverage of data breaches tends to emphasize the quantum of compromised user data aside from the types of data exposed. The media framing of these breaches in quantitative terms of financial loss as well as the magnitude and the number of breaches certainly highlights the gravity of these incidents but harm to individual users is often not addressed.

Evolving Terminology and the Source of Data Harms

The main difference in the media reportage of the BPO cybersecurity incidents during the early aughts and the contemporary context of datafication is the usage of the term, “data breach”, which figures prominently in contemporary reportage of data security incidents but not so much in the BPO-related cybercrimes.

THe BPO incidents of data theft and the attendant fraud must be understood in the context of the anxieties brought on by a globalizing world of Internet-enabled systems and transnational communications. In most of these incidents regarded as cybercrimes, the language of fraud and scam ventures further to attribute such illegal actions of the identifiable malefactors to cultural factors such as lack of ethics and professionalism.The usage of the term “data leak” in these media reports functions more specifically to underscore a broader lapse in data security as well as a lack of robust cybersecurity laws. The broader term, “breach”, is occasionally used to refer to these incidents but the term, “data breach” doesn’t appear as such.

The term “data breach” gains more prominence in media accounts from 2009 onwards in the context of Aadhaar and the online delivery of goods and services by public and private players. The term “data breach” is often used interchangeably with the term “leak” within the broader ambit of cyberattacks in the corporate sector. The media reportage frames Aadhaar-related security lapses as instances of security/data breaches, data leaks, fraud, and occasionally scam.

In contrast to the handful of data security cases in the BPO sector, data breaches have abounded in the second decade of the twenty-first century. What further differentiates the BPO-related incidents to the contemporary data breaches is the source of the data security lapse. Most corporate data breaches remain attributable to the actions of hackers and cybercriminals while the BPO security lapses were traceable back to ex-employees or insiders with access to sensitive data. We also see in the coverage of the BPO-related incidents, the attribution of such data security lapses to cultural factors including a lack of ethics and professionalism often in racial overtones. The media reportage of the BBC and ABC sting operations suggests that the India BPOs lack of preparedness to handle and maintain personal data confidentiality of foreigners point to the absence of a privacy culture in India. Interestingly, this transnational attribution recurs in a different form in the national debate on Aadhaar and how Indians don’t care about their privacy.

The question of the harms of data breaches to individuals is also an important one. In the discourse on contemporary data breaches, the actual material harm to an individual user is rarely ever established in the media reportage and generally framed as potential harm that could be devastating given the sensitivity of the compromised data. The harm is reported to be predominantly a function of organizational cybersecurity weakness or attributed to hackers and cybercriminals.

The reporting of harm in collective terms of the number of accounts breached, financial costs of a data breach, the sheer number of breaches and the global rankings of countries with the highest reported cases certainly suggests a problem with cybersecurity and the lack of organizational preparedness. However, this collective framing of a data breach’s impact usually elides an individual user’s experience of harm. Even in the case of Aadhaar-related breaches - a mix of leaking data on government websites and other online portals and breaches - the notion of harm owing to exposed data isn’t clearly established. This is, however, different from the extensively documented cases of Aadhaar-related issues in which welfare benefits have been denied, identities stolen and legitimate beneficiaries erased from the system due to technological errors.

Future Directions of Research

This brief, qualitative foray into the media coverage of data breaches over two decades has aimed to trace the usage of various terms in two different contexts - the Indian BPO-related incidents and the contemporary context of datafication. It would be worth exploring at length, the relationship between frequent reports of data breaches, and the language used to convey harm in the contemporary context of a concrete data protection legislation vacuum. It would be instructive to examine the specific uses of the terms such as “fraud”, “leak”, “scam”, “theft” and “breach” in media reporting of such data security incidents more exhaustively. Such analysis would elucidate how media reportage shapes public perception towards the safety of user data and an anticipation of attendant harm as data protection legislation continues to evolve.

Especially with Aadhaar, which represents a paradigm shift in identity verification through digital means, it would be useful to conduct a sentiment analysis of how biometric identity related frauds, scams, and leaks are reported by the mainstream news media. A study of user attitudes and behaviours in response to the specific terminology of data security lapses such as the terms “breach”, “leak”, “fraud”, “scam”, “cybercrime”, and “cyberattack” would further contribute to how lay users understand the gravity of a data security lapse. Such research would go beyond expert understandings of data security incidents that tend to dominate media reportage to elucidate the concerns of lay users and further clarify the cultural meanings of data privacy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/demistifying-data-breaches-in-india

Demonetisation: Cost Vs Benefit

praskrishna — 2017-01-17T16:04:16Z

Sunil Abraham took part in a discussion on Demonetisation in NDTV's Big Fight programme aired on December 24, 2016.

Prime Minister's big post-demonetisation deadline of 50 days is coming to a close. Does this mean that people's ordeal with the currency ban will also come to an end? Will the government continue to have people's support and patience through its big bang reforms if they fail to achieve their original aim of retrieving black money? We ask, what lies ahead for India? How long will it take for India to become a cashless economy? What are the pitfalls? With a high bank dormancy rate of 43%, most Indians still prefer to make transactions through cash. Even if we are able to make that journey to becoming a cashless economy by 2020, does the government have the infrastructure to make online payments safe?

Sunil Abraham said that the trouble with the design of the Aadhaar project is that it makes citizens transparent to the state and does not make state transparent to the citizen. With every generation of corruption busting technology we see new ways of corruption being introduced into our society. For more watch the video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-december-24-2016-demonetisation-cost-versus-benefit

Demonetisation Survey Limits the Range of Feedback that can be Provided by the User

tiwari — 2016-11-24T14:50:08Z

The government has faced increasingly targeted attacks by the Opposition and the public on the merits of the demonetisation move carried out a fortnight ago. In an attempt to placate this ire and to create a feedback loop that directly engages with the public, the government has decided to conduct a mass survey to gauge public perception. The survey is hosted on the Narendra Modi mobile application that can be found on the Android and iOS app stores. This article will attempt to analyse the mobile application by looking at the design principles followed in the survey and the scope given to survey takers to express their true opinion of the demonetisation move.

The article was published by First Post on November 24, 2016.

At the time of writing, 90 percent of respondents expressed the feeling that the government's move was 'brilliant/nice'. However, one must look into the merits of the survey and its limitations to understand the true value and nature of the results of the survey.

The first step required in order to take the survey, is downloading the application itself, which forces the user to automatically grant access to Contacts, Phone and Storage functions of their phone. While there are ostensible reasons for these permissions, (sharing the data from within the application, storing downloaded information, etc.) unless the user is running Android 6.0 or above, the user doesn’t have a choice in giving these permissions. This leaves the application with the potential to collect the entire phone book of the user as as well as access any files stored on the user’s device. This is independent of the survey and provides a large scope for massive data collection from any user just choosing to install the application in the first place. It is easily possible to create a version of the application that carries out a vast majority of its current functions without these permissions and the government (along with the application developer) should endeavour to do so at the earliest. In the alternative, they should have a clear and distinct privacy policy that informs users of the data collection and its possible use.

The second major step required to take the survey is the long and tedious registration process, which requires all sorts of details with massive privacy implications. This includes the name, email ID, phone number, residency details, profession and interests, all of which are compulsory fields. Why all of these details are necessary to take a supposedly simple survey and what possible use this information can be put to by the government is both unclear and problematic. It is also possible to register using Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites where there is a varying standard of equally private and unnecessary information that is being collected by the application from these websites. There are no privacy notices or consent forms that govern this information collection nor is their any indication of how this information will be put to use beyond the scope of the survey. The generic, standard form privacy policy (less than 10 lines long) on the Narendra Modi website is hidden at the bottom of the application download page (not in the application itself) and leaves a lot to be desired to safeguard user interest.

Once the registration is complete, the user is presented with the survey, which has a total of 10 questions of 3 broad categories. 6 of these questions have multiple choice answers, 3 of them have a sliding rating meter and 1 question has general comments/suggestion page. The article will now look at these categories and analyze the design of the questions, the extent of the choice they give to the users and finally if the survey has a coercive or limiting effect on the feedback that can be given by the user via the application regarding the demonetisation move.

Choice limiting multiple choice questions.

The first category of questions, the multiple choice questions (MCQ), have varying degree of choices that the user can select from. However, regardless of the extent of the choices, their exact nature is severely limiting and makes it almost impossible to express a truly negative opinion of the survey. This is done in two ways, first the explicit restriction of choices and second the more subtle negative colouring of responses by cleverly phrasing questions. An example of the explicit restriction of choices can be seen in Question No 7. “Demonetisation will bring real estate, higher education, healthcare in common man’s reach” which has three options, “Completely Agree, Partially Agree and Can’t Say.” There is no option to disagree with the paradigm set by the question and neither is there an option for the user to further explain or elucidate upon the answer, if he/she choose Can’t Say as an option. This also means that there will be no answers that will have “No” as an answer to the fairly open ended question, which can have a myriad of responses. The same can be said for Question No. 6 regarding the demonetisation move’s effectiveness in curbing illegal activities to which, once again, “No” is not an answer, with “Don’t Know” being the best a user disagreeing can do with the survey question.

The second, more subtle aspect of the MCQ questions are questions that serve as bait to demand a positive answer, which can be used to later bolster the survey's results in a positive light. For example, Question No. 1 reads “Do you think Black Money exists in India” and Question No. 2 reads “Do you think the evil of Corruption & Black Money needs to be fought and eliminated?” both of which have simple “Yes” and “No” as the only two possible responses. These rhetorical questions, which demand a positive answer, provide almost no aspect for the user to subtly or explicitly disagree with motivating factor behind the demonetisation move. The placement of these questions and the lack of choice in responses that can be given to them leaves huge potential to tilt the survey results in the favour of the government’s move. For example, you can’t simultaneously agree that black money is a problem and think the demonetisation move is a bad idea, simply because you can’t express that view in a single question within the survey.

Positive bias driven multiple choice question.

The other two categories of questions do not suffer from the overt problems of encouraging positive bias that the MCQ questions do but leave a fair bit to be desired in their outlook towards individuals who disagree with the move. In the sliding rating meter questions, there are strong visual cues that hint that disagreeing with the demonetisation move is a negative, undesirable idea. They do so by using a large, danger red frown as the icon for Question No. 5 that asks for the survey takers opinion on the ban on old 500 and 1000 rupee notes. The same goes for Question No. 3 that deals with the general moves of the government to tackle black money. This makes any opinion or answer that disagrees with the validity of the move an answer that is portrayed in a negative light. Similarly, the general comments/suggestion section in Question No. 10 is the only place for anyone to express a negative or non-concurring opinion, which there is no way to measure statistically in the overall survey results and will mostly likely not be counted in the final survey results.

Visual cues.

All of the above points clearly show that the design of both the Narendra Modi mobile application and its survey have huge potential for coercing a biased viewpoint upon any survey taker and ensure that it is almost possible to express a stark, negative opinion against the demonetisation move via the survey. This can and should be remedied by the government to allow for a more open, conducive and critical discourse to take place regarding the move among the public. It is only when such opinion is allowed to exist in the first place, that the government can understand, engage and respond to the various valid critiques of the move. The chilling effect that would take place in the current form of the survey would be counterproductive to the original intent behind its creation, which was to create a direct constructive feedback loop between the public and the government.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/first-post-udbhav-tiwari-november-24-2016-demonetisation-survey-limits-the-range-of-feedback-that-can-be-provided-by-the-user

Democracy and the Internet in 2017

praskrishna — 2017-03-28T15:19:14Z

Vidushi Marda gave a talk at St. Joseph's College of Commerce in Bengaluru on January 25, 2017. Vidushi spoke about democracy and the internet. The 50 minute talk was followed by 20 minutes of questions/comments.

Undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines such as social science, engineering, business, etc. attended the lecture. The talk broadly focused on:

The relationship between democracy and the internet. Why/how are they are closely related.
The internet's role in changing information exchange and communication. I drew on examples like the Arab Spring/Elections/Political change.
The growing usage of internet platforms for elections and also governance. Problematising the fact that these few private platforms seem to monopolise the internet, are only restricted to a certain elite audience, cannot be conflated with actual governance etc.
Fake News.
Algorithmic curation and filter bubbles.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/democracy-and-the-internet-in-2017

Delhi High Court Orders Blocking of Websites after Sony Complains Infringement of 2014 FIFA World Cup Telecast Rights

sinha — 2014-07-08T07:02:16Z

Of late the Indian judiciary has been issuing John Doe orders to block websites, most recently in Multi Screen Media v. Sunit Singh and Others. The order mandated blocking of 472 websites, out of which approximately 267 websites were blocked as on July 7, 2014. This trend is an extremely dangerous one because it encourages flagrant censorship by intermediaries based on a judicial order which does not provide for specific blocking of a URL, instead provides for blocking of the entire website.

The High Court of Delhi on June 23, 2014 issued a John Doe injunction restraining more than 400 websites from broadcasting 2014 FIFA world cup matches. News reports indicate that the Single judge bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao directed the Department of Telecom to issue appropriate directions to ISPs to block the websites that Multi Screen Media provided, as well as “any other website identified by the plaintiff” in the future. On July 4, Justice G. S. Sistani permitted reducing the list to 219 websites.

Background

Multi Screen Media (MSM) is the official broadcaster for the ongoing 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament. FIFA (the Governing body) had exclusively licensed rights to MSM which included live, delayed, highlights, on demand, and repeat broadcast of the FIFA matches. MSM complained that the defendants indulged in hosting, streaming, providing access to, etc, thereby infringing the exclusive rights and broadcast and reproduction rights of MSM.

The court in the instant order held that the defendants had prima facie infringed MSM’s broadcasting rights, which are guaranteed by section 37 of the Copyright Act, 1957. In an over-zealous attempt to pre-empt infringement the court called for a blanket ban on all websites identified by MSM. Further, the court directed the concerned authorities to ensure ISPs complied with this order and block the websites mentioned by MSM presently, and other websites which may be subsequently be notified by MSM.

Where the Court went Wrong

The court stated that MSM successfully established a prima facie case, and on its basis granted a sweeping injunction to MSM ordering blocking 471 second level domains. I’d like to point out numerous flaws with the order-

Dissatisfactory "Prima facie case"

In my opinion the court could have scrutinised the list of websites provided by MSM more carefully. There is nothing in the order to suggest that evidence was proffered by MSM in support of the list. The order reveals that the list was prepared by MarkScan, a “consulting boutique dedicated to (the client’s) IP requirements in the cyberspace and the Indian sub-continent.” The list throws up names such as docs.google.com, goo.gl & ad.ly (provide URL shortening service only), torrent indexing websites, IP addresses, online file streaming websites, etc., at a cursory glance. Evidently, perfectly legitimate websites have been targeted by an ill conducted search and shoddily prepared list which may lead to blocking of legitimate content on account of no verification by the court. 471 websites out of 472 mentioned in the first list are second level domains and 23 websites have been listed twice.

2. Generic order which abysmally fails to identify specific infringing URLS

Out of the 472 websites (list provided in the order by MarkScan)-

471 are file streaming websites, video sharing websites, file lockers, URL shorteners, file storage websites; only one is a specific URL [http://www.24livestreamtv.com/brazil-2014-fifa-world-cup-football-%20%C2%A0%C2%A0live-streaming-online-t ].

The order calls for blocking of complete websites. This is in complete contradiction to the 2012 Madras High Court’s order in R K Productions v BSNL which held that only a particular URL where the infringing content is kept should be blocked, rather than the entire website. The Madras High Court order had also made it mandatory for the complainants to provide exact URLs where they find illegal content, such that ISPs could block only that content and not the entire site. MSM did not adhere to this and I have serious doubts if the defendants brought the distinguishing Madras High Court judgment to the attention of the bench. The entire situation is akin to MarkScan scamming MSM by providing their clients a dodgy list, and MSM scamming the court and the public at large.

3. Lack of Transparency – Different blocking messages on different ISPs

The message displayed uniformly on blocked websites was:

"This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications."

I observed that a few websites showed the message “Error 404 – File or Directory not found” without the blocking message (above) on the network provider Reliance, and same Error 404 with the blocking message on the network provider Airtel highlighting the non-transparent manner of adherence to the order. Further, both the messages do not indicate the end period of the block.

Legality of John Doe orders in Website Blocking

It is pertinent to reiterate the ‘misuse’ of John Doe orders to block websites in India. The judiciary has erred in applying the John Doe order to protect copyrightable content on the internet. While the R K Productions v BSNL case appears reasonable in terms of permitting blocking of only URL specific content, the application of John Doe order to block websites remains unfounded in law. Ananth Padmanabhan in a three part study (Part I, II and III) had earlier analysed the improper use of John Doe injunctions to block websites in India. The John Doe order was conceived by US courts to pre-emptively remedy the irreparable damages suffered by copyright holders on account of unidentified/unnamed infringers. The interim injunction allowed collection of evidence from infringers, who were identified later as certain defendants and the final relief was accordingly granted. The courts routinely advocated judicious use of the order, and ensured that the identified defendants were provided and informed of their right to apply to the court within twenty four hours for a review of the order and a right to claim damages in an appropriate case. Therefore, the John Doe order applied against primary infringers per se.

On the other hand, whilst extending this remedy in India the courts have unfortunately placed onus on the conduit i.e. the ISP to block websites. This is tantamount to providing final relief at the interim stage, since all content definitely gets blocked; however, this hardly helps in identifying the actual infringer on the internet. The court is prematurely doling out blocking remedies to the complaining party, which, legally speaking should be meted out only during the final disposition of the case after careful examination of the evidence available. Thus, the intent of a John Doe order is miserably lost in such an application. Moreover, this lends an arbitrary amount of power in the hands of intermediaries since ISPs may or may not choose to approach the court for directions to specifically block URLs which provide access to infringing content only.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/delhi-high-court-orders-blocking-of-websites-after-sony-complains-infringement-of-2014-fifa-world-cup-telecast-rights

Delhi Govt Sets Up WiFi Task Force

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T07:06:41Z

Delhi government is believed to have set up a task force to enable WiFi in the city. The task force, which has been recently constituted, includes entrepreneur and start-up advisor Mahesh Murthy, Medianama founder Nikhil Pahwa and Center for Internet Society director Pranesh Prakash, as per a report by PTI.

Originally published by Press Trust of India, the news was mirrored by TeleAnalysis on March 18, 2015.

The Wifi task force was set up by Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC), which besides this, will also look after various initiatives that can make Delhi a better place to live. The commission, in the past, has sought suggestions, expert opinions and proposals from domain experts in various issues related to Delhi. The DDC is evaluating various proposals and will act accordingly, the report said.

The DDC is inviting proposals and suggestions, comments and ideas over email at ddc.delhi@gov.in and the Whatsapp helpline +919643327265.

“These have received tremendous response with over 400 emails and thousands of Whatsapp messages coming in from Delhi citizens, who sent in their requests and needs and also detailed technical assistance and support in the implementation of this project,” the government said in a statement.

While the above email Id is active and we got an instant automated response, when sent a query, the Whatsapp number seems to be dead, as it was last seen on ‘1/25/2015′.

Providing free WiFi in Delhi was a part of the manifesto of the Aam Aadmi Party.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/tele-analysis-gyana-ranjan-swain-delhi-govt-sets-up-wifi-task-force

Delhi government in consultation with Centre to block Uber's Internet address

praskrishna — 2015-03-09T02:12:15Z

The Delhi transport department has started consultation with the central government to block the internet address of taxi hailing app Uber if the San Francisco-based startup does not obtain a radio taxi licence to ply its cabs in the national capital.

The article by Harsimran Julka was published in the Economic Times on February 25, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Blocking Uber's IP will mean the company's website and mobile phone application will no longer be accessible in India, effectively shutting down operations in a country which the startup estimates is its largest market outside the United States.

Uber has operations across 10 cities in India with over 10,000 cabs registered on its platform."We have initiated a process with the central government to block (Uber's) IP address in India if the company doesn't abide by law," said a senior official in the Delhi transport department.

Uber and other taxi app companies were banned from operating in Delhi after the alleged rape of a passenger by a driver on the Uber network in December 2014. Subsequently, the transport department modified radio taxi laws and directed Uber and rivals OlaCabs and Taxiforsure to obtain licences to operate legally in the city. While Ola has obtained a licence, Uber, which terms itself as a technology company and not a transport provider, has been demanding that it be regulated under the Information Technology Act. "There has to be an end to the matter somewhere," said the official quoted above. The department has given Uber time until February 25 to submit a revised application for a radio taxi licence.

"We are waiting to see if they comply and apply for a licence before issuing a written request (to block the IP address),' said a second official who confirmed that the transport department had already begun discussions with the department of IT. Zubeda Begum, the standing counsel for the Delhi government is likely to submit an affidavit on Wednesday in the Delhi High Court on the method to be adopted to block the IP address.

The court, which is hearing the case of the alleged rape, had raised the issue of banning IP addresses of taxi app companies after the state government complained that the companies continued to ply in the national despite the ban.

"It is the central government which will have to block the website. The Delhi government just has to make a request," Begum told ET.

Pawan Duggal, cyber law expert and a Supreme Court advocate, said that the blocking of websites in India can be done under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act but the rules to get them unblocked are unclear.

"A court order may be needed to get it unblocked," said Duggal.

A spokeswoman for Uber said the company will continue to work with the authorities and is "evaluating the perceived deficiencies in the time period provided to us by the government."

This is not the first time that the website of a foreign company will be banned in India. Last December, about 32 websites including SourceForge, Archive, Vimeo, Dailymotion were banned on grounds of national security. Uber itself has had its IP address blocked in countries such as Spain. Last December, a Madrid Court ordered Spain's telcos to block access to Uber.

"Any state government department can request the designated authority to block a website. The authority has to then forward the request to a committee, which takes the decision," said Pranesh Prakash, at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-harsimran-julka-february-25-2015-delhi-government-in-consultation-with-centre-to-block-ubers-internet-address

Delhi gang rape: What Facebook, Twitter expose about govt

praskrishna — 2012-12-31T01:02:44Z

When constable Subhash Tomar collapsed during the anti-rape agitation in New Delhi, the government was keen to say he suffered injuries inflicted by the protesters. But the administration's version of events was challenged soon on social media, and the mainstream media latched onto the mystery and started pressurising the government to come clean.

The article was published in the Times of India on December 29, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The Tomar episode, when social media set the agenda and put the government on the back foot, is one more example of rise of people's power online. The political class in India has been shaken by the speed and efficiency with which the recent protests were coordinated. Some of them, like Abhijit Mukherjee, have ended up putting their foot in their mouth while others like Congress' youth icon and heir apparent Rahul Gandhi have not even cared to react.

The reason for Tomar's death is still unclear, but the post-mortem report has attributed it to external injuries.

"Frankly, right now, we haven't figured out how to deal with this phenomenon," said Congress Party Spokesman Sandeep Dikshit.

The anti-corruption movement of Anna Hazare, the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US, and the Arab Spring were all largely organised through social networking sites. Even in neighbouring Pakistan, the raid that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was first reported on microblogging site Twitter, further highlighting social media's growing importance as a source of information. Such is the influence and impact of social media that many are increasingly referring to it as the "fifth pillar of democracy".

Influence bound to grow

India has over 120 million internet users - Twitter has about 16 million and Facebook over 60 million - but this is still just one-tenth of the population.

Also, as 3G penetration increases, data becomes accessible on more feature phones. While about 221 million mobiles were sold in India in 2012, sales are expected to touch 251 million units in 2013, according to technology market researcher Gartner. With so much of growth still left to come, the influence of social media is only bound to grow.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor, one of the early converts to social media and inveterate tweeter, said the social media space is a "parallel universe to the mainstream media" and that stories on these platforms have a "resonance of their own".

"It is a medium that allows big issues to be made out of issues that mainstream media ignores but politicians cannot," he said.

Brand guru Harish Bijoor is of the view that the political class must pay attention to the information revolution as India is a very young country in terms of demographics. "The political class appears a gerontocracy while 54% of the population is below 25 and 70% below 35. There is a disconnect that must be addressed."

Kedar Gavane, director at Internet analytics company ComScore India, said an average Indian Facebook user has about 300 friends. "That's the kind of reach an individual and his messages have on social networks," he said. "Twitter has helped us identify the common man's feelings. For instance, when a candlelight protest is organised, you get to know what the protesters are thinking."

But the real question, he said, is whether people are actually willing to go beyond these platforms. "Whether it can become the Fifth Estate or not is hard to say because at the end of the day, this is just a channel for communication."

With the government struggling for a credible response to the growing influence of social media, it has often resorted to blocking user accounts and web pages. The government, which blocked 663 webpages in 2012, asked Indian Internet service providers to block 16 Twitter accounts, including those of right-wing leaders and journalists.

In the first half of 2012, the government made 2,319 requests for information on 3,467 user accounts of search engine giant Google. Google complied with 64% of these.

While the influence of social media is not lost on those such as Dikshit, he said the problem is "how to break in with an alternative view". "It is like a community of people who think the same way and validate each others' opinions. The number of people who validate your opinion does not make it the right opinion, but that fine distinction is getting lost somewhere."

There are others who feel the role of social media in protests is often exaggerated. "The agency for change resides first in people and only secondarily in platforms," according to Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society.

(With inputs from Joji Thomas Philip in New Delhi)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-december-29-2012-delhi-gang-rape