We are anonymous, we are legion

TOI literary festival kicks off today

praskrishna — 2015-02-05T15:37:21Z

The Times Litfest 2015, Bengaluru, kicks off on Saturday at the Jayamahal Palace Hotel. The two-day festival is among the biggest such literary enclaves in Bengaluru. It'll see some of India's foremost creative minds talk, argue, debate, discuss and engage with vital topics which touch our lives.

Over two busy days, achievers from every field will talk about reading, writing, culture, journalism, food, comedy, sport, films and much, much more. Speakers on Day 1 include historian Ramachandra Guha, NR Narayana Murthy and Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl, star chef Manu Chandra, and comedians Radhika Vaz and Rubi Chakravarti.

It's not all fun and games. Our serious sessions include Raghavendra Joshi talking about his father Bhimsen Joshi's legacy; Rohan Murty (founder of the Murty Classical Library), author and historian Vikram Sampath and translator Arunava Sinha on preserving our cultural heritage; and Pranesh Prakash of Centre for Internet and Society, Lawrence Liang of Alternative Law Forum, and author and journalist Vivek Kaul on internet censorship and net neutrality.

Read the full coverage on the Times of India newspaper here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-january-31-2015-toi-literary-kicks-off-today

To regulate Net intermediaries or not is the question

sunil — 2012-08-26T06:12:48Z

Given the disruption to public order caused by the mass exodus of North-Eastern Indians from several cities, the government has had for the first time in many years, a legitimate case to crackdown on Internet intermediaries and their users.

Sunil's column was published in the Deccan Herald on August 26, 2012.

There was, of course, much room for improvement in the manner in which the government conducted the censorship. But the policy question that becomes most pertinent now is: do we need to regulate Internet intermediaries further? The answer is yes and no.

There are areas where these intermediaries need to be regulated in order to protect citizen and consumer interest. But to deal with rumour-mongering and hate speech, there is sufficient provisions in Indian law to deal with the current disruption in public order and any similar disruptions in the future.

It is a common misunderstanding to assume that all civil society organisations that advocate civil liberties on networked technologies are regulatory doves that wish to dismantle regulation of the private sector and allow them complete free hand for innovation and, perhaps, causing harm to public interest.

The opposite is also not necessarily true. We are not hawks, those that believe in maximal regulation of the private sector. The state should regulate the private sector in areas where the citizens are unable to protect their own interest and self-regulation is inadequate. But there are many other areas where regulation needs to be dismantled in the interests of citizen and public interest.

Dr Rohan Samarajiva, founder of a Colombo-based regional policy think tank LIRNEasia, explains this best using the ‘law of soft toys’. When his daughter was young he told her that in Sri Lanka there was a law which mandated that every time she got a new soft toy, she would have to necessarily give away another one.

The regulatory lesson here is: the mandate for regulation cannot keep endlessly expanding. As the government moves into new areas of regulation, it should also exit other older areas where regulatory rupee is providing limited returns. These decisions should be based on evidence of harm caused to citizens and consumers. The following are a list of areas where regulation is required for Internet intermediaries:

Privacy: India needs the office of the privacy commissioner established and an articulation of national privacy principles through the enactment of the long awaited Privacy Act. This privacy commissioner should be able to investigate complaints against intermediaries, proactively investigate companies, order remedial action and fine companies that violate the principles and other policies in force. Remedial action could require change in policies, features, data retention policies and services etc.

Competition: Many of these intermediaries have been taken to court on anti-trust complaints, fined and subjected to remedial action by regulators in America and Europe.

Earlier this year, BharatMatrimony.com has filed a complaint against Google at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) alleging anti-competitive practices in its Adwords program. In addition, based on a report submitted by Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS), a civil society organisation, CCI has initiated an investigation into Google's search engine for anti-competitive practices. If they are found guilty of breaking competition law they could be fined up to 10 per cent of their turnover.

Speech: Article 19(2) of the Constitution permits Parliament to enact laws that place eight categories of reasonable restrictions on speech. Unfortunately, the Information Technology Act and its associated rules attempts to expand these restrictions and in addition does not comply with the principles of natural justice. Ideally, all those impacted by the censorship should be informed and should be able to seek redress and reinstatement for the censured speech.

The policy sting operation conducted by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) last year demonstrated that intermediaries are risk-averse and tend to over-comply with takedown notices. There is a clear chilling effect on speech online and it is important that the Act and rules be amended at the earliest.

Intellectual Property: Policies that fall under this inappropriate umbrella term for many differently configured laws make the yet unproven fundamental assumption that granting limited monopolies to rights holders, usually corporations, will result in greater innovation. However, citizen and consumer interest is protected through provisions for exceptions and limitations in laws such as copyright, patent, trademarks etc. Some examples of these safeguards that guarantee access to knowledge in Indian law include compulsory licences, patent opposition, fair-dealing etc.

There are many other areas where special treatment may be required for intermediaries. For example tax law needs to handle evasion techniques like the Double Irish and the Dutch Sandwich. Given my lengthy wish-list of regulation of Internet intermediaries, why then has CIS become an NGO member of the Global Network Initiative?

This is because I believe that technological development happen too quickly for us to purely depend on government regulation. Self-regulation has an important role to play in keeping up with these rapid changes. As self-regulatory norms mature they could be formalised into policy by the government.

Therefore, I consider it a privilege that CIS has been accepted as a member of this self-regulatory initiative and we influence GNI norms using our Indian perspective. However, when self-regulation fails to protect public interest, then the government must step in to regulate Internet intermediaries.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-deccan-herald-aug-26-2012-to-regulate-net-intermediaries-or-not-is-the-question

To protect data, don’t opt for plastic or laminated Aadhaar card: UIDAI

Admin — 2018-02-07T01:00:00Z

Unauthorized printing of Aadhaar cards could render the QR (quick response) code dysfunctional or even expose personal data without an individual’s informed consent, UIDAI says.

The article by Komal Gupta was published by Livemint on February 7, 2017

To protect information provided by holders of Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Tuesday cautioned people against opting for plastic or laminated “smart” cards.

Unauthorized printing of the cards could render the QR (quick response) code dysfunctional or even expose personal data without an individual’s informed consent, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Besides, opting for plastic or laminated cards opened up the possibility of Aadhaar details (personal sensitive demographic information) being shared with devious elements without the informed consent of holders, the statement added.

According to UIDAI, the Aadhaar letter sent by it, a cutaway portion or downloaded versions of Aadhaar on ordinary paper or mAadhaar are perfectly valid.

“If a person has a paper Aadhaar card, there is absolutely no need to get his/her Aadhaar card laminated or obtain a plastic Aadhaar card or so called smart Aadhaar card by paying money. There is no concept such as smart or plastic Aadhaar card,” UIDAI chief executive officer Ajay Bhushan Pandey said in a statement.

Printing Aadhaar on a plastic/PVC sheet privately can cost anywhere between Rs50 and Rs300 or more, UIDAI said. It added that a printout of the downloaded Aadhaar card, even in black and white, is as valid as the original Aadhaar letter sent by UIDAI.

It added that in case a person loses his Aadhaar card, he can download the card free from https://eaadhaar.uidai.gov.in.

Pandey asked holders not to share Aadhaar number or personal details with unauthorized agencies for getting the card laminated, or printed on plastic.

The agency also directed unauthorized agencies not to collect Aadhaar information from people, reminding them that collecting such information or unauthorized printing of Aadhaar card is a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment.

“I feel a lot more has to be done by UIDAI. Sadly, by encouraging people to rely on printed Aadhaar ‘cards’, UIDAI is ending up with the worst of both worlds with respect to personal data protection: photocopies of so-called Aadhaar cards/letter are being circulated to facilitate identity fraud as well as the kind of dangerous personal data disclosures that centralized databases enable,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at think tank Centre for Internet and Society.

Last month, UIDAI put in place a two-layer security to reinforce privacy protections for Aadhaar holders—it introduced a virtual identification so that the actual number need not be shared to authenticate their identity. Simultaneously, it further regulated the storage of the Aadhaar numbers within various databases.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-komal-gupta-february-7-2017-to-protect-data-dont-opt-for-plastic-or-laminated-Aadhaar

To preserve freedoms online, amend the IT Act

gurshabad — 2019-04-16T10:09:41Z

Look into the mechanisms that allow the government and ISPs to carry out online censorship without accountability.

The article by Gurshabad Grover was published in the Hindustan Times on April 16, 2019.

The issue of blocking of websites and online services in India has gained much deserved traction after internet users reported that popular services like Reddit and Telegram were inaccessible on certain Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The befuddlement of users calls for a look into the mechanisms that allow the government and ISPs to carry out online censorship without accountability.

Among other things, Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which regulates takedown and blocking of online content, allows both government departments and courts to issue directions to ISPs to block websites. Since court orders are in the public domain, it is possible to know this set of blocked websites and URLs. However, the process is much more opaque when it comes to government orders.

The Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, issued under the Act, detail a process entirely driven through decisions made by executive-appointed officers. Although some scrutiny of such orders is required normally, it can be waived in cases of emergencies. The process does not require judicial sanction, and does not present an opportunity of a fair hearing to the website owner. Notably, the rules also mandate ISPs to maintain all such government requests as confidential, thus making the process and complete list of blocked websites unavailable to the general public.

In the absence of transparency, we have to rely on a mix of user reports and media reports that carry leaked government documents to get a glimpse into what websites the government is blocking. Civil society efforts to get the entire list of blocked websites have repeatedly failed. In response to the Right to Information (RTI) request filed by the Software Freedom Law Centre India in August 2017, the Ministry of Electronics and IT refused to provide the entire of list of blocked websites citing national security and public order, but only revealed the number of blocked websites: 11,422.

Unsurprisingly, ISPs do not share this information because of the confidentiality provision in the rules. A 2017 study by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found all five ISPs surveyed refused to share information about website blocking requests. In July 2018, the Bharat Sanchar Nagam Limited rejected the RTI request by CIS which asked for the list of blocked websites.

The lack of transparency, clear guidelines, and a monitoring mechanism means that there are various forms of arbitrary behaviour by ISPs. First and most importantly, there is no way to ascertain whether a website block has legal backing through a government order because of the aforementioned confidentiality clause. Second, the rules define no technical method for the ISPs to follow to block the website. This results in some ISPs suppressing Domain Name System queries (which translate human-parseable addresses like ‘example.com’ to their network address, ‘93.184.216.34’), or using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) headers to block requests. Third, as has been made clear with recent user reports, users in different regions and telecom circles, but serviced by the same ISP, may be facing a different list of blocked websites. Fourth, when blocking orders are rescinded, there is no way to make sure that ISPs have unblocked the websites. These factors mean that two Indians can have wildly different experiences with online censorship.

Organisations like the Internet Freedom Foundation have also been pointing out how, if ISPs block websites in a non-transparent way (for example, when there is no information page mentioning a government order presented to users when they attempt to access a blocked website), it constitutes a violation of the net neutrality rules that ISPs are bound to since July 2018.

While the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the rules in 2015 in Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India, recent events highlight how the opaque processes can have arbitrary and unfair outcomes for users and website owners. The right to access to information and freedom of expression are essential to a liberal democratic order. To preserve these freedoms online, there is a need to amend the rules under the IT Act to replace the current regime with a transparent and fair process that makes the government accountable for its decisions that aim to censor speech on the internet.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindustan-times-april-16-2019-gurshabad-grover-to-preserve-freedoms-online-amend-it-act

Time to bury e-mail?

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:30:10Z

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, had a simple message to the world: email is outdated since it can no longer handle the sort of digital communication that we’ve got used to. Facebook Messages, which integrates email, SMS, instant messaging and social networking, is the way forward, he claimed.

Zuckerberg isn’t the first one to point out the limitations of email. Last year Google too said that email, a technology invented in the ’60s, was not equipped to serve our current needs. “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today,” Google proclaimed during the launch of Google Wave.

As it turned out, Wave was a great product but served an entirely different purpose — collaboration. While this made sense at the enterprise level, it didn’t offer much added value to email users engaging in one-to-one conversations. Google Wave today is defunct since users didn’t buy into Google’s argument. Will Facebook Messages suffer the same fate?

The answer depends a lot on whether users face the problem that Zuckerberg claims they do. “A lot of people are trying to solve the problem of email. But I don’t know what that problem is,” says Mahesh Murthy, CEO, Pinstorm, a digital marketing agency. According to Murthy, there are three main issues with email: storage space, spam filtering and prioritising messages. And modern email services such as Gmail have evolved to address these concerns.

Facebook obviously thinks otherwise. According to the company we need one inbox for all our digital communication, which includes emails, chats and SMS. Second, messages from your Facebook contacts will be considered more important and will go into Social Inbox. All other messages will go into a separate folder. Third, messages will be threaded according to people and not subject lines as is the case with Gmail and other email services.

According to Gaurav Mishra, head, social media practise, MS&L Group, these are compelling reasons to start using Facebook Messages. But enough to ditch your email account? Not quite, say experts.

“Integration is a marketing myth,” says Nishant Shah, director, Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research organisation, “Many of us like to keep our information in different silos. We have heard of young people getting fired from their jobs because they were not able to keep personal information compartmentalised.”

Secondly, giving greater priority to messages from people in your contact list may be misplaced. “The nature of conversation on Facebook is casual and the criticality of a message and hence the need for an immediate response may not be that high,” points out Murthy. An email from, say, a client or a prospective recruiter who may not be on your friends list, may be more critical.

There’s no doubting that Facebook Messages could change the way we conduct our casual conversations. But email serves basic and universal needs. For example, while introducing the new service, Zuckerberg pointed out how school kids felt email was too slow. According to Shah, however, it is important to understand what the kids found email slow for. A movie plan can be made quicker through SMS, but the same kids might submit their assignments via email.

Of course, Zuckerberg has not claimed that Facebook Messages will be an email — or more specifically Gmail — killer. But Facebook’s PR machinery would have known how the media would react. By undermining the very concept of email — one of Google’s strongest products — Facebook has managed to make Google look like the hero of yesteryears.

Analysts agree that Facebook Messages is really about retaining users on its website — if Facebook can give its users a reason to spend more time on its website rather than that of an email service, it can serve more ads. “It is about economics. But Facebook is trying to turn it into a cultural argument,” says Shah.

Still, one thing is certain; Facebook Messages will not suffer the same fate as Google Wave, partly because it is simply an update (and a rather good one) to an existing feature within Facebook. But it is far from a replacement to email. As Mishra puts it, “I will not close down my existing email ids. But I will start using Facebook to message my relatives and friends. It is going to be the future of messaging, not the future of email.”

Read the original in DNA

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bury-email

TikTok craze a ticking time bomb for city

Gulam Jeelani — 2019-04-17T08:46:05Z

Unlike YouTube, where videos take a long time to upload, on TikTok it happens in a matter of seconds. Not just the youth, the trend has captured the imagination of criminals too.

The article by Gulam Jeelani with inputs from Priyanka Sharma and Ajay Kumar was published in India Today on April 17, 2019. Shweta Mohandas was quoted.

Last Saturday, 19-year-old Salman Zakir was accidentally shot dead when his friend and he were shooting a video at central Delhi's Ranjit Singh flyover - to be uploaded on the Chinese mobile application TikTok. The latest craze of filming short duration videos for this app, which uploads these within seconds, is giving headaches to the police, as well as parents.

In the last two weeks, the police have arrested at least six youth (including two of Salman's friends), who were caught posing with guns, making clips and uploading those on the app. Responding to this frenzy, the Union Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday asked Google and Apple to take down TikTok from their app stores.

The order came a day after the Supreme Court refused to stay a Madras High Court order asking the Centre to ban the viral app for the potential harm it could cause owing to inappropriate content being posted - pornography and violence. The ministry's order may lead to pulling down the app from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, preventing any further downloads. The order will not, however, prevent people who have already downloaded the app from using it.

OF GUNS AND GRANDSTANDING

Salman, along with his friends Sohail and Amir, had gone out for a drive to India Gate. While returning, Sohail sitting next to Salman, who was driving the car, pulled out a country-made pistol. He aimed it at Salman while trying to make the TikTok video, but the pistol went off shooting him on his left cheek. In February this year, a daily wage worker was allegedly killed by his friend in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu for uploading an abusive video targeting another community, on Tik-Tok. The video even led to tension and unrest in the village.

Unlike YouTube, where videos take a long time to upload, on TikTok it happens in a matter of seconds. Not just the youth, the trend has captured the imagination of criminals too. Two weeks before Salman's death, apparently carried away by TikTok's online popularity, two criminals landed in the police net after a video featuring them flaunting pistols surfaced on the app. Shahzada Parvez (24) and Monu (23), had been on the police's radar for long.

"They were fans of singer Honey Singh. Earlier, too, they shot a video brandishing pistols at a community function and put it on social media," deputy commissioner of Delhi Police Anto Alphonse said.

"The young and the restless have a tendency to try out new applications in order to gain quick popularity on the web," added Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police, New Delhi.

TikTok, known as Douyin in China, where the parent company is based, is a mobile app for filming and sharing videos set to music or a voice-over. With a reported 500 million subscribers worldwide, India is the biggest market for the app, comprising almost 40% of global downloads. According to market analysis firm Sensor Tower, India accounted for 88.6 million new users out of 188 new users in the March quarter.

QUITE A FAD

The app is the latest fad to give parents and teachers cause for concern after the popularity of dangerous online dares such as the Blue Whale Challenge and Kiki Car. "I had seen my son shooting videos at home and at times he would ask me to pose as well. But I came to know about TikTok when his teacher called me," said Vaishali Dhar, a resident of East Nizamuddin, whose son studies in class 8. "I have decided not to encourage him."

Apart from homes and schools, teenagers have been spotted shooting videos in public places such as the recently opened Signature Bridge which connects Wazirabad to East Delhi. Police have had to resort to chasing people shooting videos atop their cars on the bridge. The app is also a rage among Bollywood-crazed Indians who post videos lip-syncing to songs or reciting movie dialogues. It allows the creation of a 15-second video with the user miming to songs. The videos range from harmless to the explicit, depending upon the users one follows.

Last week, ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, said it had removed more than six million videos that violated its guidelines. The company has appealed against the stay against the ban, claiming it would harm free speech. "We are committed to continuously enhancing our existing measures and introducing additional technical and moderation processes as part of our ongoing commitment to our users in India," it said in an emailed statement.

OVERUSE & ABUSE

But can the app itself be blamed for its misuse? Experts advocate taking the awareness and sensitisation approach than imposing a blanket ban. Faisal Kawoosa, Chief Analyst at Gurugram-based market research firm techARC, says the easy and inexpensive availability of the Internet and increased smartphone penetration has contributed to the growth of TikTok, and other apps in the country. "Banning is no solution. If you can't download it from the app store (which is authentic), you will encourage illegal downloads which are even more dangerous," adds Kawoosa.

"Even in a Google sign-up, one needs to be above 18 years of age. So it is more about ethics that we practise than an app having a problem," he said. Some experts also raised data privacy concerns which come with the application. "The issue with these apps as with other apps is that it is not clear in which way the data is being processed, stored, or shared with third parties," said Shweta Mohandas, policy officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bengaluru-based research and advocacy non-profit.

"I do not think that a ban on Tik-Tok is a solution. People forget that the existing videos can still be shared on other social media platforms. A young person with TikTok on his or her phone will in all probability be active on other social media and messaging apps. A better approach is to sensitise people about the way the app functions, and the information that is public on the app," she said.

In the US, the app has been accused of collecting personal data from users under the age of 13 without parental consent. "Every other person has a mobile phone today. In the recent past, the Blue Whale challenge, Kiki car challenge and now TikTok have become an entertainment tool for the youth and schoolchildren. In order to attain instant fame and validation from peers with likes and shares, they end up making viral videos on social media," said Dr Rajeev Mehta, Vice Chairman of psychiatry department at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-today-april-17-2019-gulam-jeelani-tik-tok-craze-a-ticking-time-bomb-for-city

Through the looking glass: Analysing transparency reports

Torsha Sarkar, Suhan S and Gurshabad Grover — 2019-11-02T05:48:59Z

An analysis of companies' transparency reports for government requests for user data and content removal

Over the past decade, a few private online intermediaries, by rapid innovation and integration, have turned into regulators of a substantial amount of online speech. Such concentrated power calls for a high level of responsibility on them to ensure that the rights of the users online, including their rights to free speech and privacy, are maintained. Such responsibility may include appealing or refusing to entertain government requests that are technically or legally flawed, or resisting gag orders on requests. For the purposes of measuring a company’s practices regarding refusing flawed requests and standing up for user rights, transparency reporting becomes useful and relevant.Making information regarding the same public also ensures that researchers can build upon such data and recommend ways to improve accountability and enables the user to understand information about when and how governments are restricting their rights.

For some time in the last decade, Google and Twitter were the only major online platforms that published half-yearly transparency reports documenting the number of content take down and user information requests they received from law enforcement agencies. In 2013 however, that changed, when the Snowden leaks revealed, amongst other things, that these companies were often excessively compliant with requests from US’ intelligence operations, and allowed them backdoor surveillance access to user information. Subsequently, all the major Silicon Valley internet companies have been attempting to publish a variance or other of transparency reports, in hopes of re-building their damaged goodwill, and displaying a measure of accountability to its users.

The number of government requests for user data and content removal has also seen a steady rise. In 2014, for instance Google noted that in the US alone, they observed a 19% rise for the second half of the year, and an overall 250% jump in numbers since Google began providing this information. As per a study done by Comparitech, India sent the maximum number of government requests for content removal and user data in the period of 2009 - 2018.8 This highlights the increasing importance of accessible transparency reporting.

Initiatives analysing the transparency reporting practices of online platforms, like The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)’s Who Has Your Back? reports, for instance, have developed a considerable body of work tracing these reporting practices, but have largely focused at them in the context of the United States (US). In our research, we found that the existing methodology and metrics to assess the transparency reports of online platforms developed by organisations like the EFF are not adequate in the Indian context. We identify two reasons for developing a new methodology:

Online platforms make available vastly different information for US and India. For instance, Facebook breaks up the legal requests it receives for US into eight different classes (search warrants, subpoenas, etc.). Such a classification is not present for India. These differences are summarised in Annexure
The legal regimes and procedural safeguards under which states can compel platforms to share information or take content down also differ. For instance, in India, an order for content takedown can be issued either under section 79 and its allied rules or under section 69A and its rules, each having their own procedures and relevant authorities. A summary of such provisions for Indian agencies is given in Annexure 3.

These differences may merit differences in the methodology for research into understanding the reporting practices of these platforms, depending on each jurisdiction’s legal context.

In this report, we would be analyzing the transparency reports of online platforms with a large Indian user-base, specifically focusing on data they publish about user information and takedown requests received from Indian governments’ and courts.

First, we detail our methodology for this report, including how we selected platforms whose transparency reports we analyse, and then specific metrics relating to information available in those reports. For the latter, we collate relevant metrics from existing frameworks, and propose a standard that can be applicable for our research.

In the second part, we present company-specific reports. We identify general trends in the data published by the company, and then compare the available data to the best practices of transparency reporting that we proposed.

Download the full report. The report was edited by Elonnai Hickok. Research assistance by Keying Geng and Anjanaa Aravindan.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/torsha-sarkar-suhan-s-and-gurshabad-grover-october-30-2019-through-the-looking-glass

Three Years Later, IPaidABribe.com Pays Off

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T06:05:05Z

After reporting a bribe on IPaidABribe.com, one Bangalore student has had the satisfaction of seeing action taken against a corrupt public official.

This article by Jessica McKenzie was published in TechPresident on September 23, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The student, Shubham Kahndelwal, was asked to give a bribe before getting a receipt for registering for an identity card called the AADHAAR card. He at first refused, but then gave in. In response, the official gave him a receipt for his father's registration (which he had submitted along with his own) but not his. He told I Paid A Bribe that he “never knew a simple complaint could make such a difference.”

Kahndelwal elaborated:

I was in Chennai when the incident happened and after that I was furious and was searching all over to look for a complaint mechanism, when I stumbled upon IPaidaBribe.com. It is a great day and event for me and for me to share with my friends.

IPaidABribe.com was launched in August 2010 by the Bangalore-based nonprofit Janaagraha, which focuses on civic engagement and improving governance.

When first launched, there were concerns over privacy issues and protecting the users who submit complaints. On the other hand, in an interview this May with techPresident's David Eaves, Sunil Abraham, the founder of the Center for Internet & Society, pointed out that in order to make a difference, I Paid A Bribe would somehow have to close the loop.

Abraham went on:

some of the things that go on with anonymous reporting cannot happen, and to close the loop it almost needs to become a paralegal infrastructure. It has to talk to law enforcement and people have to be arrested, prosecuted and put away.

That is apparently what happened in this case. The official in question has been blacklisted and had disciplinary action taken against him.

To put the success in perspective, however, the bribe requested was Rs 2000 (US$31.95) and the bribe ultimately given was only Rs 350 (US$5.59).

Abraham also pointed out to Eaves that the real problem in India is “high ticket bribes...at the top of the pyramid.”

So while complaints from people like Kahndelwal are what keep the feeds at IPaidABribe.com constantly refreshing, they're mere drops in the bucket when compared to the millions of dollars moving in scandals like the 2G spectrum scam.

Personal Democracy Media is grateful to the Omidyar Network and the UN Foundation for their generous support of techPresident's WeGov section.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tech-president-september-23-2013-jessica-mckenzie

Three reasons why 66A verdict is momentous

pranesh — 2015-03-29T16:22:51Z

Earlier this week, the fundamental right to freedom of expression posted a momentous victory. The nation's top court struck down the much-reviled Section 66A of the IT Act — which criminalized communications that are "grossly offensive", cause "annoyance", etc — as "unconstitutionally vague", "arbitrarily, excessively, and disproportionately" encumbering freedom of speech, and likely to have a "chilling effect" on legitimate speech.

The article was published in the Times of India on March 29, 2015.

It also struck down Sec 118(d) of the Kerala Police Act on similar grounds. This is a landmark judgment, as it's possibly the first time since 1973's Bennett Coleman case that statutory law was struck down by the Supreme Court for violating our right to free expression.

The SC also significantly 'read down' the draconian 'Intermediary Guidelines Rules' which specify when intermediaries — website hosts and search engines — may be held liable for what is said online by their users. The SC held that intermediaries should not be forced to decide whether the online speech of their users is lawful or not. While the judgment leaves unresolved many questions — phrases like "grossly offensive", which the SC ruled were vague in 66A, occur in the Rules as well — the court's insistence on requiring either a court or a government order to be able to compel an intermediary to remove speech reduces the 'invisible censorship' that results from privatized speech regulation.

The SC upheld the constitutional validity of Sec 69A and the Website Blocking Rules, noting they had several safeguards: providing a hearing to the website owner, providing written reasons for the blocking, etc. However, these safeguards are not practised by courts. Na Vijayashankar, a legal academic in Bengaluru, found a blogpost of his — ironically, on the topic of website blocking — had been blocked by a Delhi court without even informing him. He only got to find out when I published the government response to my RTI on blocked websites. Last December, Github, Vimeo and some other websites were blocked without being given a chance to contest it. As long as lower courts don't follow "principles of natural justice" and due process, we'll continue to see such absurd website blocking, especially in cases of copyright complaints, without any way of opposing or correcting them.

There are three main outcomes of this judgment. First is the legal victory: SC's analysis while striking down 66A is a masterclass of legal clarity and a significant contribution to free speech jurisprudence. This benefits not only future cases in India, but all jurisdictions whose laws are similar to ours, such as Bangladesh, Malaysia and the UK.

Second is the moral victory for free speech. Sec 66A was not merely a badly written law, it became a totem of governmental excess and hubris. Even when political parties realized they had passed 66A without a debate, they did not apologize to the public and revise it; instead, they defended it. Only a few MPs, such as P Rajeev and Baijayant Panda, challenged it. Even the NDA, which condemned the law in the UPA era, supported it in court. By striking down this totem, the SC has restored the primacy of the Constitution. For instance, while this ruling doesn't directly affect the censor board's arbitrary rules, it does morally undermine them.

Third, this verdict shows that given proper judicial reading, the Indian constitutional system of allowing for a specific list of purposes for which reasonable restrictions are permissible, might in fact be as good or even better in some cases, than the American First Amendment. The US law baldly states that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press. However, the US Supreme Court has never held the opinion that freedom of speech is absolute. The limits of Congress's powers are entirely judicially constructed, and till the 1930s, the US court never struck down a law for violating freedom of speech, and has upheld laws banning obscenity, public indecency, offensive speech in public, etc. However, in India, the Constitution itself places hard limits on Parliament's powers, and also, since the first amendment to our Constitution, allows the judiciary to determine if the restrictions placed by Parliament are "reasonable". In the judgment Justice Nariman quotes Mark Antony from Julius Caesar. He could also have quoted Cassius: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Judges like Justice Nariman show the constitutional limits to free speech can be read both narrowly and judiciously: we can no longer complain about the Constitution as the primary reason we have so many restrictions on freedom of expression.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/times-of-india-march-29-2015-pranesh-prakash-three-reasons-why-66a-is-momentous

Three emerging market think tanks to collaborate on Good ID recommendations with Omidyar backing

Admin — 2019-05-14T15:01:48Z

Omidyar Network has invested in a trio of organizations from different regions to support enhanced understanding of the appropriate use and limits of digital identity.

The blog post by Chris Burt was published in Biometri Update on May 8, 2019.

Organizations from Brazil, Kenya, and India will take on a collaborative and iterative research process to help develop Omidyar’s concept of Good ID, according to a blog post by Omidyar Networks Investment Principal Subhashish Bhadra.

The three organizations are the Institute for Technology & Society (ITS), the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT), and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The ITS is a non-profit organization based in Brazil, with a mission of ensuring that emerging markets can respond appropriately to digital technologies, and that their benefits are broadly shared. CIPIT is an academic think tank, operating from the Strathmore Law School in Nairobi, Kenya, addressing emerging issues of continent-wide impact and providing an African voice for research networks. CIS is an India-based non-profit, which conducts interdisciplinary academic research to understand how the internet and digital technologies reconfigure social processes and structures.

Bhadra notes that 110 countries have begun identification schemes in the past decade. These programs are often implemented to serve an initial use case, and their application expanded over time.

“In the absence of adequate legislative or judicial oversight, mission creep can create risks for those very individuals that an identity is supposed to empower,” Bhadra writes. “By their very nature, digital identity systems collect some data about individuals in order to provide access to certain services. This immediately raises two interrelated questions. First, how much data should the system collect? Second, what services should it be tied to?”

Determining the appropriate scope of digital identity is inherently complex, and the potential for mission creep and requirement for a growing list of services risks exclusion, privacy violations, and a power imbalance between institutions and individuals, Bhadra argues.

The three groups will conduct independent research over the next six months, and create a set of recommendations and tools for stakeholders to use when engaging with digital identity systems.
Omidyar is a supporter of the Mission Billion Challenge, among several initiatives related to UN SDG 16.9.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/biometric-update-may-8-2019-three-emerging-market-think-tanks-to-collaborate-on-good-id-recommendations-with-omidyar-backing

Thousands queue for iPad 2 across Asia

praskrishna — 2011-05-23T07:10:28Z

The iPad 2 went on sale in countries across Asia and beyond Friday as Apple's updated gadget entered an ever more crowded market. This article written by Joyce Woo was published by AFP on April 28, 2011.

Apple's original iPad defined the tablet computer market and was swiftly followed by offerings from the tech industry's main players, from Samsung and Dell to BlackBerry maker RIM and Toshiba.

A late arrival to the tablet party was Sony, which only this week announced its own tablets a full year after the original iPad went on sale.

Now Apple is moving into round two of the battle of the tablets with a lighter, thinner, camera-equipped version of their original machine.

First in line in a queue of around 400 rain-soaked people outside an Apple store in Hong Kong was 16-year-old mainland Chinese student Dandy Weng, who travelled to the city from neighbouring Guangdong province for a device.

"I have waited for over 12 hours and haven't slept in 48 hours -- I'm very tired but excited," he told AFP. "I will be the first in China to have the iPad 2! I'm speechless, it's so exciting."

A queue snaked around the Apple shop in a major shopping centre, with some shoppers loading trolleys with as many as a dozen iPads, priced from HK$3,888 ($500) for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model to HK$6,488 for the 64 GB Wi-Fi and 3G model.

Those trying to buy an iPad 2 online via Apple's Hong Kong site, however, will have to wait a little longer -- all versions of the gadget were already out of stock before midday.

At an Apple authorised retail shop in Singapore, only 100 devices were available for sale and most official Apple retailers in Malaysia quickly sold out of the iPad 2.

"Each of our flagship stores had 600 devices each on sale and they ran out just like that," an official with a major Apple retail chain in Kuala Lumpur said.

Trade in "grey market" second generation iPads remained brisk in computer malls in the city such as Low Yat Plaza.

"We can charge more because there is a lot of demand and there is still not so much supply in Malaysia," seller Ang Chee Wei, 34, told AFP, adding that he had sold more than 20 of the devices so far.

"I bring in my iPad 2 from the US so I can still make some money until there are more iPads on the market."

Queues also formed outside retailers in the Philippine capital Manila.

John Quindo, 39, was first in line after standing patiently outside an Apple reseller for three hours.

"I'm excited because the Philippines is usually late (with Apple product releases)," he told AFP.

In India, over 150 outlets across the country opened their doors to Apple lovers seeking a new gadget, with the firm reporting a "phenomenal" initial response from customers.

Nishant Shah, director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society in the southern city of Bangalore, said he expected demand for the iPad 2 to be "huge", with Indian consumers increasingly brand-conscious.

Shilpa Malhotra was on the hunt for an iPad in Mumbai, but at an Apple outlet in the upmarket area of Breach Candy she was told that she could not buy one off the shelf immediately.

"I'm going to check to see if any other stores have got it in stock," she said, getting into a taxi.

The shop had taken orders and pre-payment for nearly 50 of the new iPads since Thursday, meaning dozens more customers wanting to buy the gadget on Friday were placed on a waiting list.

Anyone booking on Friday would get their device in 15 days' time, a store worker said.

In South Korea, 100 invited customers lined up from midnight at the central Seoul branch of KT, a local partner for iPhones and iPads.

The iPad 2 was also launched in Japan on Thursday after a month's delay caused by the devastating quake and tsunami.

A Wi-Fi only version of the gadget will be available in China on May 6.

It also hit stores Friday in Israel, Macau, South Africa, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, after being first released in the United States on March 11.

The California tech firm sold 15 million iPads last year following the original device's launch in April, generating $10 billion in revenue.

Read the original here [Hosted by Google]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ipad-2-across-asia

Thousands go online against 66A

praskrishna — 2012-11-30T06:40:38Z

An online petition aimed at amending section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act and re-examining internet laws has garnered 3,000 signatures since it began on Tuesday — two days before Kapil Sibal, telecom and IT minister, chairs a meeting with the cyber regulation advisory committee.

This article by Apoorva Dutt was published in DNA on November 29, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The petition, anchored on Change.org, a platform for social initiatives, was started by Bangalore-based advocate Gautam John after two girls were arrested for their Facebook post on imposing a bandh in the city on the day Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray was cremated. Following their arrests, Shaheen Dhada has deleted her Facebook account while her friend Rini Srinivasan who merely liked the post has opened a new account on the social networking site. However, she has vowed to refrain from making political statements.

John is blunt about the legislative effect an online petition can have. l Turn to p8.

“Honestly, I don’t believe that a petition can change laws, but it gives concerned citizens a platform for documenting their concern in such troubling scenarios. To some extent, this sort of petition can represent a civil society’s point of view. No more can a government authority say ‘only NGOs care about an issue’. Now they know – thousands of ordinary people care,” John said.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre For Internet and Society in Bangalore, points out the flaws in section 66A that have been exploited in cases like the Palghar incident. “Section 66A is very broadly-worded and the punishment (three years imprisonment) is excessive,” he said. “The law was borrowed – that too badly – from a British law. There are many a things greatly flawed in this unconstitutional provision, from the disproportionality of the punishment to the non-existence of the crime. The 2008 amendment to the IT Act was one of eight laws passed in 15 minutes without any debate in the winter session of Parliament.”

The petition also aims to organise a meeting of the civil society stakeholders to look into these concerns. A similar meeting was scheduled to be held in August, but it did not take place.

Sudarshan Balachandran of Change.org is the lead campaigner and organiser of the petition. He hopes to hand over a copy of the petition to Sibal during the meeting on Thursday. “Sibal has gone on record to say that they will examine the law, and if they feel it doesn’t work, it will be junked. So I am hopeful,” said Balachandran.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dnaindia-nov-29-2012-apoorva-dutt-thousands-go-online-against-66a

This Is All India Radia

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:28:26Z

Our news media blanked it out, but the Internet forced the issue, says Debarshi Dasgupta in an article published in the Outlook Magazine.

If you depend on just the Times of India or Hindustan Times for your daily news fix, chances are you have missed the story that has put Indian journalism under its fiercest gaze ever. For it turns out that a majority of Indian journalism censors news about its own indiscretions. After Open and Outlook magazine published transcripts of conversations between Niira Radia and high-profile journalists, much of the mainstream media erased the coverage about the controversy. Even the few papers and TV stations that covered the issue in the days to follow did not name names and avoided the meat of the story, hiding behind the sophistry of the transcripts being “unauthenticated”.

Among the few that did, The New Indian Express and Mail Today (it did not name a former editor at the group though) picked up pieces of the conversations and the Deccan Herald carried an editorial on November 22. Among the vernacular papers, Sakshi and Andhra Jyoti in Andhra carried some excerpts. The Malayalam news channel Asianet picked up the story, but the English news channels were deafeningly quiet. CNN-IBN had a show on November 22 that claimed to “break the silence” but neither identified the people involved nor featured the transcripts; instead it pontificated on where to draw the line between lobbying and journalism. G. Sampath, deputy editor at Daily News & Analysis, Mumbai, wrote on his blog, “What is really scary is that, despite living in a ‘democracy’ that boasts of a ‘free press’, if you were dependent only on TV and the big newspapers for the biggest news developments of the day, you would never have known about the Niira Radia tapes, and the murky role of media as political power brokers.”

Sevanti Ninan of The Hoot, an online media watch website, latched on to this “great media blackout”. “The list of those who took no note is long and illustrious: The Indian Express, always quick off the mark on sensational disclosures. The Hindu, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, India Today, all those Hindi news channels,” Sevanti wrote. “Not a story that three prominent journalists were trying to help a lobbyist get A. Raja a ministerial berth in the second upa government.” Filling the gap, the site has opened a forum to debate the ethical transgressions in the Radia tapes.

Despite its blackout in print, the story has largely survived because of the tremendous interest among India’s netizens. The news was also carried prominently online in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. Blogs are abuzz with indignant reactions to this censorship. The ‘Radia Tapes Controversy’ is now even a rapidly evolving and fairly detailed Wikipedia entry. YouTube throws up 35 matches for Radia and Barkha (Dutt), with one video (a transcript of one of the conversations) viewed close to 72,000 times. There are also numerous Facebook groups with discussions on how to “fix” the media. Google Barkha Dutt and the engine throws up Niira Radia as a prompt. And there’s no dearth of tweets about “Barkhagate”—there are several every minute asking for these journalists to resign and some even call for them to be jailed. For some, especially among the Right, the controversy has come as a boon, lending credence to their argument that the “pseudo-secular” English media has sold its soul.

Finally, when the ToI reported online on November 25 about how the internet had kept the story alive, there were bursts of self-congratulatory messages and tweets exchanged online. For Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, the Radia tapes controversy illustrates the “tension and disconnect” that exists between the internet and traditional media. “This is unlike on 26/11 when there was a kind of synergy between the two in their coverage,” he says. Yet Net users deserve some credit for having made the debate interactive and infusing it with a much-needed spunk and pluralism. “For me, the most exciting thing about the ‘Barkhagate’ controversy is not the internet’s influence on the attention economy,” adds Abraham. “It’s actually been its crowd-sourcing ability to bring together the intelligence of many amateurs from across the world and to put their insights into one collective analysis of the controversy.” While the Net, with just about 20 million users, is yet to rival the traditional media’s hold on India, the latter undoubtedly have a force it must now reckon with.

Read the original article in the Outlook

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/all-india-radia

Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression

praskrishna — 2013-01-17T07:16:58Z

Internet Democracy Project, Voices for Interactive Choice & Empowerment and Global Partners & Associates are organizing this event in Dhaka on January 14 - 15, 2013.

Pranesh Prakash is moderating the session on "Understanding cyber security and surveillance in South Asia today". Chinmayi Arun is speaking in this panel.

The Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression seeks to address the question of how freedom of expression on the Internet is best protected by taking as its starting point two of the biggest challenges for freedom of expression online in South Asia today: hate speech online on the one hand, and cyber security and surveillance on the other.

The meeting seeks to investigate how these challenges affect freedom of expression on the Internet as well as how they can be addressed most effectively while protecting free speech online. It will also touch briefly on the important question of what kind of Internet governance processes are most likely to ensure the desired outcomes materialise.

A very short history of the South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression
The first South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression took place in March 2011 in Delhi, and mapped the many challenges for free speech online in our region, as an input into the report on the Internet and freedom of expression of UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue.

The second South Asian Meeting, in Kathmandu in November 2011, assessed the extent to which policy and regulation in the South Asian countries complied with the recommendations Mr. La Rue made in his report.

This third meeting will now build on these earlier efforts by bringing together experts from civil society, business, the research community and other stakeholder groups from across the region to discuss two of the biggest shared challenges for freedom of expression online in South Asia today in detail: the rising visibility of hate speech on the one hand, and the impact of discourses regarding cyber security and surveillance on the other.

Why focus on hate speech and security/surveillance now?
Since UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue, presented his report on the Internet and freedom of expression to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2011, the complexity of this topic has received growing recognition. However, not all trends that La Rue had pointed out as directly affecting freedom of expression online – from access to the Internet to cyber attacks – are equally important in the South Asian region. Detailed analysis in several South Asian countries has shown that, though Internet penetration rates remain fairly low, most countries do possess, for example, the political will crucial to improve these figures. The two trends that seem to be of greatest concern in our region are that of the fight against hate speech, and the impact on freedom of expression of cyber security and surveillance measures. The latter is foregrounded for a variety of reasons ranging from the safety of individual users to national security.

Incidentally, across the region, as in many parts of the world, hate speech and cyber security have also been among the most important reasons governments have quoted to justify greater government control over the Internet. At the national level, this has at times manifested itself through the approval and implementation of legislation that has far-reaching consequences for freedom of speech online, without consulting many of the stakeholders who are affected at any point in time. At the global level, we see a growing number of proposals by governments that would effectively expand their collective powers to regulate the Internet, though with varying levels of involvement of other stakeholders envisioned.

Yet while governments' intentions when imposing censorship or approving surveillance measures may at times be in doubt, it is difficult to deny that the Internet has facilitated a new proliferation of hate speech, as well as that it has thrown up new security challenges that couldn't even be imagined before.

It is therefore our contention that the challenges of hate speech online and of ensuring cyber security in our region are real, and need to be addressed head-on if we are to strengthen and protect the right to freedom of expression online. For this reason, the meeting seeks to investigate both the precise nature of these challenges and what Internet governance mechanisms we need to evolve to ensure that they can be addressed most effectively whilst upholding and strengthening the right to freedom of expression. If we are to take the challenges the threats of hate speech and cyber security policy embody seriously yet also aim to uphold and strengthen the right to freedom of expression online, then what are the solutions we require? And who will need to be responsible for implementing them?

Participants
Taking into account the many parallels in the shape problems of hate speech and cyber security and surveillance take across the South Asian region as a result of shared cultures and historical legacies alike, participants will be invited from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Moreover, as solutions to these problems will invariably require collaboration among various stakeholders in the Internet governance field in order to be effective, participants will be drawn from a wide variety of stakeholder groups, including civil society, business, government, academia and the media from across the region. In this way, the meeting hopes tofacilitate a South Asia wide, multistakeholder dialogue, to learn, discuss and evolve more detailed thinking on these topics for one and a half days. The meeting will come to an end with a public event at the end of the second day.

The meeting will use a variety of formats, including key note presentations, panel discussions, case studies and small group conversations.

Agenda

January 14, 2013

9.00-09.45	Welcome and introductions to participants
09.45-10.15	Introduction to the meeting: the challenge that hate speech online and cyber security/surveillance pose to freedom of expression on the Internet – Dixie Hawtin Intro: Internet governance and human rights issues in general Why is this event focussed on hate speech and surveillance?
10.15-10.45	Tea/coffee break
10.45-12.15	The challenge of hate speech on the Internet in South Asia Strengthening the right to freedom of expression to curtail hate speech (Anja Kovacs) Three country perspectives, from the Maldives (Mariyath Mohamed), Pakistan (tbc), and Bangladesh (Salim Khan) Moderator: Bishakha Datta
12.15-13:30	Lunch
13.30-14.00	Keynote: Thinking about a rights-based approach to cyber security and surveillance as it relates to speech – KS Park
14.00-15.30	Understanding cyber security and surveillance in South Asia today With Three country perspectives from Bangladesh (Mohammad Rahman), Nepal (Kailash Prasad Neupane) and India (Chinmayi Arun). Moderator: Pranesh Prakash
15.30-16:00	Tea/coffee break
16.00-17.30	Legal and ethical questions and challenges when addressing cyber security and surveillance: two case studies – Rohan Samarajiva

January 15, 2013

9.00-9.15	Introduction to day 2
9.15-9.45	Cybersecurity, surveillance and hate speech online – key issues that need to be addressed in governance in order to protect Internet freedom of expession. This session will discuss particular issues that have relevance for both cyber security debates and hate speech issues in greater depth. Four topics that will be addressed are: The question of anonimity (KS Park) Cross-border cooperation and other jurisdictional issues in context of cloud computing and crossborder data flows and storage (Aditya Rao) Domain Names and registration (Babu Ram Aryal) Intermediaries as law enforcers (Suman Pradhan) Moderator: Shahzad Ahmed
10.45-11.00	Tea/coffee break
11.00-13.00	What kind of solutions could a rights-based approach throw up to the challenges raised so far in the meeting? Open discussion in groups and plenary, following key note speaker, Bulbul Monjurul Ahsan
13.00-13.30	Summing up and thank you
13.30-15.00	Lunch
15:00 – 16:00	Meeting participants move to venue for public meeting, tea/coffee break and arrival of wider public
16.00-18.30	PUBLIC EVENT: The Internet and freedom of expression Confirmed speakers include: Abu Taher, Info Commissioner; Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director, Transparency International Bangladesh; Sarah Hossain, Lawyer and Honorary Executive Director, BLAST; Shaheen Anam, Executive Director, Manusher Jonno Foundation; Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul, eminent journalist and CEO, Boishakhi Television; and Rohan Samarajiva, Chair and CEO, LIRNEasia.

List of Participants

Aditya Rao, Senior Associate, Amarchand Mangaldas, India
Ahmed Swapan, Executive Director, VOICE, Bangladesh
Amrit Pant, General Secretary, Computer Association of Nepal & President, Information Technology Development Society, Nepal
Anja Kovacs, Project Director, Internet Democracy Project, India
Babu Ram Aryal, President, Internet Society, Nepal Chapter, Nepal
Binaya Guragain, Coordinator of Programs, Equal Access, Nepal
Bishakha Datta, Wikimedia Foundation Board Member & Co-founder, Point of View, India
Chinmayi Arun, Assistant Professor, National Law University Delhi & Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, India.
Dixie Hawtin, Project Manager for Digital Communications and Freedom of Expression, Global Partners and Associates, UK
Farhana Rumki, Associate Programme Coordinator, VOICE, Bangladesh
Kailash Prasad Neupane, Chief of Legal Section, Spokesperson, Secretary and Registrar, Nepal Telecommunications Authority, Nepal
Khairuzzaman Kamal, Founder Secretary General of Bangladesh Manobadhikar Sangbadik Forum & Senior Reporter at Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, Bangladesh
Khawaza Mainuddin, Executive Editor, ICE Business Times Magazine, Bangladesh
K S Park, Executive Director, the PSPD Public Interest Law Center & Professor, Korea University Law School, South Korea
Mariyath Mohamed, Journalist, Minivan News, Maldives
Mohammad Nazmuzzaman Bhuian Emon, Associate Professor, Department of Law, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Mohammad Shahriar Rahman, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Asia Pacific & Head, Center for IT Security and Privacy, Bangladesh
Moiyen Zalal Chowdhury, Community Manager, Somewhere.In & Norad Fellow,Bangladesh
Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul, Chair, International Press Institute & Editor-in-chief and CEO,Boiskakhi TV, Bangladesh
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India
Prasanth Sunganathan, Counsel, Software Freedom Law Centre, India
Rezaur Rahman Lenin, Research Fellow, VOICE, Bangladesh
Richa Kaul Padte, Writer, India
Rohan Samarajiva, Chair and CEO, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka
Saleem Samad, Columnist & Correspondent at Reporters without Borders, Bangladesh
Salimullah Khan, Writer and Professor, Stamford University, Bangladesh
Sana Saleem, Director, Bolo Bhi, Pakistan
Santosh Sigdel, Advocate and Vice President, Internet Society, Nepal Chapter, Nepal
Shahzad Ahmed, Country Director, Bytes for All, Pakistan
Shehla Rashid Shora, Project Officer, Internet Democracy Project, India
Shehnaz Banu, Media and Communication Officer, Alliance for Social Dialogue, Bangladesh
Soheil Zafar, Editor, Unmochan Blog & TV Producer and Researcher, 71 Television, Bangladesh
Suman Lal Pradhan, CEO, Websurfer, Nepal
Sushma Luthra, Event Coordinator, India
Syeda Fedous Jana, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Somewhere.In, Bangladesh
Tahmina Rahman, Director Bangladesh and South Asia Region, Article 19, Bangladesh
Vasana Wickremasena, Executive Director, Centre for Integrated Communication Research and Advocacy, Sri Lanka

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/third-south-asian-meeting-on-internet-and-freedom-of-expression

Third Multistakeholder Consultation on Encryption

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T09:42:49Z

Udbhav Tiwari represented CIS at the Third and Final Multistakeholder Consultation on Encryption held at the Taj Palace, New Delhi on May 11, 2017. The event was organised by the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Saikat Dutta and Japreet Grewal were also present at the round-table discussion.

The discussion centred around issues such as trust between the government and citizens, key lengths, standards for device encryption and sector-specific security regulations. The primary goal of the meeting was to influence the second iteration of the draft encryption policy, expected soon, which will have bearing on data protection policies, access of law enforcement agencies to electronic information, and the ease of doing business in India's digital economy.

The main questions in the discussion were:

Should the National Encryption policy mandate key lengths for encryption of communications?
Should the policy require the registration of encryption service providers to operate in the Indian market?
What are the challenged faced in the enforcement of the policy?
What steps can the Indian government take to encourage R&D in domestic cryptographic services and products?

Dr. Gulshan Rai, the National Cyber Security Coordinator, was also present in the meeting and provided valuable inputs.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/third-multistakeholder-consultation-on-encryption