Privacy Blog
An analysis of privacy in the context of India
Is Data Protection Enough?
The following note looks briefly at different sides of the privacy debate, and asks the question whether a Data Protection law is enough privacy protection for India.
Surveillance Technologies
The following post briefly looks at different surveillance technologies, and the growing use of the them in India.
Encryption Standards and Practices
The below note looks at different types of encryption, varying practices of encryption in India, and the relationship between encryption, data security, and national security.
'Privacy Matters', Ahmedabad: Conference Report
On 26 March 2011, civil society, lawyers, judges, students and NGO’s, gathered together at the Ahmedabad Management Association to take part in 'Privacy Matters' – a public conference organised by Privacy India in partnership with IDRC and Research Foundation for Governance in India (RFGI) — to discuss the challenges of privacy in India, with an emphasis on national security and privacy. The conference was opened by Prashant Iyengar, head researcher at Privacy India and Kanan Drhu, director of RFGI. Mr. Iyengar explained Privacy India’s mandate to raise awareness of privacy, spark civil action, and promote democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. RFGI is a think tank established in 2009 which aims to research, promote, and implement various reforms to improve the legal and political process in Gujarat and across India. ‘Privacy Matters – Ahmedabad’ is the third conference out of the eight that Privacy India will be hosting across India. The next conference will take place in Hyderabad on 9 April 2011. It will focus on human rights and privacy.
News Broadcasting Standards Authority censures TV9 over privacy violations!
We at PrivacyIndia/CIS are delighted by the recent order issued by the News Broadcasting Standards Authority(NBSA) which slapped a 1 lakh rupee fine on the news channel TV9 for airing an extremely incendiary and invasive programme titled "Gay Culture rampant in Hyderabad".
A Stolen Perspective
The note below is a perspective piece on biometrics. On March 11th I traveled down to the Philippines, and had a chance to experience the possible convenience of biometric based identification.
Privacy and Governmental Databases
In our research we have found that most government databases are incrementally designed in response to developments and improvements that need to be incorporated from time to time. This method of architecting a system leads to a poorly designed database with many privacy risks such as: inaccurate data, incomplete data, inappropriate disclosure of data, inappropriate access to data, and inappropriate security over data. To address these privacy concerns it is important to analyze the problem that is being addressed from the perspective of potential and planned interoperability with other government databases. Below is a list of problems and recommendations concerning privacy, concerning government databases.
Open Letter to the Finance Committee: UID and Transactions
Since official documentation from the UIDAI is very limited, we assume that data pertaining to transactions would comprise of the Aadhaar number, identifier of the authenticating device, date-time stamp, and approval/rejection/error code. Recording and maintaining of data pertaining to transactions is very important because it increases transparency and accountability through an audit trail. However, storage of such sensitive data creates many privacy risks, because more often than not metadata gives you as much intelligence as raw data.
Open Letter to the Finance Committee: Operational Design
The objective of the UID project is to provide identity infrastructure that is not susceptible to fraud or error. This note highlights parts of the operational design of the project, which are flawed. We plead that each point be taken into consideration and that the design be suitably revised.
Open Letter to the Finance Committee: UID Budget
This note presents the aspects of the UID project, which have not been considered or incorporated into the UID’s budget. The costs include re-enrollment, loss in human time, and the cost of the audit function.
Open Letter to the Finance Committe: Biometrics
This note points out the weaknesses inherent in biometrics and the pitfalls in using them. It recommends procedural safeguards that should be adopted by the UID in order to make the use of biometrics more secure and inclusive.
Open Letter to the Finance Committee: Finance and Security
This note explores the three connections between finance and security and demonstrates the cost implications of operating a centrally designed identity management system as proposed by the UID. In doing so, it shows how the monitoring, storing, and securing of transactional data in a centralized database fall short of meeting the project's objectives of authentication, and thus is an additional cost. Further, it is argued that the blanket monitoring of the transaction database is not an effective method of detecting fraud, and is an expensive component of the project.
Conference Report: 'Privacy Matters' Bangalore
On February 5th the 'Privacy Matters" conference was held at the TERI Regional Center in Bangalore. The event was a full day and centered around issues of privacy including: privacy rights of minorities, privacy and open government data, and privacy and identity.
Analysing the Right to Privacy and Dignity with Respect to the UID
In the below note, Deva Prasad, LLM Candidate at NLSIU, explores the challenges that the UID project faces from a legal perspective.
Privacy Matters — Conference Report
A one-day conference on Privacy Matters was held on Sunday, 23 January 2011 at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. This was the first of a series of eleven conferences on ‘privacy’ that Privacy India is scheduled to host in different Indian cities from January to June this year. Members of Parliament, Sri Manoj Bhattacharya from the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Sri Nilotpal Basu from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) spoke in the conference. Students, the civil society and lawyers also participated in it.
Privacy Matters Conference Agenda
The "Privacy Matters" conference is taking place on Sunday January 23rd, at NUJS Law school at 10:30. It is a full day event that will discuss the challenges and concerns of privacy in India. Below is the agenda for the event. We look forward to your participation and attendance.
An Open Letter to the Finance Committee: SCOSTA Standards
The UID Bill has been placed to the Finance Committee for review and approval. Through a series of open letters to the Finance Committee, civil society is asking the committee to take into consideration and change certain aspects of the Bill and the project. The below note compares the SCOSTA standard with the Aadhaar biometric standard, and explains why we believe the SCOSTA standard should replace the Aadhaar biometric standard for the authentication process in the UID scheme.
Does the UID Reflect India?
On December 17th the Campaign for No UID held a press conference and public meeting in Bangalore. Below is a summary and analysis of the events.
The Privacy Rights of Whistleblowers
The recent disclosures from Wikileaks have shown that the right to information, whistle-blowing, and privacy are interconnected. This note looks at the different ways in which the three are related, as well as looking at the benefits and drawbacks to Wikileaks in terms of privacy.
UID & Privacy - A Call for Papers
Privacy India is inviting individuals to author short papers focused on Unique Identity (UID) and Privacy. Selected candidates will have their papers published on the CIS website, and their transportation and accommodation provided for the “Privacy Matters” conference being held in Kolkata on 22 January 2010.
