Centre for Internet & Society

NITI Aayog Discussion Paper: An aspirational step towards India’s AI policy

Posted by Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha, Swaraj Barooah, Shweta Mohandas, Pranav M Bidare, Swagam Dasgupta, Vishnu Ramachandran and Senthil Kumar at Jun 13, 2018 01:08 PM |

The National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence — a discussion paper on India’s path forward in AI, is a welcome step towards a comprehensive document that reflects the government's AI ambitions. The 115-page discussion paper attempts to be an all encompassing document looking at a host of AI related issues including privacy, security, ethics, fairness, transparency and accountability.

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Why NPCI and Facebook need urgent regulatory attention

Posted by Sunil Abraham at Jun 12, 2018 02:07 AM |

The world’s oldest networked infrastructure, money, is increasingly dematerialising and fusing with the world’s latest networked infrastructure, the Internet.

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Network Disruptions Report by Global Network Initiative

Network Disruptions Report by Global Network Initiative

Posted by Akriti Bopanna at Jun 12, 2018 01:31 AM |

Around 70% of all known shutdowns in the world took place in India in 2017. The same year Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) released the “Temporary Suspension of Internet Services” giving State and Central Government officials the power to terminate Internet services as per the guidelines.

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Comments on the Draft National Policy on Official Statistics

Posted by Gurshabad Grover and Sandeep Kumar at Jun 07, 2018 02:55 AM |

This submission presents comments by the Centre for Internet & Society, India (“CIS”) on the Draft National Policy on Official Statistics which was released to the public by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on 17th May 2018 for comments and views.

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CIS contributes to ABLI Compendium on Regulation of Cross-Border Transfers of Personal Data in Asia

CIS contributes to ABLI Compendium on Regulation of Cross-Border Transfers of Personal Data in Asia

Posted by Amber Sinha and Elonnai Hickok at May 31, 2018 04:15 PM |

The Asian Business Law Institute, based in Singapore published a compendium on “Regulation of cross-border transfer of personal data in Asia”. This was part of an exercise to explore legal convergence around issues such as data protection, enforcement of foreign judgments and principle of restructuring in Asia.

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Design Concerns in Creating Privacy Notices

Posted by Saumyaa Naidu at May 29, 2018 05:10 PM |

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.

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DIDP Request #30 - Employee remuneration structure at ICANN

Posted by Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna at May 26, 2018 12:35 AM |
Filed under: ,

We have requested ICANN to disclose the employee pay structure at ICANN with specific enquiries about the payment across the institutional hierarchy, gender, and region.

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Indian Intermediary Liability Regime: Compliance with the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability

Posted by Divij Joshi at May 20, 2018 03:10 PM |

This report assesses the compliance of the Indian intermediary liability framework with the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability, and recommends substantive legislative changes to bring the legal framework in line with the Manila Principles.

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India's Data Protection Framework Will Need to Treat Privacy as a Social and Not Just an Individual Good

Posted by Amber Sinha at May 18, 2018 06:22 AM |

The idea that technological innovations may compete with privacy of individuals assumes that there is social and/or economic good in allowing unrestricted access to data. However, it must be remembered that data is potentially a toxic asset, if it is not collected, processed, secured and shared in the appropriate way.

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Internet Shutdown Stories

Internet Shutdown Stories

Posted by Ambika Tandon at May 17, 2018 12:10 PM |

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) has published a collection of stories of the impact of internet shutdowns on people's lives in the country. This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. This is a project funded by Facebook and MacArthur Foundation, and the stories were provided by 101 Reporters. Case studies from the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Uttar Pradesh have been highlighted in this compilation.

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AI in the Banking and Finance Industry in India

Posted by Saman Goudarzi, Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha at May 14, 2018 03:35 PM |

This is a draft report that seeks to map the present state of use of AI in the banking and financial sector in India.

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DIDP Request #29 - Revenue breakdown by source for FY 2017

Posted by Akriti Bopanna at Apr 26, 2018 01:10 PM |
Filed under: ,

We requested ICANN for financial information they have not yet provided for the period ending June 2017.

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Revenge Porn Laws across the World

Posted by Shradha Nigam at Apr 25, 2018 04:58 PM |

The following is a compilation of laws dealing with revenge porn if and how they exist across multiple countries and jurisdictions.

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What’s up with WhatsApp?

What’s up with WhatsApp?

Posted by Aayush Rathi and Sunil Abraham at Apr 23, 2018 04:45 PM |

In 2016, WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption, but is the company doing what it claims to be doing?

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Comments on the Draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act

Posted by Amber Sinha and Shweta Mohandas at Apr 22, 2018 10:00 PM |

The Centre for Internet & Society submitted comments to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India on the draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act on April 21, 2018.

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A look at two problematic provisions of the draft Anti-trafficking bill

This post examines two badly drafted provisions of the new Anti-Trafficking bill that have the potential to severely impinge upon the Freedom of Expression, including through a misunderstanding of intermediary liability.

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Artificial Intelligence in Governance: A Report of the Roundtable held in New Delhi

Posted by Saman Goudarzi and Natallia Khaniejo at Apr 19, 2018 01:30 PM |

This Report provides an overview of the proceedings of the Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Governance, conducted at the Indian Islamic Cultural Centre, in New Delhi on March 16, 2018. The main purpose of the Roundtable was to discuss the deployment and implementation of AI in various aspects of governance within the Indian context. This report summarises the discussions on the development and implementation of AI in various aspects of governance in India. The event was attended by participants from academia, civil society, the legal sector, the finance sector, and the government.

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Government gives free publicity worth 40k to Twitter and Facebook

Posted by Akriti Bopanna at Apr 10, 2018 01:55 AM |

We conducted a 2 week survey of newspapers for links between government advertisement to social media giants. As citizens, we should be worried about the close nexus between the Indian government and digital behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. It has become apparent to us after a 2 week print media analysis that our Government has been providing free publicity worth Rs 40,000 to these entities. There are multiple issues with this as this article attempts at pointing out.

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Cambridge Analytica scandal: How India can save democracy from Facebook

Posted by Sunil Abraham at Mar 28, 2018 03:44 PM |

Hegemonic incumbents like Google and Facebook need to be tackled with regulation; govt should use procurement power to fund open source alternatives.

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Analysis of ICANN revenue shows ambiguity in their records

Posted by Sunil Abraham, Arjun Venkatraman and Akriti Bopanna at Mar 15, 2018 06:55 AM |
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We, The Centre for Internet and Society, have been instrumental in having ICANN become transparent about their revenue with our persistent requests for their sources of revenue.

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