Internet Governance Main
The Draft Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2011 – Comments by CIS
The Draft Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2011 (“Bill”) is a Bill to provide for delivery of government services manadatorily through electronic means by phasing out manual delivery of services. It is heartening to note that the Bill shifts the approach to electronic delivery of services by Government agencies to one as part of the citizens' right to service delivery through electronic means rather than a luxury or benefit doled out by the Government. The Bill introduces bodies exclusively accountable for ensuring that electronic delivery of services by the Government at the state and central levels. While this is a welcome move on the part of the Government there are a few comments we, at the Centre for Internet and Society, have on the present version of the Bill:
Policy for Government's Presence in Social Media - Recommendations
In pursuance of the Office Memorandum issued by the DIT dated March 4, 2011, the e-Governance Group of the DIT, convened on March 23, 2011, the first meeting of an exclusive group to propose guidelines for government presence on social networking and social media sites. The Centre for Internet and Society being one of the invitees to the meeting, has submitted its recommendations for a Policy for the Government's presence in social networking and social media sites.
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.
RTI Applications on Blocking of Websites
In recent weeks, an increasing number of incidents have come to light on government-ordered blocking of websites. In one case involving Zone-H.org, it is clear who has ordered the block (a Delhi district court judge, as an interim order), even though the block itself is open to constitutional challenge. In all others cases, including the TypePad case, it is unclear who has ordered the block and why. We at CIS have sent in two right to information requests to find out.
CIS Para-wise Comments on Intermediary Due Diligence Rules, 2011
On February 7th 2011, the Department of Information Technology, MCIT published draft rules on its website (The Information Technology (Due diligence observed by intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011) in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 87(2)(zg), read with Section 79(2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Comments were invited from the public before February 25th 2011. Accordingly, Privacy India and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore have prepared the following para-wise comments for the Ministry’s consideration.
CIS Para-wise Comments on Cyber Café Rules, 2011
On February 7th 2011, the Department of Information Technology, MCIT published draft rules on its website (The Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011) in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 87(2) (zg), read with Section 79(2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Comments were invited from the public before February 25th 2011. Accordingly, Privacy India and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore have prepared the following para wise comments for the Ministry’s consideration.
CIS Para-wise Comments on Draft Reasonable Security Practices Rules, 2011
On February 7th 2011, the Department of Information Technology, MCIT published draft rules on its website (The Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal information) Rules, 2011) in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 87(2)(ob), read with Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Comments were invited from the public before February 25th 2011. Accordingly, Privacy India and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore have prepared the following para-wise comments for the Ministry’s consideration.
Google Policy Fellowship Program: Asia Chapter
For the ardent followers of free and open Internet and for those who love to debate on technology, media law and Internet-related policy issues, there is some good news. The Centre for Internet and Society, India is conducting a Google Policy Fellowship program this summer!
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.
4 Popular Myths about UID
By now, there is already a lot of material in the public domain that is critical about the UID/Aadhar project, writes Prashant Iyengar in this blog entry published in Privacy India on January 22, 2011.
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.
Jurisdictional Issues in Cyberspace
This article by Justice S Muralidhar was published in the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, Volume 6, 2010. It explores in detail the jurisdiction of courts when dealing with disputes arising from commercial transactions on the Internet.
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.
