Posts
Privacy and the Information Technology Act — Do we have the Safeguards for Electronic Privacy?
- April 05, 2011
How do the provisions of the Information Technology Act measure up to the challenges of privacy infringement? Does it provide an adequate and useful safeguard for our electronic privacy? Prashant Iyengar gives a comprehensive analysis on whether and how the Act fulfils the challenges and needs through a series of FAQs while drawing upon real life examples.
Read more →Is Data Protection Enough?
- April 05, 2011
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.
Read more →Surveillance Technologies
- April 05, 2011
The following post briefly looks at different surveillance technologies, and the growing use of the them in India.
Read more →Encryption Standards and Practices
- April 05, 2011
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.
Read more →'Privacy Matters', Ahmedabad: Conference Report
- March 31, 2011
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.
Read more →News Broadcasting Standards Authority censures TV9 over privacy violations!
- March 31, 2011
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".
Read more →A Stolen Perspective
- March 31, 2011
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.
Read more →The Draft Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2011 – Comments by CIS
- March 29, 2011
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:
Read more →Policy for Government's Presence in Social Media - Recommendations
- March 24, 2011
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.
Read more →Privacy and Governmental Databases
- March 23, 2011
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.
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