Centre for Internet and Society

irc22poster.jpg

pranav — 2022-02-11T12:31:35Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22poster.jpg

IRC22 Call for Sessions pdf

pranav — 2022-02-11T12:10:27Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-call-for-sessions-pdf

Platforms, Power, and Politics Press Release pdf

pranav — 2021-06-29T13:06:22Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-press-release-pdf

Platforms, Power, and Politics pdf

pranav — 2021-07-07T15:15:20Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/platforms-power-and-politics-pdf

Annual Programmatic Report 2018-2019

pranav — 2020-11-10T10:56:33Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/reports/annual-programmatic-report-2018-2019

Comments to National Digital Health Mission: Health Data Management Policy pdf

pranav — 2020-10-05T14:16:10Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-to-national-digital-health-mission-health-data-management-policy-pdf

Mapping Web Censorship & Net Neutrality Violations

pranav — 2020-10-05T07:59:47Z

For over a year, researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society have been studying website blocking by internet service providers (ISPs) in India. We have learned that major ISPs don’t always block the same websites, and also use different blocking techniques. To take this study further, and map net neutrality violations by ISPs, we need your help. We have developed CensorWatch, a research tool to collect empirical evidence about what websites are blocked by Indian ISPs, and which blocking methods are being used to do so. Read more about this project (link), download CensorWatch (link), and help determine if ISPs are complying with India’s net neutrality regulations.

Learn more about website blocking in India, through our recent work on the issue —

Using information from court orders, user reports, and government orders, and running network tests from six ISPs, Kushagra Singh, Gurshabad Grover and Varun Bansal presented the largest study of web blocking in India. Through their work, they demonstrated that major ISPs in India use different techniques to block websites, and that they don’t block the same websites (link).
Gurshabad Grover and Kushagra Singh collaborated with Simone Basso of the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) to study HTTPS traffic blocking in India by running experiments on the networks of three popular Indian ISPs: ACT Fibernet, Bharti Airtel, and Reliance Jio (link).
For The Leaflet, Torsha Sarkar and Gurshabad Grover wrote about the legal framework of blocking in India — Section 69A of the IT Act and its rules. They considered commentator opinions questioning the constitutionality of the regime, whether originators of content are entitled to a hearing, and whether Rule 16, which mandates confidentiality of content takedown requests received by intermediaries from the Government, continues to be operative (link).
In the Hindustan Times, Gurshabad Grover critically analysed the confidentiality requirement embedded within Section 69A of the IT Act and argued how this leads to internet users in India experiencing arbitrary censorship (link).
Torsha Sarkar, along with Sarvjeet Singh of the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG), spoke to Medianama delineating the procedural aspects of section 69A of the IT Act (link).
Arindrajit Basu spoke to the Times of India about the geopolitical and regulatory implications of the Indian government’s move to ban fifty-nine Chinese applications from India (link).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/mapping-web-censorship-net-neutrality-violations

CIS Internship Programme (October 2020)

pranav — 2020-09-03T03:01:13Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) provides opportunities for students and professionals to undertake remote internships. Please continue to read through for more information about the process.

CIS is excited to announce its internship program for October 2020. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and continued requirements on physical distancing, this program will be run remotely. Applicants can apply for a slot running for a minimum of 4 weeks in the month of October. The internship call is open only for Indian residents, both students and professionals. Women and individuals from under-represented communities are specifically encouraged to apply.

Roles and Responsibilities

Interns may be expected to work on a range of tasks, from undertaking literature reviews, to editing or proof-reading documents, and writing or co-writing pieces of their choice. The exact nature of work will be decided on a case-by-case basis, in consultation with supervisors.

Interns will be expected to work full time, i.e. they should be working on CIS related tasks for 40 hours a week, and will be expected to respond to calls/texts between 10AM-6PM Monday to Friday. Supervisors will schedule check-in-calls twice a week.

Interns will receive a stipend.

If you are interested in applying for any of these slots, please send in your internship application to internship@cis-india.org by September 15th, 2020. Applicants can expect to hear back from us by September 20th, 2020. Unless asked for by a prospective supervisor, there will be no interview, and applicants will be judged on the basis of their written application.

Your application should include:

An updated CV
Two writing samples between 1000-3000 words each
A covering email clearly stating your area of work preference, and why you are interested in this area.

Presently, the work areas for our internship program include:

Freedom of Expression on the Internet:

Analysing the Constitutional provision that enables the right to free speech, and jurisprudence around what is permissible speech online;
Analysing content moderation policies;
Researching intermediary liability regimes.

Intermediary Liability:

Analyzing regulations in India and around the world which govern liability of online intermediaries that deal with user-generated content
Studying safe harbour and other forms of intermediary liability regimes, effectiveness of existing measures, and possible best practices to combat illegal content online.

Making Voices Heard Project:

Researching on issues of privacy for digital voice interfaces in India and globally.

Digital ID Research:

Studying the appropriate uses of Digital ID;
Researching the technology and policy design of Digital ID systems.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/jobs/cis-internship-programme-october-2020

Fundamental Right to Privacy — Three Years of the Puttaswamy Judgment

pranav — 2020-08-24T07:46:10Z

Today marks three years since the Supreme Court of India recognised the fundamental right to privacy, but the ideals laid down in the Puttaswamy Judgment are far from being completely realized. Through our research, we invite you to better understand the judgment and its implications, and take stock of recent issues pertaining to privacy.

Amber Sinha dissects the Puttaswamy Judgment through an analysis of the sources, scope and structure of the right, and its possible limitations. [link]

Through a visual guide to the fundamental right to privacy, Amber Sinha and Pooja Saxena trace how courts in India have viewed the right to privacy since Independence, explain how key legal questions were resolved in the Puttaswamy Judgement, and provide an account of the four dimensions of privacy — space, body, information and choice — recognized by the Supreme Court. [link]

Based on publicly available submissions, press statements, and other media reports, Arindrajit Basu and Amber Sinha track the political evolution of the data protection ecosystem in India, on EPW Engage. They discuss how this has, and will continue to impact legislative and policy developments. [link]

For the AI Policy Exchange, Arindrajit Basu and Siddharth Sonkar examine the Automated Facial Recognition Systems (AFRS), and define the key legal and policy questions related to privacy concerns around the adoption of AFRS by governments around the world. [link]

Over the past decade, reproductive health programmes in India have been digitising extensive data about pregnant women. In partnership with Privacy International, we studied the Mother and Child Tracking system (MCTS), and Ambika Tandon presents the impact on the privacy of mothers and children in the country. [link]

While the right to privacy can be used to protect oneself from state surveillance, Mira Swaminathan and Shubhika Saluja write about the equally crucial problem of lateral surveillance — surveillance that happens between individuals, and within neighbourhoods, and communities — with a focus on this issue during the COVID-19 crisis. [link]

Finally, take a dive into the archives of the Centre for Internet and Society to read our work, which was cited in the Puttaswamy judgment — essays by Ashna Ashesh, Vidushi Marda and Bhairav Acharya that displaced the notion that privacy is inherently a Western concept, by attempting to locate the constructs of privacy in Classical Hindu [link], and Islamic Laws [link]; and Acharya’s article in the Economic and Political Weekly, which highlighted the need for privacy jurisprudence to reflect theoretical clarity, and be sensitive to unique Indian contexts [link].

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/fundamental-right-to-privacy-three-years-of-the-puttaswamy-judgment

Comments to AIForAll pdf

pranav — 2020-08-18T06:19:35Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-to-aiforall-pdf

Artificial Intelligence: A Full-Spectrum Regulatory Challenge (Working Draft) PDF

pranav — 2020-08-04T06:07:47Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/artificial-intelligence-a-full-spectrum-regulatory-challenge-working-draft-pdf

Privacy in the Age of the Pandemic

pranav — 2020-07-15T11:34:00Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, JKGA Law Chambers, and LawyersClubIndia invites you to the online panel discussion on ‘Privacy in the Age of the Pandemic.’

This event will happen on July 18 (Saturday), from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. The discussion will bring together an inter-disciplinary group of experts to unpack some of the core Privacy issues that will undoubtedly shape society, and future governance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Register for the event here.

As panelists, we have:
1) Arnab Kumar, who was instrumental in coming up with the Aarogya Setu app and has led policy initiatives from the front at NITI Aayog;
2) Vrinda Bhandari - well known for her advocacy and academic work in this domain;
3) Sahil Deo - who is helping stakeholders make more informed decisions in policy using data analysis;
4) Mira Swaminathan - a policy researcher with deep domain experience in the dangers of surveillance; and
5) Antaraa Vasudev, founder of Civis, an initiative enabling the layperson to understand the effects of policy changes on them!

The session will be moderated by Shweta Reddy, and Akshit Goyal.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-in-the-age-of-the-pandemic

Privacy_Covid19_Event_Poster

pranav — 2020-07-15T10:07:06Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy_covid19_event_poster

CISFinancials_2018-19 PDF

pranav — 2020-07-15T09:56:33Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/cisfinancials_2018-19-pdf

Engaging with the Covid-19 Crisis

pranav — 2020-07-15T09:31:51Z

In the last six months, COVID-19 has had a far-reaching impact on the world, including on the digital sphere, how people interact with it, and its mediation of social and economic exchanges. Researchers and practitioners at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) have responded to this dynamic landscape from different lenses.

WikiProject India COVID-19 Task Force

The Access to Knowledge team at CIS, along with the Wikidata editor community has been maintaining a reliable district and state-wise database of COVID-19 case statistics in India (link). If you are a Wikidata editor, please consider contributing or encouraging others to join this effort.

COVID-19 Apps

Based on publicly available information, Pallavi Bedi presents a comparative analysis of COVID-19 apps launched by different state governments in India, and examines their governing policies regarding privacy and data protection (link).
In light of the central-government’s release of the contact tracing app Aarogya Setu, Siddharth Sonkar’s report seeks to constructively engage with privacy concerns surrounding the app and its operations, and works towards making privacy safeguards governing its operability more consistent with international best practices (link).
Amber Sinha examines the false binary between privacy and surveillance created during a pandemic, and proposes a necessary and proportional method of contact tracing (link).
Aman Nair writes about the lack of oversight present in the Kerala government’s deal with Sprinklr Inc, the violations to the right to privacy, and how legislation that is currently being proposed would fail to prevent situations like this in the future (link).

Gig Economy and Labour Rights

With Tandem Research, CIS organized a webinar to interact with unions representing gig workers and researchers studying labour rights and gig work, to uncover the experiences of gig workers during the lockdown. Based on the discussion, a charter of recommendations was prepared with contributions from participants, and was shared with public and private stakeholders (link).
With support from three domestic workers’ unions, the Domestic Workers Rights Union, Bruhat Bangalore Gruhakarmika Sangha, and Manegelasa Kaarmikara Union, Geeta Menon put together a report that shines light on the plight of domestic workers in Bengaluru during the lockdowns, and now as the lockdown eases. It focuses on how government and administrative bodies, and resident welfare associations, have been culpable in further pushing domestic workers to the margins (link).
Aayush Rathi and Sreyan Chatterjee argue how the suspension of labour laws proposed (and enforced) by several states in India as a part of their COVID-19 impact response, have material and discursive impact on the future of work in India (link).
Ambika Tandon discusses the impact of Covid-19 on the gig economy in Asia, especially reflecting on the measures (or lack thereof) taken by companies to support workers (link).
Zothan Mawii, Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon spoke with the leaders of four workers' unions and labour researchers, including the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and the Ola and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU), to identify recommended actions that public agencies and private companies may undertake to better support the urgent needs of gig workers in India (link).

Lateral Surveillance

Drawing from multifaceted research on surveillance around the world, Mira Swaminathan and Shubhika Saluja analyse the unique domain of lateral surveillance, and its heightened impacts on the ‘culture of suspicion’ created between social classes, especially during a pandemic (link).
On the latest episode of our In Flux podcast, Shweta Reddy and Mira Swaminathan discuss COVID-19 related surveillance with Torsha Sarkar, and talk about balancing a public health objective with protection of our fundamental rights (link).

Misinformation

In an article in The Wire, Mira Swaminathan argues that the only efficient and effective way to prevent the spread of misinformation related to the pandemic is self-verification, which means that people who consume the data on an everyday basis must educate themselves and acquire the skills to tackle it (link).
Torsha Sarkar examines content moderation measures taken by online intermediaries to tackle harmful information related to COVID-19 on their platforms, and the recommended ways in which information around these decisions can be preserved for better research going forward (link).

Gender justice

In light of a large digital divide across the usage of technology by women, Ambika Tandon and Mira Swaminathan examine how effective calls to domestic abuse helplines are during lockdown (link).

Data Protection

As part of The Bastion’s series on the education sector and children’s privacy, Pallavi Bedi writes about protecting the privacy of children on ed-tech platforms, especially as students are now more than ever dependent on such platforms for their learning (link).
Shweta Reddy was a panelist on Medianama’s Roundtable on Privacy in the era of COVID-19, where she spoke about privacy checks for data collection process for the purposes of public health during the pandemic (link).
Gurshabad Grover was a discussant for the webinar on Health, Encryption & COVID-19: Keeping people and countries safer online, organized by Internet Society, Center for Democracy and Technology and Global Partners Digital, where he spoke about recent threats to end-to-end encrypted communications, including ‘traceability’ in India and the EARN IT in the US (link).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/engaging-with-the-covid-19-crisis