Centre for Internet and Society

Digital Natives Newsletter (May 2012)

praskrishna — 2012-07-06T08:51:23Z

Digital Natives newsletter of May 2012.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dn-newsletter-may-2012.pdf

Home Alone

praskrishna — 2012-07-06T08:34:26Z

Digital Natives newsletter, April 2012 issue.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/alone-together.pdf

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praskrishna — 2021-08-10T16:01:49Z

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Newsletters

praskrishna — 2015-01-17T03:22:56Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

Fourth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah

praskrishna — 2012-08-07T10:12:41Z

The next meeting of the two Sub-Groups (4th meeting) on privacy issues under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court is scheduled to be held on July 9, 2012 at 11.00 a.m. in Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Planning Commission, New Delhi.

Members of both the Sub-Groups are requested to send their final drafts as decided in the meeting held on June 27, 2012, by July 4, 2012 so that these could be circulated for obtaining feedback and for discussions/deliberations on July 9, 2012.

The above information was communicated by Shri S. Bose, Under Secretary, (CIT & I) to the following individuals:

Justice A.P. Shah, Chairman
Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj
Ms. Usha Ramanathan
Shri Sunil Abraham/Shri Pranesh Prakash
Prashant Reddy
Prof. Arghya Sengupta (requested to join the meeting on skype. Exact time for coming online will be communicated separately)
Shri Som Mittal
Shri Gulshan Rai
Ms. Mala Dutt

A copy of this information was sent to the following individuals:

Dr. C.M. Kumar, Sr, Adviser (CIT&I)

Shri R.K. Gupta, Adviser (CIT&I)

Shri Ramesh Kumar, Director (CIT&I)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/fourth-meeting-of-sub-groups-on-privacy-issues

India Privacy Meet

praskrishna — 2012-07-02T10:48:54Z

Microsoft, DSCI and Greyhead came together to organise India Privacy Meet at Hotel LeMeridien on June 29, 2012 in New Delhi. Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the event.

Agenda

10:00a.m.- 10:10a.m.	Welcome and Introduction: Rahul Neel Mani, Editor & Co-founder Grey Head Media
10:10a.m.- 10:30a.m.	Conference Opening Remarks: Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO Data Security Council of India
10:30a.m.- 10:45a.m.	Theme Address: Deepak Rout, CSO & Director Privacy, Microsoft India
10:45a.m.- 11:00a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11:00a.m.- 12:00p.m.	Panel 1: Consumer Privacy – Creating the Right Balance

Brief: Data Privacy is perhaps the most concerning issue in the digital age. Consumer privacy or customer privacy, involves the handling and protection of sensitive personal information that individuals provide in the course of everyday commercial or professional transactions. This involves exchange or use of data electronically or by other means, including telephone, fax, writing, and word of mouth. With the advent and evolution of Internet and other electronic methods of mass communications, consumer privacy has become a major concern to deal with. Personal information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in identity theft, financial fraud, and other problems that collectively cost individuals, businesses, and governments. In addition, Internet crimes and civil disputes consume law enforcement and judicial resources, confound legislators and bureaucracy, and produce untold personal aggravation.

Key Discussion Areas:

Handling of Personal Information including Sensitive Personal Information
Customer education on understanding business models and motives behind collection and use of Personal Information?
Privacy legislation and striking the right balance between various objectives
Privacy by design, online tracking, and transparency issues
Role of Government, Academia and Citizen groups

Panelists:

Chair - Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India (DSCI)
Sivarama Krishnan, Executive Director, PwC India
Pankaj Agarwal, Head of IT Governance & CISO Aircel
Prashant Mali, Advocate & Cyber Law Expert
Deepak Rout, CSO & Director Privacy, Microsoft India
Vishal Jain, Director, Ernst & Young

12:00p.m.- 01:00p.m.	Panel 2: Citizen Privacy Transparency, Accountability and Social Progress

Brief: While citizens are adopting new technologies which are increasingly making it easier to share information more freely and thereby track individuals more easily, they are also demanding more accountability and openness. Experience indicates that having a more informed citizenry improves services, and accelerates innovation; thus the era of copious content has the potential to generate a host of new services and businesses. However, there is a need for greater transparency in the handling of citizen data and its legitimate use in governance and law enforcement. While new age technologies, if inappropriately used, have a potential impact on citizens’ privacy, they also arm us with the capability to protect citizen data and provide opportunities for privacy conscious and transparent usage of such data, provided there is an enabling environment created by informed and responsible privacy legislation.

Key Discussion Areas:

Core objectives for privacy legislation
Role of government in protecting citizen privacy
Citizen awareness of privacy concerns in today’s legal, business and technology landscape
Expectations of government and citizens on policies around usage and collection of personal data and ability to build profiles for being used for different purposes
Model privacy legislation

Panelists:

Chair - Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs
Na Vijaya Shankar, E-business Consultant & Cyber Law Specialist (Coordinator)
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society
Akhilesh Tuteja, Executive Director, KPMG India
A P Singh, DDG, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
Kailas Karthikeyan, Regulatory & Pub Policy Manager, Legal and Corp Affairs Microsoft

01:00p.m.- 01:10p.m.	Conference Closing Remarks by Deepak Rout, CSO & Director, Privacy Microsoft India Vote of Thanks
01:15p.m. onwards	Lunch

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/india-privacy-meet

Freedom debate takes a new course

praskrishna — 2012-07-22T16:34:54Z

The focus is now on the dubious roles played by private entities on what goes online, says Deepa Kurup in this article published in the Hindu on July 1, 2012.

Deepa Kurup's article was published in the Hindu on July 1, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Debates on censoring the Internet, till recently, largely pitted the ‘people’, that is Net users, against the government which was perceived as seeking to stifle free speech on the Web, a medium that is believed to be vastly powerful and democratic. However, in recent weeks, the focus of the discourse has shifted from shrill anti-government stances to the dubious role that private entities — that often projected themselves as protectors of free speech in the earlier debates — play in controlling this important resource.

That there are various private interests — ranging from Internet service providers, Web companies to the entertainment industry — at stake here is a no-brainer. However, this came to the fore only last month, when two major Internet service providers, Airtel and Reliance, in a pre-emptive move to comply with a Madras High Court order seeking to curb piracy of regional films, blocked access to at least a dozen sites. The blocked sites not only included file-sharing sites but also legitimate Web businesses such as video-sharing sites Vimeo and Daily Motion, that largely host high-quality original videos, and bookmarking sites such as Pastebin.

What was noteworthy is that the High Court did not order the blocking of these websites, and merely ruled that piracy of regional films such as Dammu and 3 be curbed. The order was in response to a petition by makers of the Tamil film 3, yes, the same movie whose claim to fame was the viral Internet hit ‘Kolaveri di’, made popular because thousands of netizens freely shared and viewed the video.

Not limited to regional films, there has been a steady increase in the number of Indian movie production houses, such as Reliance Entertainment Ltd. and Viacom18 Motion Pictures, seeking ex-parte injunctions (popularly known as John Doe or Ashok Kumar orders against unknown persons) to curb piracy of their copyrighted material. Most recently, Viacom18 went to court seeking pre-emptive orders for last Friday’s release, Gangs of Wasseypur, a move that in the context of increased awareness on such laws and their chilling effect on the Internet, drew much flak from netizens. Even in the past, ISPs and Web companies, eager to sidestep possible legal landmines, are known to have blocked entire sites in response to government requests.

Partial Relief?

Last week, the Madras High Court, ruling on an appeal filed by a consortium of ISPs, decreed that ISPs need only block a few specific URLs that carry pirated content, and not entire websites. Following this clarification from the court, ISPs unblocked the sites.

Though many rejoiced over the order, seeing it as an indicator of the success of campaigns — some overt and others more covert such as the hacktivist group Anonymous — others have been more guarded in their response to this.

Pranesh Prakash, lawyer and copyright expert at the Centre for Internet and Society, feels that the victory is only partial given that the court has endorsed partial blocking of Web links. He says: “Under Indian copyright law, ISPs cannot be liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. So while it is good that the court clarified that its order was limited in its scope, it is possible to read even this as going far beyond that which is allowed under the law.” Mr. Prakash points out that the copyright law can be used for censorship, for instance, in the case of the Satish Seth video that Reliance Entertainment has gotten removed from YouTube by citing copyright infringement.”

Hacktivist Exposes

The Satish Seth video was one among many links part of a list published by hacktivist group Anonymous India, on the blog Kafila. The group claimed to have hacked into the servers of Reliance Communication and found a list of 434 Web addresses that were blocked.

Not surprisingly, at least 45 of them were blocked on Reliance request and had little to do with government or court orders. While Reliance has denied the hack and said that list is not authentic, to the media, the list brought to the fore the uneasy role that private companies could play in who controls content on the Web.

Though it is unknown what the Satish Seth links originally contained, a simple search on the web reveals that Mr. Seth is a senior employee in the Reliance Group. These links were later unblocked.

Though some of the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks orchestrated by the group that calls itself Anonymous India targeted government websites, a major target have been these private companies.

In that sense, the contribution of Anonymous India has been interesting in changing the narrative of the discourse to include how private companies that have off late taken to sermonising on the merits of unrestricted freedom on the Web, could easily manipulate the system to further their own interests.

This uneasy equation was also exposed in a ‘sting operation’ conducted by the CIS in 2010, in which Web companies eagerly complied to unsubstantiated or dummy take-down notices sent out.

While the first round of activism focussed on the government’s proposal to clampdown on what it called ‘hate speech’ on the Web by fixing intermediary liabilities (through guidelines it notified in April 2011), this round has dealt with the complex issue of copyrights. A difficult issue worldwide, like in the U.S. for instance where the controversial Bill SOPA sought to block sites that host copyrighted material, here too huge entertainment lobbies, backed by big business, are likely to play a bigger and more forceful role in this debate.

This is apparent even in the Google Transparency Report, released earlier this month, which shows the number of copyright removal notices received for Search (not including its other services such as YouTube and Blogger) in the past year is a climbing statistic.

In June alone, Google Search received 2,221,212 takedown requests from copyright owners and reporting organisations. Not surprisingly, though the list of requestors is topped by software major Microsoft, among other top contenders are all the major production houses.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/freedom-debate-takes-a-new-course

Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on ‘Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics’

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T10:22:48Z

Digital Empowerment Foundation, Association for Progressive Communications, Department of Information Technology and National Internet Exchange of India came together to organize an event on "Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics". This was held at Mirza Ghalib Hall, SCOPE Complex, New Delhi from 9.00 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. on May 3, 2012. Pranesh Prakash was a speaker.

The core aim of the dedicated half-day consultation programme was to discuss, deliberate and debate over the internet related concerns, covering the larger theme of internet and outlining India’s progress towards ‘Internet Access for All’, and specific areas of concern – right to information, internet & information access, internet governance, Internet regulation, content specifications, cyber law, and appropriate policy framework.

The consultation was an effort to encourage stakeholders to adopt relevant, appropriate and time bound measures to accelerate the availability, affordability and accessibility of the internet and address issues around it.*

Video

External Links

*See the original info published at Digital Empowerment Foundation, Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on ‘Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics’ : Digital Empowerment Foundation, http://bit.ly/OGyYeg, last accessed on June 29, 2012.
Click here for the Event Agenda
See the video on YouTube

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-rights-accessibility-regulation-ethics

GeekUp with Alan Knott-Craig

praskrishna — 2012-06-29T11:11:52Z

HasGeek and CIS invite you to a lecture by Alan Knott-Craig at CIS office in Bangalore on June 30, 2012, from 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Alan is founder of World of Avatar and CEO of Mxit, Africa’s largest social network. Between 2003 and 2006, Alan co-founded five companies in the mobile services sector. In 2006, he was appointed managing director of iBurst, a broadband network operator in South Africa. In April 2008, he published Don’t Panic, a best selling book aimed at persuading emigrant South Africans to return home. In June 2008, he founded The Trust, an NGO focused on assisting charities access skills and capital. In 2009, he was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In June 2012 he published Mobinomics, the story of Mxit and mobile in Africa. Alan is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA).

The Story of MXit

MXit (pronounced "mix it") is a free instant messaging application developed by MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that runs on multiple mobile and computing platforms. According to a 2011 study by consultancy World Wide Worx, MXit currently has about 10 million active subscribers, making it the largest mobile social network in Africa.

MXit allows users to send and receive one-on-one text and multimedia messages to and from other users, and in general chat rooms. MXit also supports gateways to other instant messaging platforms such as MSN Messenger, ICQ and Google Talk.

On 1 April 2009, MXit released an open-source plug-in for the libPurple library. This allows applications using the libPurple library such as Pidgin and Adium to connect to the MXit network. This coincided with the release of the MXit Developer Zone web-site and documentation on the MXit client protocol. MXit has been included as a standard protocol in Pidgin since version 2.6.4.

Agenda

17:00 - 17:05	Welcome with Tea, Coffee, and Snacks
17:05 - 17:15	Lightning Talks
17:15 - 18:00	The Story of MXit
18:00 - 18:30	Q & A

For registration, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/geek-up-with-alan-knott-craig

Clear and Present Danger: Attempts to Change Internet Governance and Implications for Press Freedom

praskrishna — 2012-06-29T03:59:39Z

The event was organised by National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2012. Emma Llansó, Rebecca MacKinnon, Emin Milli, Susan Morgan and Katitza Rodriguez were the speakers.

Pranesh Prakash participated in the event. Susan Morgan from Global Network Initiative was the moderator.

More details are published on the National Endowment for Democracy website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/clear-and-present-danger

Telecommunications and Internet Privacy

praskrishna — 2014-02-28T04:57:49Z

Telecommunications and Internet Privacy file.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/telecommunications-internet-privacy.pdf

Internet Freedom Fellows Program Emphasizes Defense of Fundamental Freedoms Online

praskrishna — 2012-07-02T06:47:31Z

At the Human Rights Council (HRC), the United States has consistently placed special emphasis on the protection and promotion of the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association, because we understand that these fundamental freedoms are essential to facilitating the exercise of other universal rights.

Published on DipNote, the US Department of State Official Blog

Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe serves as the U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council. His blog post was published on DipNote on June 25, 2012.

As activity in the economic, social, and the political realms gravitates from the offline world to the online world, we have an additional responsibility to ensure that human rights and fundamental freedoms are not eroded simply because they are being exercised in the digital realm. The United States is committed to the principle that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected in the online world.

Last week, I had the chance to spend time with the Internet Freedom Fellows, six young human rights activists, each of whom is working in his or her own way to promote and defend freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and all other human rights on the Internet. The Internet Freedom Fellows (IFF) program is funded by the State Department's Innovation Fund and the U.S. Mission in Geneva, and was designed to follow up on Secretary Clinton's pledge to find innovative ways to promote the use of the Internet in support of human rights. The 2012 Fellows are: Dlshad Othman (Syria), Pranesh Prakash (India), Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso), Sopheap Chak (Cambodia), Andres Azpurua (Venezuela), and Emin Milli (Azerbaijan).

The fellows' visit to Geneva coincided with a moment when the Human Rights Council is seized with these issues: The United States and a cross regional group of countries consisting of Brazil, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Turkey have joined with Sweden to present a resolution on the Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet. If adopted later this session, this landmark text will mark the first time the Council has substantively addressed the issue of human rights online in a resolution.

As the global community has watched during the past 18 months, individuals across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond have taken to both physical town squares and virtual spaces to express their legitimate aspirations and demand democracy. The Internet has become an essential medium through which journalists, activists, and citizens connect and share information in ways that are changing their societies.

One of this year's fellows is Dlshad Othman, a Syrian activist and IT engineer who has put his own life in danger to assist his fellow Syrian citizen journalists. Sitting next to me at a UN press conference, Dlshad explained how he helps provide Syrians with digital security resources so that they can communicate online freely and securely despite Assad's "electronic army," with its active online censorship and surveillance. Although he cannot currently return to his country, Dlshad is focused on making it possible for the world to hear the voices of people inside Syria. "This is actually the only way that we have at this time, since there isn't any media on the ground."

As the Representative of the United States to the Human Rights Council, I am inspired by these fellows and the courage they've displayed in using the digital realm to advocate for the human rights of their fellow citizens. I will recall their stories and experiences as I work to promote these fundamental freedoms in the Human Rights Council.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/defense-of-fundamental-freedoms-online

Internet Freedom press conference at the UN Fellows

praskrishna — 2012-06-28T06:03:54Z

Published in Weekly ING on June 22, 2012

A central goal of the program is to share experiences and promote understanding of the importance of a free Internet to freedom of expression and association as fundamental rights of the people studied. Fellows are in Geneva June 19 to 22 at the 20th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. Fellows this year on Internet freedom, all human rights activists and practitioners active in the digital media, are from Syria, India, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan. . In Geneva, they will participate in a conversation, global webcast of the United Nations, to “global networks, individual freedom”, Wednesday, Juin 20-1000 EDT (14:00 UTC) The 2012 Fellows are: Dlshad Othman (Syria): Mr. Othman is a Syrian activist and software engineer with the Syrians, the digital resources and support for security features so that they can use online communication and advocacy work freely and safely, despite the increased repression of E-Government in the form of censorship, Cyber-attacks and sophisticated monitoring intense.Pranesh Prakash (India): Mr. Prakash is a program manager at the Center for Internet and Society at Bangalore. He works primarily in areas where policies intersect and technology, conduct research and policy advocacy on issues of online freedom of expression, access to knowledge, intellectual property and Internet governance reform Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso). Mr. Kambou is a newspaper reporter and a presenter at Lefaso.net blogs. He wooed and promotes human rights and the values of democracy and freedom of the press. He publishes articles and videos to educate and raise awareness on issues of human rights Sopheap Chak (Cambodia):. Ms Chak is the program director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) is a leading Cambodian human rights activist bloggers. It mobilizes youth activists around the country in civic engagement through the Youth Network of Cambodia to change. She is the author of the online Global Voice, UPI Asia Online, and calls Furutre.Andres Azpurua (Venezuela): Mr. Azpurua is committed to the creation of digital tools to allow Venezuelans to better exercise their rights. O He has to create a digital platform that promotes and defends the rights of voters helped. It is also the founder of a digital initiative to establish a voluntary civil society to the right of the Milli Venezuela.Emin (Azerbaijan) is to be promoted: Mr. Milli is a writer and dissident who has actively used online networking tools, to disseminate information on violations of human rights in Azerbaijan. He was in for 16 months for his critical views on the Government of Azerbaijan in prison. He was pardoned in 2010 and is currently writing his doctoral work in London, the “New Media and the Arab revolutions”. U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers.

Internet

Image the U.S. mission in Geneva

The Internet Freedom Fellows Program of the U.S. State funded Department and administered by the United States Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, provides human rights activists around the world in Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to work with other activists, U.S. and international to meet government and members of civil society and the private sector in technology and the human rights involved. A central goal of the program is to share experiences and promote understanding of the importance of a free Internet to freedom of expression and association as fundamental rights of the people studied. Fellows are in Geneva June 19 to 22 at the 20th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. Fellows this year on Internet freedom, all human rights activists and practitioners active in the digital media, are from Syria, India, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan. . In Geneva, they will participate in a conversation, global webcast of the United Nations, to “global networks, individual freedom”, Wednesday, Juin 20-1000 EDT (14:00 UTC) The 2012 Fellows are: Dlshad Othman (Syria): Mr. Othman is a Syrian activist and software engineer with the Syrians, the digital resources and support for security features so that they can use online communication and advocacy work freely and safely, despite the increased repression of E-Government in the form of censorship, Cyber-attacks and sophisticated monitoring intense.Pranesh Prakash (India): Mr. Prakash is a program manager at the Center for Internet and Society at Bangalore. He works primarily in areas where policies intersect and technology, conduct research and policy advocacy on issues of online freedom of expression, access to knowledge, intellectual property and Internet governance reform Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso). Mr. Kambou is a newspaper reporter and a presenter at Lefaso.net blogs. He wooed and promotes human rights and the values of democracy and freedom of the press. He publishes articles and videos to educate and raise awareness on issues of human rights Sopheap Chak (Cambodia):. Ms Chak is the program director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) is a leading Cambodian human rights activist bloggers. It mobilizes youth activists around the country in civic engagement through the Youth Network of Cambodia to change. She is the author of the online Global Voice, UPI Asia Online, and calls Furutre.Andres Azpurua (Venezuela): Mr. Azpurua is committed to the creation of digital tools to allow Venezuelans to better exercise their rights. O He has to create a digital platform that promotes and defends the rights of voters helped. It is also the founder of a digital initiative to establish a voluntary civil society to the right of the Milli Venezuela.Emin (Azerbaijan) is to be promoted: Mr. Milli is a writer and dissident who has actively used online networking tools, to disseminate information on violations of human rights in Azerbaijan. He was in for 16 months for his critical views on the Government of Azerbaijan in prison. He was pardoned in 2010 and is currently writing his doctoral work in London, the “New Media and the Arab revolutions”.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-freedom-press-conference-at-un-fellows

Internet Freedom At Home: Governments, Companies Need Accountability, Speakers Say

praskrishna — 2012-06-28T05:27:43Z

The freedom to access the internet does not translate into freedom of expression in many countries of the world, including in western economies, according to speakers at a peer forum organised yesterday by the United States mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

Catherine Saez wrote this for Intellectual Property Watch on June 22, 2012

Both governments and companies, prime providers of internet surveillance technologies in particular in the developed countries, need to be held accountable for the destination and use of those technologies, some of which run counter to human rights.

The peer forum on internet freedom and human rights was held on 21 June and gathered technology experts, and human right activists, with the participation of the mission’s Internet Freedom Fellows programme, organised since 2011 in parallel with the UN Human Rights Council.

Freedom to connect exists in most countries where internet surveillance runs counter to human rights but not freedom from fear, Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN journalist and co-founder of Global Voices Online said.

“Internet freedom does not mean just free networks, it means free people,” MacKinnon said. “Accomplishing that and constraining the abuse of power across digital networks is a tough problem.”

Strong Global Standard Needed, Democracies also Concerned

In the Internet Age, it is technically trivial both for corporations and governments to gain access to people’s private communications, she said. The issue is that without strong global standards the empowering potential of the internet is going to be diminished, she said. This is true not only for interconnection but also public transparency and accountability in how surveillance technologies are developed, deployed. And it applies to how information is shared between governments and between companies and governments.

Even in democracies, “we are really struggling” with the issue of how to make sure that in the legitimate fight against crime, terrorism, cyber attacks, which all are real problems, the mechanisms put in place are not abused, she said. How can it ensured that those who hold power through those mechanisms will be accountable when they use that power for purposes that were not intended, she asked. She cited a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union http://www.aclu.org/spy-files on widespread surveillance by US law enforcement agencies across the US.

Surveillance technologies “are being sold very obviously to governments who clearly are going to abuse that technology,” she said. She mentioned what has been nicknamed the “Wiretappers’ Ball” to describe trade fairs run by a company which invites law enforcement and security agencies from around the world to meet with companies that built those technologies.

The last one of those fairs was held “not too far from Washington, DC” and 35 US federal agencies were present, along with representatives of 43 different countries, she said, with ” no questions asked.”

A lot of these technologies are being built or developed primarily by western companies with western governments as prime customers, but are being sold blatantly to countries like Azerbaijan (which has been reported recently for its crackdown on free expression) and others, she said.

As a major customer, the United States needs to demand transparency on the part of these companies about where those technologies are being sold and used, MacKinnon said, adding, “Internet freedom starts at home.”

There is a need to demand that governments be accountable and transparent on what surveillance technologies exist and how they are being deployed and used, and not only at the domestic level, but globally.

As an example of transparency, she cited the Google transparency report, which lists the number of requests from governments around the world both for user information and takedown requests. MacKinnon said the top requesters were democratic governments.

All companies should be requested to provide similar transparency reports, she said, and governments should also issue transparency reports about the number of requests they are making. “There should be ways to do this without compromising active investigation,” she said.

MacKinnon recently published a book entitled, “Consent of the Networked.”

Internet: Shopping Mall or Public Square
A panel discussion addressed the protection of human rights in a world of global networks in which two visions of the internet were described. One is§ the internet as a shopping mall, mainly owned by private interests, the other one as a public square.

Robert Whelan from the International Committee of the Red Cross raised the concept of informed consent in the context of victims of armed conflicts. The victims of violation of human rights law have the right to know what information is going to be used about their experience, or their story, he said. They should know where this information will go, who is going to see it, have access to it, where that information is going to be replicated or reproduced and when will that information will be deleted, he added.

The challenge is to put the civilian victims at the centre, and in control of the information about their experience. This is at odds with the concept of free exchange of information, he said, citing as examples the “re-tweeting” and reproducing of articles, photographs and names on the internet.

Nicolas Seidler from the Internet Society said the internet is not “the wild west” but just the digital version of the real world, and as such is subject to the same human rights instruments. The challenge is that no new rights are needed; rather the need is to implement and reinforce human rights standards on the internet, he said. Governments’ management of the internet is but a reflection of their overall management, he said.

For Brett Solomon, executive director of Accessnow.org, a US-based nongovernmental organisation pushing for digital freedom, several issues are laid out in the “Silicon Valley Standard” [pdf]. The standard was developed after the Silicon Valley human rights conference held in San Francisco in 2011.

The effort to protect rights holders and copyrights by the copyright industry, which he qualified as “voracious,” is putting internet intermediaries at risk of liability, he said.

Effective internet security is essential, he said, as “there is no freedom of speech unless people feel safe and secure.” He called for the right to encryption of web activity. “Technology companies must provide a basic level of security … to their users by default and resist bans and curtailments of the use of encryption,” the standard says.

David Sullivan, policy and communications director for the Global Network Initiative (GNI) presented the initiative, which gathers information and communication technology stakeholders and provides a framework for companies based on international standards. Companies that commit to GNI standards also commit to being assessed independently, he said, on how they implement principles, if they have policies and procedures in place to meet standards and accountability commitments.

Sullivan cited the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the failed US legislation, as a policy effort aimed at solving one problem around copyright infringing material that is was “going to have deeply worrisome repercussions around the world as other countries look at that example in ways that could have deeply problematic consequences in terms of censorship.”

This year, the human right activists participating in the Internet Freedom Fellows programme are: Dishad Othman from Syria, Pranesh Prakash from India, Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou from Burkina Faso, Sopheap Chak from Cambodia, Andreas Azpurua from Venezuela and Emin Milli from Azerbaijan. Short biographies are here.

Emin Milli, a writer who was imprisoned for expressing his opinion in Azerbajian, said he looked at internet as a public square and not a shopping mall but the situations vastly differ from one country to the other, he added, as contexts are very different. The Eurovision song contest, which was held in the country this year, was a great opportunity for civil society, with the help of international media to draw attention to the situation of Azerbaijan.

Dishad Othman, a Syrian activist and IT engineer, characterised himself as a security activist as he is helping people to use tools to hide themselves on the internet. Sharing experiences from different countries is very important, he said, calling for a larger group of international activists who could help people but also technology companies to provide a safer environment and to promote freedom on the internet so that “all people can benefit from it.”

Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, said people have tools to protect themselves from surveillance that they do not use. In particular, he said, many journalists do not know how to use those tools, especially in the context of journalists’ computers and files that are seized, endangering their sources.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-freedom-at-home

Satya N Gupta

praskrishna — 2012-06-27T07:17:59Z

Satya N Gupta is a veteran in the field of telecommunications, drawing from his vast experience in telecom regulation as well as industry. Mr. Gupta joined the Planning and Coordination Wing of Ministry of Communication in 1981, holding the post of Officer-in-charge of Wireless Monitoring Station, Srinagar and Secretary, Regional Advisory Committee of SACFA for J&K and HP. Among other accomplishments, he was a member of the NGN Regulation review group of ITU and also worked as Pr. Advisor with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India at the level of Additional Secretary and is heading the Converged Network Division dealing with Regulatory, Technical and Economic aspects of Data Networks and Services.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/satya-gupta