Centre for Internet and Society

Call for respondents: the implementation of government-ordered censorship

Gurshabad Grover and Divyansha Sehgal — 2022-01-04T08:10:25Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is conducting interviews with people whose content has been affected by blocking orders from the Indian Government.

Call for respondents

To study the implementation of online censorship and the experience of content creators, the Centre for Internet and Society is conducting interviews with people whose content has been affected by blocking orders from the Indian Government. We aim to empirically record the extent of government notice and opportunity for hearing made available to content creators.

If you, or someone you know, has had their content blocked or withheld by a blocking order, please reach out to us via email (divyansha[at]cis-india.org) or DM us on Twitter.

The type of content that can includes (but is not limited to):

blocking or withholding access of posts or accounts on social media
blocking or withholding access of websites by ISPs
search results that have been delisted by blocking orders

Please read below for a brief legal background on the powers of the Central Government to issue content takedown orders. If you have any concerns about the nature of attribution of your responses, please reach out: we are confident we will be able to find a solution that works for you.

Background

The rate of online censorship in India is increasing at an alarming rate, with the Government of India ordering around 10,000 webpages/social media accounts to be blocked just in 2020. The legal powers and procedures that enable such censorship thus deserve closer scrutiny. In particular, Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act permits the Central Government to ask intermediaries (ranging from internet service providers to social media platforms) to block certain content for their users. Among other grounds, these powers can be used by the government in the interest of Indian sovereignty, national security, and public order.

The regulations (‘blocking rules’) issued under the Act lay down the procedure for the government to exercise such powers, and have long been criticised for enabling an opaque regime of online censorship. Such orders are passed by a committee comprising only government officials. There is no judicial or parliamentary oversight over such orders. The government does in certain instances have an obligation to find the content creator to give them a notice or hearing, but this has rarely been implemented.

To exacerbate this unaccountable form of censorship, there is a rule mandating the confidentiality of content takedown orders. This means that these orders are not public, severely impeding the ability to challenge broad censorship in courts. There are also cases where even individuals who created the affected content were not able to access the orders! Journalists, civil society organisations and activists are also hindered from probing how widespread India’s online censorship is, since the Government routinely rejects Right to Information (RTI) requests about these orders based on the confidentiality provision or national security grounds.

When this censorship regime was challenged in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, the Supreme Court Court stated that the procedural safeguards were adequate, but such content takedown orders must always be open to challenge in court. Specifically, multiple legal scholars have read the judgment to mean a pre-decisional hearing must be afforded to the affected content creators.

Our forthcoming research project (described above) seeks to empirically investigate whether the Central Government is following this obligation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/call-for-respondents-the-implementation-of-government-ordered-censorship

Opinion: Delicensing 6 GHz, 60 GHz bands is crucial to improve Wi-Fi scenario in India

abhishek — 2022-01-03T15:30:43Z

Recently, there has been growing demand from industry bodies and associations to delicense 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands in India.

The article by Abhishek Raj was published by the News Minute on December 21, 2021.

The Wi-Fi space has become a lot more exciting with the emergence of new Wi-Fi standards such as Wi-Fi 6E (the latest generation of Wi-Fi) and WiGig (that uses the V-band and offers advantages such as faster gigabit speeds). These standards require airwaves in 6 GHz and 60 GHz frequency bands to operate. As a consequence, governments and telecom regulators across the globe are deliberating on policy options for spectrum allocation in the aforementioned bands.

Stakeholders are divided on the issue of allocating 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands in India. For instance, there are certain telcos who strongly oppose delicensing these bands and demand a licensed framework with the use of auctions for allocation. As per their argument, delicensing the said bands will put their investments at risk and upset a level playing field. Whereas, on the other side, US tech majors Cisco and Intel, alongside industry bodies and forums such as the ITU-APT Foundation of India and Broadband India Forum, are in favor of delicensing. Notably, the delicensed/ unlicensed frequency bands are “free to use” by anyone, and the users need not pay any fees or obtain a license (right to use) from the government. On the contrary, licensed bands come with a “right to exclusive use” and are usually allocated through auction. They have associated costs including auction amount, license fees, usage charges, etc.

In this article, I argue that the government should consider delicensing the 6 GHz band and 60 GHz range in the V-band, simply known as the 60 GHz band, to meet the increasing data demand, provide a better connection experience, and, more importantly, unlock the economic value and potential of these bands.

Evolution of Wi-Fi Standards

Let us begin by understanding the fundamentals of Wi-Fi and its evolution over the years. Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard 802.11. To keep things simple, consider ‘Wi-Fi’ a user-friendly name for IEEE 802.11 standard. Since its advent in 1997, Wi-Fi has become an indispensable wireless technology alongside mobile technology. The term ‘Wi-Fi’ is used synonymously with the internet by many users as a result of its widespread use in providing an interface with the internet.

IEEE 802.11 standards have evolved over the years, from 802.11a to 802.11ax. Again, these terms don’t sound so user-friendly, and for this reason, Wi-Fi alliance, a non-profit organisation that owns Wi-Fi trademark, came up with simplified generational names such as Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, etc. The most recent Wi-Fi 6E [read Wi-Fi 6th generation- extended] is a simplified name for IEEE 802.11 ax standard. Needless to say, every new generation of Wi-Fi brings greater speed, lower latency, and a better user experience.

Benefits of Wi-Fi 6E & WiGig: Case for Delicensing

In addition to the pre-existing growth in demand for data, the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated data requirements due to the radical shift to work-from-home, online classes, etc. Dependence on Wi-Fi has increased in parallel to meet this increase in demand. On the other hand, India has only around 700 MHz of spectrum available for unlicensed use, concentrated majorly in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands which are currently used for Wi-Fi services in India. The 2.4 GHz band is already crowded, and the same is anticipated for the latter. In order to support the growing data demand, policymakers in India need to explore the option of opening up more unlicensed spectrum. Notably, the quantum of unlicensed spectrum in India is significantly lower than in other countries such as the USA, UK, China, Japan, and Brazil, all of which have approximately 15,000 MHz of unlicensed spectrum.

The policy reluctance of DoT to delicense more spectrum is partly because of fear of losing out on revenues which licensed spectrum generates, and partly because of a narrow interpretation of Supreme Court’s 2012 judgement. However, considering the recent developments in Wi-Fi, 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands appear to be ideal candidates for creating more unlicensed spectrum. Let us explore this further.

Unlike its previous versions, which operated in either the 2.4 GHz or the 5 GHz band, Wi-Fi 6E operates in the 6 GHz band. The 6 GHz band contains radio frequencies between 5.925 and 7.125 GHz, and is much wider than the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The wide channels, along with other distinct features such as lesser interference, enable Wi-Fi 6E to perform with better speeds, even in multi-user connected, congested, and dense networks.

Furthermore, Wi-Fi 6E is a new and niche technology, whose market will undoubtedly develop in the coming years. Indian telecom hardware and software companies have the opportunity to capture a chunk of this market in India as well as globally. We know that service provision in unlicensed bands is less expensive, and thus attracts a lot of innovations. We need to open up the 6 GHz band very soon to foster innovations by indigenous companies. We took a late call on delicensing the 5 GHz band which affected the prospects of Indian innovators and companies. We can’t afford to repeat this.

Similarly, we have WiGig – another exciting Wi-Fi technology. WiGig uses the V-band’s 60 GHz range (i.e., airwaves between 57-71 GHz frequency) to operate. The V-band offers advantages such as faster gigabit speeds and lack of interference due to oxygen absorption within its frequency range, making this band ideal for shared unlicensed use. The government launched a public Wi-Fi initiative of India known as PM-WANI in December 2020. PM-WANI aims to promote broadband in the country through the deployment of public Wi-Fi access points. Supporting such a dense deployment of Wi-Fi access points would require a “fiber speed” backbone. However, cost structure and right-of-way hurdles may be prohibitive for the deployment of fiber backhaul in dense urban environments. WiGig offers a cost-efficient wireless backhaul solution as an alternative to fiber backhaul, with multigigabit speeds and reliability similar to fiber. Delicensing the 60 GHz band can thus especially benefit PM-WANI, because of its potential to provide alternative backhaul solutions.

It is important to remember that unlicensed bands for Wi-Fi access have significant economic value. Although unlicensed bands do not generate direct revenue for the government through auctions, spectrum usage charges, etc., the economic value of unlicensed Wi-Fi is huge. According to a report by Wi-Fi Alliance, the global economic value of Wi-Fi will reach Rs 362 lakh crore (USD 4.9 trillion) by 2025. A BIF (Broadband India Forum) report authored by Prof. Rekha Jain estimates the economic value of Wi-Fi in unlicensed spectrum bands (2.4 GHz, 5GHz, 6 GHz, and 60 GHz) for 2025 to be INR 12.7 lakh crore in India. A major concern raised by telcos recently is that the government might lose out on revenue if 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands are delicensed instead of licensing and sold through auction. However, this concern seems to be evidently misplaced due to the huge economic potential of these bands, as also pointed out by other experts.

Several other jurisdictions have already started delicensing these bands. Almost 35 countries, including the USA, UK, Brazil, UAE, and Korea have delicensed the 6 GHz band, and several others are considering the same. Similarly, around 70 countries across the globe have delicensed the V-band in the 60 GHz range.

Conclusion

Wi-Fi 6E and WiGig are exciting technologies with numerous benefits and will play a crucial role in improving the Wi-Fi scenario in India. Had the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands not been delicensed in the past, could we have even imagined a Wi-Fi revolution? The government must consider delicensing the 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands to bring in the next Wi-Fi revolution.

(The author is thankful to Arindrajit Basu and Isha Suri for their review and suggestions.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-news-minute-december-21-2021-abhishek-raj-opinion-delicensing-6-ghz-60-ghz-bands-crucial-improve-wi-fi-scenario-india

Gender and gig work: Perspectives from domestic work in India

ambika — 2021-12-07T02:11:49Z

Platforms have the potential to be instrumental in protecting workers rights, but the current platform design is not optimised to protect workers’ interests especially those of women in the gig economy, argues Ambika Tandon, a senior researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society in India and an author of the report on ‘Platforms, Power and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India’.

Digital labour platforms, broadly defined as digital interfaces that enable the exchange of goods or services, have grown exponentially in cities across the world. In sectors such as transportation and delivery, Uber and similar platforms have achieved dominant status, while in other sectors platforms are still making inroads to transform consumption patterns. Researchers at India’s Centre for Internet and Society, sought to understand the impact platforms have had on the paid domestic and care work sector in India, given its importance for women workers. The workforce in this sector is largely constituted of women from Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (or caste-oppressed) and low-income groups, with a long history of socioeconomic and legal devaluation and lack of recognition. In this context, platforms have positioned themselves as intermediaries that will improve wages and conditions of work, pushing the sector towards formalisation.

To assess the impact of digital platforms on processes of recruitment and placement and on organisation and conditions of work, we undertook 60 in-depth interviews between June and November 2019. We chose two metropolitan cities, New Delhi in north India and Bengaluru in south India, as our field sites. These are key nodes in the migration corridors of domestic workers in the country. We spoke to workers who were searching for hourly or regular work through platforms, representatives of platform companies and state and central governments, as well as domestic workers unions. We found that platform design breeds and amplifies exclusion and discrimination along the lines of gender and caste, among other social characteristics.

Uber for domestic work

We found that the function of digital platforms in the sector is contingent on the historical organisation of domestic work, rather than any fundamental re-organisation of the supply chain. Unlike in the global North, platforms in India have thus far been unable to ‘gig-ify’, that is, break up most tasks that constitute domestic work – including child and elderly care and cooking – into short-term granular services that have been standardised. Domestic workers continue to find regular term full-time placements through marketplace platforms, which only connect employers to workers with no other role in determining work conditions. HelpersNearMe and Helper4u are examples of platforms that play this role by listing profiles of workers and making these available to employers. These placements are no different from work in the ‘offline’ sector, with complete informality and very little standardisation around hours, wages, and task constitution. As compared to this, on-demand platforms that offer short-term gigs (similar to the Uber model) have grown exponentially in the ‘deep’ cleaning segment by marketing it as a professional service with higher value than ‘regular’ cleaning services.

The function of digital platforms in the sector is contingent on the historical organisation of domestic work, rather than any fundamental re-organisation of the supply chain.

Cleaning gigs provided by on-demand companies have higher hourly wages than ‘regular’ cleaning services in the traditional sector. But accessing these opportunities requires workers to have regular access to a smartphone throughout the day, to be able to accept or reject tasks and receive payments through a mobile application or web-portal. Women workers from low income families have very low levels of digital access, with most phones being shared between families and controlled by male members. Also, the use of technical equipment such as vacuum cleaners and chemicals has led to deep cleaning being viewed as a masculine task. As a result, almost all cleaning workers we identified in the on-demand sector were men, even though cleaning is a feminised job role in the traditional economy. Some cleaning workers we spoke to did not identify as domestic workers at all, but rather viewed their work as holding a higher status than traditional cleaning. This trend of masculinisation of a job role coinciding with higher wages and social status has also been seen in other sectors globally, such as software programming.

Promises and risks of low-tech platforms

One of the reasons that women workers are more likely to find work through marketplace platforms rather than on-demand agencies is because they only require workers to have a basic or feature phone for one-time registration, and subsequently to answer calls from potential employers or the platform. Most platforms in this category do not intervene in task allocation or terms of work, which are negotiated directly between workers and employers. Algorithms and digital interfaces then only facilitate matching, as opposed to on-demand work where all aspects of the job are determined by the platform. This allows women workers to register using shared family phones, or those of their friends, neighbours, and in the case of one of our respondents, her landlady’s phone number. These platforms then may be able to provide placement opportunities to workers who are unable to find work through word-of-mouth networks. This is especially crucial as a result of the unemployment crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, unlike with the on-demand model, these platforms do not offer increased wages or provide better conditions of work.

Although marketplace platforms provide an additional route into finding opportunities in the sector, they also codify employers’ biases through their design. All marketplace platforms and digital placement agencies we reviewed – upwards of 20 companies – provide demographic filters to employers for filtering workers’ profiles. These include information on workers’ gender, age, religion, state of origin, and in one case, even caste. While practices of employing workers based on demographic characteristics are rampant in the sector historically, platforms build them in by design and market them as a key feature of what they are able to offer employers. These open up direct avenues for employers to discriminate against workers from minority religions and oppressed castes. It also reinforces gendered occupational segregation, as employers seek out women workers for feminised roles such as cleaning and care work, and men for tasks such as gardening and plumbing.

Power structures endemic to the domestic work sector continue to thrive in the platform economy, as do gender and caste-based occupational segregation.

Platforms have been making claims of formalising the informal sector, especially in global South economies, through increasing efficiency in matching workers to employers. Despite having the potential to be instrumental in protecting workers rights, currently platform design is not optimised to protect workers’ interests. Power structures endemic to the domestic work sector continue to thrive in the platform economy, as do gender and caste-based occupational segregation. To be able to nudge the sector towards formalisation, platforms need to directly intervene in power structures and co-design with workers, rather than merely functioning as digital recruiters. This could imply adopting practices such as removing demographic details where not relevant, introducing written contracts and minimum wage floors for placements, and addressing gender gaps in some segments of the digital economy.

This work forms part of a project on ‘Platforms, Power and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India’, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can read more about the project here, and find the full project report here.

This article gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of the Media@LSE blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The blog first published on LSE website can be accessed here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/lse-ambika-tandon-october-21-2021-ambika-tandon-gender-and-gig-work

Facial Recognition Technology in India

Elonnai Hickok, Pallavi Bedi, Aman Nair and Amber Sinha — 2021-09-02T16:17:44Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/facial-recognition-technology-in-india.pdf

Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021/Report

Nitesh Gill and Tito Dutta — 2021-08-20T14:01:55Z

In March 2020, the whole world came to a standstill. What many deemed as a regular ‘flu’ turned out to be the pandemic that brought everyone to their knees. The things that we always did, we could no longer do them. We were all confined to our homes with no choice but to work online. Hanging out with friends, attending weddings, and being a part of the conferences and seminars suddenly became a part of the past. We started using the word unprecedented a lot.

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!”

- Wayne Dyer

For the last many months, we have been getting used to this new ‘normal’. Students and teachers are getting accustomed to the classes and tests happening online. What people thought was impossible, has now become possible. No one could have guessed that birthday parties, gatherings, even marriages would be conducted online. We have now got used to being part of webinars, sessions, and conferences online. A2K is not an exception to this. We planned and conducted a national meet named ‘Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021’.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success!”

- Henry Ford

Background: We, at A2K, have organised many such training sessions and conferences like Train the Trainer, Media Wiki Training, Advanced Wiki Training. But due to COVID restrictions it was not possible to organise such an event offline this year. So this year, we decided to organise a virtual meet for the Wikimedians of India. This meet was planned and conducted especially for the Wikimedians who are already working or are interested in working on Wikimedia projects that deal with Indian content.

Our main objectives behind organising this meet were to celebrate the work done by Wikimedians of India, to provide an online platform for wiki-learning and skill-share, to support discussions and interactions, to give training on important and relevant topics, and explore the medium of online training and wiki-event for future use.

After all the planning, our three-day event of Wikimedia Wikimeet took place from 19 February to 21 February, 2021.

Community Engagement: We decided to organise this meet as there seemed to be a scarcity in volunteer’s and user’s contribution. Moreover, we have always believed in giving back to the community. So, we took an initiative to keep the community engaged. Our goal was to encourage volunteers and users to come forward and take lead in Wikimedia activities. To make it easy for our volunteers and the users to select their area of interest, we started Request for Comments and Community Engagement. It is a forum where open discussions can take place about and where participants can share their knowledge, expertise, and experience. The tasks that were conducted under this were Logo Design, Translation, and Knowledge on Hybrid / Blended Learning Model.

Modes of Promotion: This event would not have been a success if not for our participants. We began promoting the event by using our India Mailing list. Our next step was to publicise the event on our social media channels and pages and also in messenger groups. We sent bulk messages on Indic Village Pumps announcing that the Wikimedia Wikimeet was about to take place. Our next step was to start a fortnightly newsletter about the event. It was started to notify the people of updates. We encouraged our users to sign up for the newsletter so they would get immediate updates. This way, our volunteers and users knew what was happening with regard to the event and they also came to know what was about to happen in the coming 15 days.

Another thing we did was to put up a blogpost on Diff about our event. Our blogpost stated the importance of organising such an event. We have also discussed the background ideas in the same post. Our next blogpost dealt with the ‘how’ of our event. In it, we discussed the ideas of designing the event. Total 5 blogposts were written and put up. Another article named Wikimedia Wikimeet and Beyond: Ideas and Opinions was written and posted a few months later.

Organisation Methodology: Every great journey begins with one step. With that in mind, we first decided on the organisation methodology. The team tried its best to maintain transparency from planning and organisation till the execution and the end of the meet. This was the first ever large scale meet that we were planning to organise. Thus, some of the resources came in handy in our planning stage. To mention a few, we took inspiration and guidance from Celtic Knot Conference, LD4 Conference, Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting, Creative Commons Global Summit, Italy Wiki Conference, Wikicite Virtual Conference, and Wikimedia Strategy Global Conversation.

Next step the core team took was to appoint a program committee. The main function of this program committee was to select important submissions and presentations. Following are the 5 members of our program committee:

Kiril Simeonovski: He is the founding member of Wikimedia Macedonia and Shared Knowledge and has been the president of Shared Knowledge since 2014.

Netha Hussain: She has been a volunteer in the Wikimedia Movement since 2010. Nowadays she mostly works in English WIkipedia and Wikidata, but she is also active in Commons, Metawiki, and Malayalam Wikipedia.

Shyamal: He is interested in the natural history of India, environmental consciousness in general, and history of science, especially biology.

Mahir256: He is an administrator on Wikidata, an administrator on Bengali Wikisource, and has a native understanding of English language.

Bodhisattwa: He has been a volunteer editor in different Wikimedia projects since 2012. He is mostly active on Bengali Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. He is also a part-time coordinator at the Center for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge.

It was necessary for the participants of this event to register prior to the event. A registration form was open and made available for the duration of a month. After the deadline of this registration form, another special registration form with criteria was given to the participants. The participants were then selected according to the criteria.

The event took place on Zoom. We used the official Zoom account of the Center for Internet and Society. The main reason behind registrations was to avoid zoom-bombing. The eligible participants were given the link to join the event.

Wikimedia Wikimeet was a three - day long event. We tried our best to accommodate all the presenters, moderators, attendees, and participants. Time was set according to them. This was a national level event but we were able to involve a few experienced international experts. So we had to take the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as well as the Indian Standard Time (IST) into consideration so that the volunteers, participants, and experts could all attend all the sessions and could engage in fruitful discussions.

Selection of Presentations and Sessions: We received 44 submissions for this event and eventually after discussions 29 were selected to be featured in the event. A committee was given the task to select the submissions based on the topics that are crucial to Indic editors. We also had willing participants from the Wikimedia Foundation as presenters to acquaint the members of Indian community and volunteers with the important topics and issues.

We also invited international guests and experts to speak to our Indian Wikimedian community about the topics that are relevant currently and would be crucial for Indic writers and editors in future. We invited the experts from France to talk about their Lingua Libre project. We also invited the team to talk about Strategy. Our keynote speakers were also invited for this event.

Event: After taking all the submissions into consideration, our program committee made a program schedule for the three-day event. The tracks that were selected by the program committee for the presentations were: Growth of Wikimedia communities and partnerships, Information on technical Aspects and tools, Strategy of Wikimedia movement, GLAM & Content copyrights, etc.

Other than that, we tried to follow the Friendly Space Policy completely. All the rules of the said policy were cleared before the event. The team tried its best to remove the language barrier for our Non-English speakers. We urged the Wikimedians to translate their content in their language for their respective communities. This practice was followed by quite a few Indic Wikimedians.

30 sessions were planned in all. Every session had a separate Etherpad link. As this was a virtual event, this facility was provided for the participants as well as the experts to interact during and after the session. Due to shortage of time, the notes and questions were made on the Etherpad. Experts and presenters wrote their answers on the Etherpad as well. All the sessions and presentations were recorded and are now available to everyone on the Commons under the name Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021.

During this three-day event, around 200 participants joined in at different times. Out of the 30 presentations, 18 presenters were from India and the remaining were international presenters.

Day 1 (Friday, 19 February, 2021):

There were 9 presentations on Day 1 of the event. After the introduction by Tito Dutta, the keynote speech was delivered by Asaf Bartov (Ijon). This was attended by 86 participants.

After the keynote speech, Dipantshu Das shed a light on ‘Attracting experts to contribute to Wikimedia’. He highlighted that it was the need of the hour. And this work would greatly help communities in India. He talked about urging academicians to contribute to Wikipedia more openly.

Next presentation was made by Sudhanshu Gautam and Angie Muigai. They talked about ‘Growing Wikipedia’s reach in India with a new Wikipedia app’ in their presentation, they talked about the importance of making Wikipedia mobile friendly with the increase of internet users in India. They mentioned that there was an opportunity to provide ideas to increase the readership.

The next two presentations under the growth track were: ‘Help your community grow’ and ‘Introducing newcomers from Wikisource to Wikipedia: A case study from Hindi Wikipedia’. The first session was a 20 minutes long presentation followed by a conversation and it was beneficial to welcome and retain new users to Wikipedia and also increase the quality of new users’ edits. The second presentation shed some light on how to retain the new users and volunteers once they join the community after attending sessions and workshops.

On day 1, there were three presentations about the partnerships: ‘Engaging with partners in the movement! WMF's approach’, ‘GLAM Mapping leads to Wikimedian in Residence’, and ‘Discover Structured Data on Commons for you and your partners’.

In the first presentation, Praveen Das underlined the importance of working with various partners from different fields for mutual growth.

Next presenter Arya Joshi talked about the GLAM mapping research conducted by CIS - A2K and her work with Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum, Pune. She talked about offline and online documentation of work and creating new opportunities for research.

The final presentation of the day was Discover Structured Data on Commons for you and your partners by Alicia Fagerving. In this session, the presenter gave recommendations to make optimum use of the Structured Data on Commons (SDC) to improve workflow. This presentation was followed by a workshop where the participants edited SDC and then there was a discussion.

Day 2 (Saturday, 20 February, 2021):

Day 2 began with a special morning session and keynote speech by Katherine Maher and Amanda Keton. In her speech, Katherine highlighted how Indian community is important to the Wikimedia movement. She also talked about the growth of emerging communities. Groups and Wikimedians who have been doing good work were also recognised. She talked about relaunching the Grant strategy. It was a fruitful session with comments and question - answers.

After the keynote address, there were 3 presentations that dealt with the technical aspect and issues.

The first talk was about Gadgets and tools for a Wikipedia Editor by Ranjith Siji. He introduced and explained different kinds of scripts and tools required to edit and browse Wikipedia.

The second session was a 60 minute long workshop followed by a conversation about Transforming Data from the Web with OpenRefine. It was conducted by Gnoeee and Ranjith Siji. This was a basic level training given to the new users of OpenRefine.

The last technical presentation was Writing UserScripts and gadgets by Jay Prakash. In his session, the presenter imparted basic to intermediate level training on writing user scripts and explaining how to use it as a gadget on Wiki.

The last 4 sessions of the day dealt with Strategy. The first presentation ‘An update from the Sustainability Initiative’ in this category was made by Gnom from Germany. He gave an update on the Sustainability Initiative. His talk consisted of an update on current developments around environmental sustainability in the Wikimedia movement.

Next presentation named ‘Grants in 2021 - What is the process?’ was by Tanveer Hasan. As a part of the Community Resources team, the presenter shared a process update and gathered feedback on how to improve the strategy relaunch process.

Next presentation titled ‘Movement Strategy and South Asia’ was done by Anna Torres, Hillun Vilayl Napis, Kayode Yussuf, Tanveer Hassan, Mehrdad Pourzaki, Ryan Merkley, and Kaarel Vaidla. In this session, all the presenters talked about the initiatives that are most relevant and important in 2021 in communities of South Asia.

The last session of the day was ‘Distributed leadership and global decision-making - the Interim Global Council’. It was delivered by Mehrdad Pourzaki, Ryan Merkley, and Kaarel Vaidla. They talked about global decision making and distributed leadership. Their aim was to acquaint the South Asian communities to the conversations, possibilities, and updates.

Day 3 (Sunday, 21 February, 2021):

The last day of the event was dedicated to ‘International Mother Language Day’. The day began with 2 consecutive sessions by Dipantshu Das named ‘Copyright, Copyleft, and Wikimedia movement’ and ‘Building a diamond open access journal on Wikimedia platform’. In the first session, the presenter talked about the importance of intellectual property rights and copyright to the Wikimedia movement. In the second session, the presenter talked about the importance of having diamond open access journals especially in India as the article processing charges for open access journals can be very high in India due to conversion rates.

Next session was a workshop conducted by Jayanta Nath on Wikisource. Another workshop was conducted at the same time by Rangan Datta on Wikivoyage.

Next 4 presentations on Day 3 were community based. The first presentation in this series was titled ‘Internship Program in Tamil Wiki Projects’ and was delivered by Neechalkaran. It was a knowledge sharing session on the internship program for college students.

The second presentation was made by Subodh Kulkarni and the title was ‘Re-licensing and Digitisation process in Maharashtra’. The presenter explained the relicensing process taking place in Maharashtra Marathi community, authors, copyright holders, and organisations.

The third session was conducted by Ziko and was named ‘Rules that every wiki needs’. In this session, the presenter introduced the topic ‘law and rules every wiki needs’.

The last session in the Community category was ‘100wikidays’ and it was conducted by Sangram Senapati. In this session, the presenter shared his story of writing an article for Wiki each and every day for 100 days.

The last four presentations of the day were dedicated to language. In the session titled ‘Servants Of Knowledge initiative for Digital Archiving Kannada & other Indic language content’, Omshivprakash talked about the impact of digitisation of art, history, and culture on language preservation. He primarily talked about the Kannada language.

Next session was on ‘Spell4Wiki - Audio upload tool for Wikimedia commons & Multilingual dictionary based on Wiktionary’ by Manimaran. In this presentation, he introduced the Spell4wiki app. He also described the features and benefits of using the said app.

Next session was conducted by invited guest experts from France. The session was about ‘Lingua Libre - record your language’ and ‘Lingua Libre bot and recording wizard’. It was conducted by Adélaïde Calais, Poslovitch, and Yug. Lingua Libre is a website created by Wikimedia France to record vocabulary. Its aim is to build a collaborative and multilingual bank. In the session, the two tools used in the Lingua Libre project, the Record Wizard and the Lingua Libre Bot, were also introduced.

The last session before the closing keynote speech was ‘Section Translation: New Ways to Contribute on Mobile Devices’. It was presented by Amir Aharoni, NGkountas, and Pau Giner. The presenters talked about the content translation extension. Further, they talked about two new features that are to be deployed that can be used by more people in many countries and languages.

The closing keynote speech was given by Tarunno. He spoke about ‘International Mother Language Day - The love for Language and a sound of silence’ The event ended with a closing session by Tito Dutta.

Hurdles we faced: At the beginning, we found it difficult to form a team to organise the event. Due to the pandemic, we were unsure about approaching the wikimedians and were also worried about the participation. As it was a virtual event, the internet was the most important factor in it. Many participants and volunteers faced problems due to low internet connectivity.

Our achievements: This was the first ever national level virtual event conducted in India by A2K. We were able to create a platform for the wikimedians to interact. Though it was initially a national event, we were able to get international guests as well.

We received positive feedback and precious suggestions from the participants. Following are some quotes:

“Productive, helpful sessions. Was very helpful to me personally. Good effort by all involved. If I were to suggest improvements, Would have liked slots for conversations, and networking sessions. A "state of nation" like updates by projects would have helped too. “

“Thanks a lot again, this was a very good event.

Online events are not the same as physical ones but it was still very interesting and useful.”

“I was a presenter and presented a workshop on Wikivoyage. It was a nice program and I'm looking forward to more such virtual and physical events.”

We also received some feedback videos that were an appreciation for A2K. Following are a couple of links:

Manavpreet Kaur

Mehrdad Pourzaki

We also received audio feedback from Ashwin Bandur.

What’s next?!: After all the stumbles and hurdles and achievements we had in Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, we have already started planning for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2022. Tito Dutta has written about the planning for next year’s meet.

“It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.”

- Carl Friedrich Gauss

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-report

March - May Newsletter

pranav — 2021-08-08T15:45:45Z

Cybersecurity, and Emerging Technology

Doctrinal clarity and institutional coherence are essential for a robust cybersecurity posture. Arindrajit Basu and Pranesh Prakash analyze this in an opinion piece in The Hindu. [link]
U.S. and Indian decisions about Huawei have implications not just for their separate relations with China, but the U.S.-India bilateral as well. Arindrajit Basu and Justin Sherman co-authored an article in The Diplomat examining Huawei’s role in India [link]
In an article for The Wire, Aman Nair points out that India might miss out on NFT (non-fungible tokens) which is set to become a mainstay in the modern digital zeitgeist. [link]
Arindrajit Basu and Andre Barrinha co-wrote for the EU Cyber Direct, on outer space diplomacy in the 1960s and why cyber (security) diplomacy isn’t quite progressing as well or as fast. [link]
Arindrajit Basu, Irene Poetranto and Justin Lau co-wrote an article for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which captures some concerns with the United Nations OEWG process dealing with cyber norms and the absence of discussion at the forum on key issues. [link]
In an article for the Observer Research Foundation, Arindrajit Basu writes about how India must avoid getting its data policy caught up in tired existing machinations and instead forge a new path that prioritizes Indian strategic interests. [link]
Aman Nair, Arinjay Vyas, Pallavi Bedi, and Garima Saxena authored a response to the Supreme Court E-committee’s draft vision document of phase III of the E-courts project. This response recommends consideration be given to the digital and gender divide, and lack of clarity in the document on several data-related aspects. [link]

Privacy

The proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 is being deliberated by the Joint Parliamentary Committee and is expected to be tabled in the Monsoon Session of Parliament. Pallavi Bedi and Amber Sinha co-authored a white paper to examine the personal data implications on welfare delivery models in India and to suggest ways to operationalise key provisions. [link]
Shweta Mohandas authored an article for Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law Student Research Review (RSRR). In this article, which forms a part of RSRR’s ‘Excerpts from Experts Blog Series,’ Shweta examines whether Indian data protection legislation can act as a check on growing workplace surveillance. [link]
Aman Nair and Arindrajit Basu examine the changes in the context of data sharing between WhatsApp and Facebook as being an anticompetitive action in violation of the Indian Competition Act, 2002. Having previously examined the implications of WhatsApp’s changes to its privacy policy in 2021, this issue brief is the second output of the series examining the effects of the changes. [link]
In a blog-post, Pallavi Bedi provides recommendations for the Covid vaccine intelligence network (Co-Win) platform. She says that as a first step it is essential that Co-Win has a separate dedicated privacy policy which conforms to the internationally accepted privacy principles and enumerated in the Personal Data Protection Bill. [link]

Freedom of Expression, and Intermediary Liability

In February, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) had issued draft rules for regulation of digital influencers, with an aim to “understand the peculiarities of [online] advertisements and the way consumers view them,” as well as to ensure that: “consumers must be able to distinguish when something is being promoted with an intention to influence their opinion or behaviour for an immediate or eventual commercial gain.” Torsha Sarkar and Shweta Mohandas respond with comments and recommendations to the rules. [link]

Copyright, and Access to Knowledge

Anubha Sinha explains what the draft national science, technology and innovation policy means for open access to scientific literature for Indians. This article was published in The Wire Science. [link]
In an article published in Info Justice, Anubha Sinha provides a summary of the progress of the copyright infringement suit against Sci-Hub and LibGen in India. [link]

Digital Cultures, and Social Justice

In a research paper, Noopur Raval offers critical historical insights from the fields of international development, anthropology, and postcolonial history to caution against both the possible harms of gender disaggregated datafication, as well as the consequences of non-participatory datafication of women. [link]
Kaarika Das, a research scholar at NIEPA and Sravya C, a researcher in the Humanizing Automation project at IIIT Bangalore published a study on migrants in India's Gig Economy. [link]
Sameet Panda and Vipul Kumar wrote a blog for Privacy International pointing the failures in the digitisation of India’s food security programme in light of the exclusion of married women of Odisha. [link]
Shreya Ghosh, a research scholar at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi authored an article in EPW on access to welfare and health for women during the initial phase of the pandemic. [link]
Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi in a research paper, “Fault lines at the Front lines” analyze the changing employment conditions for domestic workers in the growing platform economies of South and Southeast Asia. By analyzing different platform designs and comparing regulations in India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam, the authors present a thorough picture of the situation for domestic workers in the new economy. [link]
In a blog post published by Ethical Source, Ambika Tandon throws light on artificial intelligence and allied technologies that form part of Industry 4.0 in the future of work. [link]
Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi authored a chapter titled “Care in the Platform Economy: Interrogating the Digital Organisation of Domestic Work in India” in a book titled “The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence.” [link]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-may-2021-newsletter

Centre for Internet&Society ecommerce amendments

aman — 2021-07-27T14:36:57Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/centre-for-internet-society-ecommerce-amendments

Comments on proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020

Vipul Kharbanda, Rajat Misra, Arindrajit Basu and Aman Nair — 2021-07-27T14:45:07Z

The Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 were first introduced in an attempt to ensure that consumers were granted adequate protections and to prevent the adoption of unfair trade practices by E-commerce entities. The amendments have proposed several rules which will protect the consumer with a restriction on misleading advertisements and appointment of grievance officers based in India. However, while on this path, the proposed rules have created hurdles in the operations of e-commerce, reducing the ease of business and increasing the costs of operations especially for smaller players; which could eventually pass on to the consumers.

In our submission to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, we focussed our analysis on eight points: Definitions and Registration, Compliance, Data Protection and Surveillance, Flash Sales, Unfair Trade Practices, Jurisdictional Issues with Competition Law, Compliance with International Trade Law and Liabilities of Marketplace E-commerce Entities.

A snapshot of our recommendations and analysis is listed out below. To read our full submission, please click here.

Definitions and Registrations

The registration of entities with the DPIIT must be made as smooth as possible especially considering the wide definition of E-commerce entities in the rules, which may include smaller businesses as well. In particular, we suggested doing away with physical office visits.

Compliance

As a general observation, compliance obligations should be differentiated based on the size of the entity and the volume of transactions rather than adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach which may harm smaller businesses, especially those that are just starting up. Before these rules come into force, further consultations with small and medium-sized business enterprises would be vital in ensuring that the regulation is in line with their needs and does not hamper their growth. Excessive compliance requirements may end up playing into the hands of the largest players as they would have larger financial coffers and institutional mechanisms to comply with these obligations.

There is some confusion in the law as to whether the Chief Compliance officer mentioned in the amended rules is the same as the “nodal person of contact or an alternate senior designated functionary who is resident of India” under Rule 5(1).

The safe harbour should therefore refer to due diligence by the CCO and not the e-commerce entity itself. The requirement for the compliance officer to be an Indian citizen who is a resident and a senior officer or managerial employee may place an undue burden on small E-commerce players not located in India.

Data Protection and Surveillance

In the absence of a Personal Data protection bill these rules do not adequately protect consumers’ personal data and reduce the powers given to the Central Government to access data or conduct surveillance

Flash Sales

Conventional flash sales should be defined. Clear distinction must be made between conventional flash sales and fraudulent flash sales. The definition should not be limited to interception of business “using technological means”, which limits the scope of the fraudulent flash sales. Further parameters must be provided for when a flash sale will be considered a fraudulent flash sale.

Unfair Trade Practices

The rules place restrictions on marketplace E-commerce entities from selling their own goods or services or from listing related enterprises as sellers on their platforms. No such restriction applies to brick and mortar stores, and this blanket ban must be rethought.

Jurisdictional Issues with Competition Law

This rule brings the issue of ‘abuse of dominant power’ under the fora of the Consumer Protection Authority or the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions. Overlapping jurisdiction of this nature could introduce regulatory delays into the dispute resolution process and can be a source of tension for the parties and regulatory authorities. The intention behind importing a competition law concept such as “abuse of dominant position” in the consumer protection regulations may be understandable, such a step might be effective in jurisdictions which have a common regulatory authority for both competition law as well as consumer protection issues, such as Australia, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands. However, in a country such as India which has completely separate regulatory mechanisms for competition and consumer law issues, such a provision may lead to logistical difficulties.

Compliance with International Trade Law

A robust framework on ranking with transparent disclosure of parameters for the same would also go a long way towards addressing concerns with discrimination and national treatment under WTO law. Further, the obligation to provide domestic alternatives should be clarified and amended to ensure that it does not cause uncertainty and open India up to a national treatment challenge at the WTO.

Liabilities of Marketplace E-commerce Entities

Fallback liability is an essential component of consumers’ protection in the E-commerce space. However, as currently envisioned there is a lack of clarity surrounding the extent to which fallback liability is applicable on E-commerce entities as well as exemptions to this liability. We have recommended alternate approaches adopted in other jurisdictions, which include

Liability through negligence
Liability as an exemption to safe harbour

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-proposed-amendments-to-the-consumer-protection-e-commerce-rules-2020

Report - State of Consumer Digital Security in India

pranav — 2021-07-05T10:56:49Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/report-state-of-consumer-digital-security-in-india

Right to Exclusion, Government Spaces, and Speech

TorShark — 2021-07-02T12:05:13Z

The conclusion of the litigation surrounding Trump blocking its critiques on Twitter brings to forefront two less-discussed aspects of intermediary liability: a) if social media platforms could be compelled to ‘carry’ speech under any established legal principles, thereby limiting their right to exclude users or speech, and b) whether users have a constitutional right to access social media spaces of elected officials. This essay analyzes these issues under the American law, as well as draws parallel for India, in light of the ongoing litigation around the suspension of advocate Sanjay Hegde’s Twitter account.

This article first appeared on the Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) blog, and can be accessed here. Cross-posted with permission.

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Introduction

On April 8, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), vacated the judgment of the US Court of Appeals for Second Circuit’s in Knight First Amendment Institute v Trump. In that case, the Court of Appeals had precluded Donald Trump, then-POTUS, from blocking his critics from his Twitter account on the ground that such action amounted to the erosion of constitutional rights of his critics. The Court of Appeals had held that his use of @realDonaldTrump in his official capacity had transformed the nature of the account from private to public, and therefore, blocking users he disagreed with amounted to viewpoint discrimination, something that was incompatible with the First Amendment.

The SCOTUS ordered the case to be dismissed as moot, on account of Trump no longer being in office. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a ten-page concurrence that went into additional depth regarding the nature of social media platforms and user rights. It must be noted that the concurrence does not hold any direct precedential weightage, since Justice Thomas was not joined by any of his colleagues at the bench for the opinion. However, given that similar questions of public import, are currently being deliberated in the ongoing Sanjay Hegde litigation in the Delhi High Court, Justice Thomas’ concurrence might hold some persuasive weightage in India. While the facts of these litigations might be starkly different, both of them are nevertheless characterized by important questions of applying constitutional doctrines to private parties like Twitter and the supposedly ‘public’ nature of social media platforms.

In this essay, we consider the legal questions raised in the opinion as possible learnings for India. In the first part, we analyze the key points raised by Justice Thomas, vis-a-vis the American legal position on intermediary liability and freedom of speech. In the second part, we apply these deliberations to the Sanjay Hegde litigation, as a case-study and a roadmap for future legal jurisprudence to be developed.

A flawed analogy

At the outset, let us briefly refresh the timeline of Trump’s tryst with Twitter, and the history of this litigation: the Court of Appeals decision was issued in 2019, when Trump was still in office. Post-November 2020 Presidential Election, where he was voted out, his supporters broke into Capitol Hill. Much of the blame for the attack was pinned on Trump’s use of social media channels (including Twitter) to instigate the violence and following this, Twitter suspended his account permanently.

It is this final fact that seized Justice Thomas’ reasoning. He noted that a private party like Twitter’s power to do away with Trump’s account altogether was at odds with the Court of Appeals’ earlier finding about the public nature of the account. He deployed a hotel analogy to justify this: government officials renting a hotel room for a public hearing on regulation could not kick out a dissenter, but if the same officials gather informally in the hotel lounge, then they would be within their rights to ask the hotel to kick out a heckler. The difference in the two situations would be that, “the government controls the space in the first scenario, the hotel, in the latter.” He noted that Twitter’s conduct was similar to the second situation, where it “control(s) the avenues for speech”. Accordingly, he dismissed the idea that the original respondents (the users whose accounts were blocked) had any First Amendment claims against Trump’s initial blocking action, since the ultimate control of the ‘avenue’ was with Twitter, and not Trump.

In the facts of the case however, this analogy was not justified. The Court of Appeals had not concerned itself with the question of private ‘control’ of entire social media spaces, and given the timeline of the litigation, it was impossible for them to pre-empt such considerations within the judgment. In fact, the only takeaway from the original decision had been that an elected representative’s utilization of his social media account for official purposes transformed only that particular space into a public forum where constitutional rights would find applicability. In delving into questions of ‘control’ and ‘avenues of speech’, issues that had been previously unexplored, Justice Thomas conflates a rather specific point into a much bigger, general conundrum. Further deliberations in the concurrence are accordingly put forward upon this flawed premise.

Right to exclusion (and must carry claims)

From here, Justice Thomas identified the problem to be “private, concentrated control over online content and platforms available to the public”, and brought forth two alternate regulatory systems — common carrier and public accommodation — to argue for ‘equal access’ over social media space. He posited that successful application of either of the two analogies would effectively restrict a social media platform’s right to exclude its users, and “an answer may arise for dissatisfied platform users who would appreciate not being blocked”. Essentially, this would mean that platforms would be obligated to carry all forms of (presumably) legal speech, and users would be entitled to sue platforms in case they feel their content has been unfairly taken down, a phenomenon Daphne Keller describes as ‘must carry claims’.

Again, this is a strange place to find the argument to proceed, since the original facts of the case were not about ‘dissatisfied platform users’, but an elected representative’s account being used in dissemination of official information. Beyond the initial ‘private’ control deliberation, Justice Thomas did not seem interested in exploring this original legal position, and instead emphasized on analogizing social media platforms in order to enforce ‘equal access’, finally arriving at a position that would be legally untenable in the USA.

The American law on intermediary liability, as embodied in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), has two key components: first, intermediaries are protected against the contents posted by its users, under a legal model termed as ‘broad immunity’, and second, an intermediary does not stand to lose its immunity if it chooses to moderate and remove speech it finds objectionable, popularly known as the Good Samaritan protection. It is the effect of these two components, combined, that allows platforms to take calls on what to remove and what to keep, translating into a ‘right to exclusion’. Legally compelling them to carry speech, under the garb of ‘access’ would therefore, strike at the heart of the protection granted by the CDA.

Learnings for India

In his petition to the Delhi High Court, Senior Supreme Court Advocate, Sanjay Hegde had contested that the suspension of his Twitter account, on the grounds of him sharing anti-authoritarian imagery, was arbitrary and that:

Twitter was carrying out a public function and would be therefore amenable to writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution; and
The suspension of his account had amounted to a violation of his right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) and his rights to assembly and association under Article 19(1)(b) and 19(1)(c); and
The government has a positive obligation to ensure that any censorship on social media platforms is done in accordance with Article 19(2).

The first two prongs of the original petition are perhaps easily disputed: as previous commentary has pointed out, existing Indian constitutional jurisprudence on ‘public function’ does not implicate Twitter, and accordingly, it would be a difficult to make out a case that account suspensions, no matter how arbitrary, would amount to a violation of the user’s fundamental rights. It is the third contention that requires some additional insight in the context of our previous discussion.

Does the Indian legal system support a right to exclusion?

Suing Twitter to reinstate a suspended account, on the ground that such suspension was arbitrary and illegal, is in its essence a request to limit Twitter’s right to exclude its users. The petition serves as an example of a must-carry claim in the Indian context and vindicates Justice Thomas’ (misplaced) defence of ‘dissatisfied platform users’. Legally, such claims perhaps have a better chance of succeeding here, since the expansive protection granted to intermediaries via Section 230 of the CDA, is noticeably absent in India. Instead, intermediaries are bound by conditional immunity, where availment of a ‘safe harbour’, i.e., exemption from liability, is contingent on fulfilment of statutory conditions, made under section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act and the rules made thereunder. Interestingly, in his opinion, Justice Thomas had briefly visited a situation where the immunity under Section 230 was made conditional: to gain Good Samaritan protection, platforms might be induced to ensure specific conditions, including ‘nondiscrimination’. This is controversial (and as commentators have noted, wrong), since it had the potential to whittle down the US' ‘broad immunity’ model of intermediary liability to a system that would resemble the Indian one.

It is worth noting that in the newly issued Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, proviso to Rule 3(1)(d) allows for “the removal or disabling of access to any information, data or communication link [...] under clause (b) on a voluntary basis, or on the basis of grievances received under sub-rule (2) [...]” without dilution of statutory immunity. This does provide intermediaries a right to exclude, albeit limited, since its scope is restricted to content removed under the operation of specific sub-clauses within the rules, as opposed to Section 230, which is couched in more general terms. Of course, none of this precludes the government from further prescribing obligations similar to those prayed in the petition.

On the other hand, it is a difficult proposition to support that Twitter’s right to exclusion should be circumscribed by the Constitution, as prayed. In the petition, this argument is built over the judgment in Shreya Singhal v Union of India, where it was held that takedowns under section 79 are to be done only on receipt of a court order or a government notification, and that the scope of the order would be restricted to Article 19(2). This, in his opinion, meant that “any suo-motu takedown of material by intermediaries must conform to Article 19(2)”.

To understand why this argument does not work, it is important to consider the context in which the Shreya Singhal judgment was issued. Previously, intermediary liability was governed by the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 issued under section 79 of the IT Act. Rule 3(4) made provisions for sending takedown orders to the intermediary, and the prerogative to send such orders was on ‘an affected person’. On receipt of these orders, the intermediary was bound to remove content and neither the intermediary nor the user whose content was being censored, had the opportunity to dispute the takedown.

As a result, the potential for misuse was wide-open. Rishabh Dara’s research provided empirical evidence for this; intermediaries were found to act on flawed takedown orders, on the apprehension of being sanctioned under the law, essentially chilling free expression online. The Shreya Singhal judgment, in essence, reined in this misuse by stating that an intermediary is legally obliged to act only when a takedown order is sent by the government or the court. The intent of this was, in the court’s words: “it would be very difficult for intermediaries [...] to act when millions of requests are made and the intermediary is then to judge as to which of such requests are legitimate and which are not.”

In light of this, if Hegde’s petition succeeds, it would mean that intermediaries would now be obligated to subsume the entirety of Article 19(2) jurisprudence in their decision-making, interpret and apply it perfectly, and be open to petitions from users when they fail to do so. This might be a startling undoing of the court’s original intent in Shreya Singhal. Such a reading also means limiting an intermediary’s prerogative to remove speech that may not necessarily fall within the scope of Article 19(2), but is still systematically problematic, including unsolicited commercial communications. Further, most platforms today are dealing with an unprecedented spread and consumption of harmful, misleading information. Limiting their right to exclude speech in this manner, we might be exacerbating this problem.

Government-controlled spaces on social media platforms

On the other hand, the original finding of the Court of Appeals, regarding the public nature of an elected representative’s social media account and First Amendment rights of the people to access such an account, might yet still prove instructive for India. While the primary SCOTUS order erases the precedential weight of the original case, there have been similar judgments issued by other courts in the USA, including by the Fourth Circuit court and as a result of a lawsuit against a Texas Attorney General.

A similar situation can be envisaged in India as well. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Article 19(1)(a) encompasses not just the right to disseminate information, but also the right to receive information, including receiving information on matters of public concern. Additionally, in Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v Cricket Association of Bengal, the Court had held that the right of dissemination included the right of communication through any media: print, electronic or audio-visual. Then, if we assume that government-controlled spaces on social media platforms, used in dissemination of official functions, are ‘public spaces’, then the government’s denial of public access to such spaces can be construed to be a violation of Article 19(1)(a).

Conclusion

As indicated earlier, despite the facts of the two litigations being different, the legal questions embodied within converge startlingly, inasmuch that are both examples of the growing discontent around the power wielded by social media platforms, and the flawed attempts at fixing it.

While the above discussion might throw some light on the relationship between an individual, the state and social media platforms, many questions still continue to remain unanswered. For instance, once we establish that users have a fundamental right to access certain spaces within the social media platform, then does the platform have a right to remove that space altogether? If it does so, can a constitutional remedy be made against the platform? Initial commentary on the Court of Appeals’ decision had contested that the takeaway from that judgment had been that constitutional norms had a primacy over the platform’s own norms of governance. In such light, would the platform be constitutionally obligated to not suspend a government account, even if the content on such an account continues to be harmful, in violation of its own moderation standards?

This is an incredibly tricky dimension of the law, made trickier still by the dynamic nature of the platforms, the intense political interests permeating the need for governance, and the impacts on users in the instance of a flawed solution. Continuous engagement, scholarship and emphasis on having a human rights-respecting framework underpinning the regulatory system, are the only ways forward.

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The author would like to thank Gurshabad Grover and Arindrajit Basu for reviewing this piece.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-exclusion-government-spaces-and-speech

Comments on eCourts phase III

aman — 2021-06-03T12:15:17Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-on-ecourts-phase-iii-3

Beyond Public Squares, Dumb Conduits, and Gatekeepers: The Need for a New Legal Metaphor for Social Media

amber — 2021-05-31T10:19:33Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/beyond-public-squares-dumb-conduits-and-gatekeepers.pdf

The STI Policy Proposes a Transformative Open Access Approach for India

sinha — 2021-04-28T17:22:43Z

Anubha Sinha explains what the draft national Science, Technology and Innovation policy means for open access to scientific literature for Indians. This article was first published in The Wire Science on January 21, 2021.

Indians may soon be able to read scientific papers for free.

Reading scientific papers is currently an expensive affair. Many scientific journals charge a couple of hundred dollars for a single article. Under a proposed ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ plan of India’s fifth (draft) Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy, the government will negotiate with journal publishers to enable access for everyone. The policy also suggests that research produced in Indian publicly funded institutions be made freely accessible to everyone, at the time of publication.

These proposals are a big shift in how we learn and do science, as a country. The previous edition of the policy (2013) did not even recognise affordability or availability of scientific literature as problems. While ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ could alleviate this issue partly, its success will depend largely on how negotiations with publishers materialise. The approach is uncommon: it has been tried in two countries, with limited success, as I discussed here, in an analysis of the idea’s feasibility.

While it is crucial for people to be able to access locked-in research, it is equally important to address the practices that prevent research from being openly accessible in the first place.

The STI policy prescribes a green open access (OA) approach to ensure that research output and data produced with public funds are immediately accessible to the people – as opposed to taxpayers funding the research and paying again to access the results. Under green OA, researchers will be obligated to place their publications and data in online repositories, without any restrictions on how the output may be used.

Individual research and funding agencies, such as the Departments of Science & Technology and of Biotechnology, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Wellcome Trust adopted green OA a while ago. A national STI policy stands to provide an extra impetus to adopt and enforce it.

These promising shifts come at a time when the biggest research publishers have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit in India to block Sci-Hub and LibGen on the Indian web. Sci-Hub and LibGen host copyrighted and paywalled research articles and ebooks. Anyone can download this material for free from their servers. As such, these ‘shadow libraries’ serve a vital function for everyone, and the Delhi high court has already deemed this litigation to be one of public importance. The Indian scientific research community will be intervening as well. While the case will proceed at its own pace, it would definitely be in the public interest for the STI policy to implement green OA as a mandatory requirement.

It is also notable that the policymaking process was a collaborative effort by academics, scientists and policymakers. There were multiple thematic consultative rounds with stakeholders. It has been heartening to see the results of a democratic consultation reflected in our national open access approach.

However, as is the case with high-level policies, bringing meaningful implementation often requires more operational and committed work at all levels. It would be a shame to not capitalise on the direction and vision of OA as described in the policy.

Access this article on The Wire Science here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india

Rethinking Data Exchange & Delivery Models pdf

pranav — 2021-04-08T05:06:10Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/rethinking-data-exchange-delivery-models-pdf

Recommendations for the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-Win) platform

Pallavi Bedi — 2021-03-25T13:14:46Z

The first confirmed case of Covid-19 was recorded in India on January 30, 2020, and India’s vaccination drive started 12 months later on January 16, 2021; with the anxiety and hope that this signals the end of the pandemic. The first phase of the vaccination drive identified healthcare professionals and other frontline workers as beneficiaries. The second phase, which has been rolled out from March 1, covers specified sections of the general population; those above 60 years and those between 45 years and 60 with specific comorbid conditions. The first phase also saw the deployment of the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-Win) platform to roll out and streamline the Covid 19 vaccination process. For the purpose of this blog post, the term CoWIn platform has been used to refer to the CoWin App and the CoWin webportal.

During the first phase, it was mandatory for the identified beneficiaries to be registered on the Co-Win App prior to receiving the vaccine. The Central Government had earlier indicated that it would be mandatory for all the future beneficiaries to register on the Co-Win app; however, the Health Ministry hours before the roll out of the second phase tweeted that beneficiaries should use the Co-Win web portal (not the Co-Win app) to register themselves for the vaccine. The App which is currently available on the play store is only for administrators; it will not be available for the general public. Beneficiaries can now access the vaccination by; (i) registering on the CoWin website; or (ii) Certain vaccination (sites) have a walk-in-facility: On-site registration, appointment, verification, and vaccination will all be on-site the same day; or (iii) register and get an appointment for the vaccination through the Aarogya Setu app.

The scale and extent of the global pandemic and the Covid-19 vaccination programme differs significantly from the vaccination/immunisation programmes conducted by India previously, and therefore, the means adopted for conducting the vaccination programme will have to be modified accordingly. However, as several newspaper reports have indicated the roll out of the CoWin platform has not been smooth. There are several glitches; from the user data being incorrectly registered, to beneficiaries not receiving the one time password required to schedule the appointment.

An entirely offline or online method (internet penetration is at 40% ) to register for the vaccine is not feasible and a hybrid model (offline registration and online registration) should be considered. However, the specified platform should take into account the concerns which are currently emanating from the use of Co-Win and make the required modifications.

Privacy Concerns

When the beneficiary uses the Co-Win website to register, she is required to provide certain demographic details such as name, gender, date of birth, photo identity and mobile number. Though Aadhar has been identified as one of the documents that can be uploaded as a photo identity, the Health Ministry in a response to a RTI filed by the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) clarified that Aadhaar is nor mandatory for registration either through the Co-Win website or through Aarogya Setu. While, the Government has clarified that the App cannot be used by the general public to register for the vaccination, it still leaves open the question of the status of the personal data of the beneficiaries identified in the first phase of the process, who were registered on the App, and whose personal details were pre-populated on the App. In fact in certain instances, Aadhar details were uploaded on the app as the identity proof, without the knowledge of the beneficiary.

These concerns are exacerbated in the absence of a robust data protection law and with the knowledge that the Co-Win platform (App and the website) does not have a dedicated independent privacy policy. While the Co-Win web portal does not provide any privacy policy, the privacy policy hyperlinked on the App directs the user to the Health Data Policy of the National Health Data Management Policy, 2020. The Central Government approved the Health Data Management Policy on December 14, 2020. It is an umbrella document for all entities operating under the digital health ecosystem.

An analysis of the Health Policy against the key internationally recognised privacy principles which are represented in most data protection frameworks in the world, including the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, highlights that the Health Policy does not provide any information on data retention, data sharing and the grievance redressal mechanism. It is important to note that the Health policy has also been framed in the absence of a robust data protection law; the Personal Data Protection Bill is still pending before Parliament.

The Co-WIn website does not provide any separate information on how long the data will be retained, whether the data will be shared and how many ministries/departments have access to the data.

A National Health Policy cannot and should not be used as a substitute for specific independent privacy policies of different apps that may be designed by the Government to collect and process the health data of users. Health Data is recognised as sensitive personal data under the proposed personal data protection bill and should be accorded the highest level of protection. This was also reiterated by the Karnataka High Court in its recent interim order on Aarogya Setu. It held that medical information or data is a category of data to which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, and “the sharing of health data of a citizen without his/her consent will necessarily infringe his/her fundamental right of privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”

Link with Aarogya Setu

A beneficiary registered on the Co-Win platform can use the Aarogya Setu App to download their vaccination certificate. Beneficiaries have now also been provided an option to register for vaccination through Aarogya Setu. However, the rationale for linking the two separate platforms is not clear, especially as Aaroya Setu has primarily been deployed as a contact tracing application.

There is no information on whether the data (and to what extent) that is stored in the Co-Win platform will be shared with Aarogya Setu. It is also not clear whether the consent of the beneficiary registered on the Co-Win platform will be obtained again prior to sharing the data or whether registration on the Co-Win platform will be regarded as general consent for sharing the data with Aarogya Setu. This is contrary to the principle of informed consent (i.e the consent has to be unambiguous, specific, informed and voluntary), which a data fiduciary has to comply with prior to obtaining personal data from the data principal. The privacy policy of Aarogya Setu has also not been amended to reflect this change in the purpose of the App.

Co-Win registration as an entry to develop health IDs?

One of the objectives of the Health Data Management Policy is to develop a digital unique health ID for all the citizens. The National Health Data Management Policy states that participation in the National Health Data Ecosystem is voluntary; and the participants will, at any time, have the right to exit from the ecosystem. Currently, the policy has been rolled out on a pilot basis in 6 union territories, namely; Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Puducherry, Ladakh and Lakshadweep. As Health is a state subject under the Indian Constitution, Chhattisgarh has raised concerns about the viability and necessity of the policy, especially in the absence of a robust data protection legislation.

Mr. R.S. Sharma, the Chairperson of the ‘Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat Covid-19’ had in an interview to India Today stated “ “Not just for vaccinations, but the platform will be instrumental in becoming a digital health database for India”. This indicates that this is an initial step towards generating health ID for all the beneficiaries. It would also violate the principle of purpose limitation, that data collected for one purpose (for the vaccine) cannot be reused for another (for the creation of the Digital Health ID system) without an individual’s explicit consent and the option to opt-out.

Conclusion

Given India’s experience and reasonable success with childhood immunisation, there is reasonable confidence that the country has the ability to scale up vaccination. However, the vaccination drive should not be used as a means to set aside the legitimate concerns of the citizens with regard to the mechanism deployed to get pet people to register for the vaccination drive. As a first step it is essential that Co-Win has a separate dedicated privacy policy which conforms to the internationally accepted privacy principles and enumerated in the Personal Data Protection Bill. It is also essential that Co-Win or any other app/digital platform should not be used as a backdoor entry for the government to create unique digital health IDs for the citizens, especially without their consent and in the absence of a robust data protection law.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/an-analysis-of-the-covid-vaccine-intelligence-network-co-win-platform