Centre for Internet and Society

Broadband Reforms for Local Manufacturing

Shyam Ponappa — 2017-07-05T02:03:24Z

Broadband in India needs reforms for local manufacturing and for infrastructure expansion and utilisation.

The article was published in the Business Standard on May 31, 2017 and in Organizing India Blogspot on June 5, 2017.

India’s markets are at the heart of what attracts investment and economic activity, with mobile phones and broadband services comprising a significant share. In exploring their magnitude and supply chains, an obvious need emerges for policies and incentives for local manufacturing of components and handsets to boost domestic supply and create employment. Another avenue for deriving local benefits is extending the coverage of digital platforms, expanding the market through policies and incentives facilitating broadband infrastructure. Policy support can help both to extend networks using fixed and wireless technologies, as well as to increase capacity utilisation.

Reforms affecting both supply and demand are needed to fully and equitably provide ubiquitous coverage and exploit digital platforms for public welfare. Such reforms would mitigate the lower revenue potential of rural populations. Enabling steps could include allowing active sharing of spectrum and networks, providing more unlicensed spectrum, financial incentives such as tax credits and spectrum charge rebates for rural infrastructure, and standardised right-of-way charges.

India’s Mobile Handset Market

"A billion smartphones will be sold in India in [the] next five years."

This estimate is from a report by IIM-Bangalore and CounterPoint Researchers.[1] The report notes that India became the second-largest global smartphone market in terms of number of users in early 2016, and still has enormous growth potential even as demand for smartphones elsewhere is waning. In the next five years, almost a billion smartphones and half a billion feature phones will require components worth $80 billion (Rs 5.2 lakh crore). These will have to be imported if they are not produced locally. The report estimates that in 2016, about 50 local units assembled over 180 million mobile phones valued at $9 billion (about Rs 59,000 crore), about 70 per cent of the $13 billion sold. However, the local value addition was only $650 million (Rs 4,225 crore, or 7.2 per cent). This underscores an urgent need for policy changes, considering that emerging manufacturers in these sectors such as Brazil and Vietnam have value added of nearly 20 per cent and over 30 per cent, respectively, while champions such as South Korea and Taiwan add above 50 per cent, and China has 70 per cent local value added.

In early 2016, India’s domestic smartphones had a 40 per cent market share, but by the quarter ending March 2017, Chinese brands dominated, with a share of over 51 per cent, while local brands dropped to under 14 per cent.[2]

According to the IIM-B/CounterPoint Researchers report, Indian manufacturers import most of their components, and there are few incentives for R&D or to attract component suppliers to form local ecosystems. Further, the existing incentives will become ineffective once the goods and services tax (GST) is introduced, because they will all be subsumed under GST. Accordingly, the Broadband India Forum in association with EY have suggested (a) refunding the GST to manufacturers for handsets and (b) extending this policy to components could provide an appropriate manufacturing incentive.[3] This needs to be done without delay.[4]

The report also proposes a phased approach to maximise local value added, aiming for 30 per cent by 2020, and more thereafter. Early phases suggested are moving from assembling chargers and other such accessories to high-value components such as printed circuit boards, cameras and display units. The researchers suggest that chargers, batteries and cameras can in fact be manufactured locally, contributing to components valued at an estimated $15 billion by 2020. If these proposals are adopted and executed, it will reduce imports and create jobs, deriving local benefits from India’s market opportunities. Moreover, it will help create an R&D capability in India for this sector, which can over time become a supplier to global markets.

The prerequisite for these improvements is policy reforms on matters such as duties on components (including the refund of GST) and incentives for suppliers to set up in India. The report also suggests that policies need to be framed for effectively funding institutions and corporations for research to build intellectual property and skilled professionals.

Extending Digital Infrastructure & Utilisation

There is a parallel need for policies supporting the extension and coverage of digital platforms, of the sort achieved in migrating from up-front auction fees to revenue sharing with the New Telecom Policy in 1999 (NTP-99). These require convergent action within the government and its multifarious departments and agencies, or in some cases by coordination and resolution among stakeholders, i.e., in addition to the agencies of government, the judiciary, the operators and vendors of equipment, the press and media, and the public.

There are some issues that relate to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendations over the years that need decisions on implementation. An example is access to broadband services through cable networks. The government’s position on additional charges as a share of revenues conflicts with cable operators’ unwillingness to pay additional charges, and perhaps the cost of the devices for conversion. The effect of this deadlock is that the entire set of cable network users have to use another means for broadband connectivity. As this policy change will affect the competitive dynamics of wireless service providers, it is a candidate for coordinated, participative resolution. Some Trai recommendations may benefit from review, such as open access (like Wi-Fi) on 60 GHz.

Other examples are:

Enabling additional bands of unused spectrum such as 60 GHz and 70/80 GHz for wireless gigabit links, and

Enabling the sharing of entire networks, including the radio access network (and therefore spectrum) among operators.

The promise of digital platforms is immense, and both these streams of reforms need to be taken up and completed for India’s digital platforms and markets to deliver on their considerable potential.

[1]. “Mobile Phone Manufacturing: A Practical Phased Approach,” by Pathak, Chatterjee and Shah: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2874689

[2]. http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP42557317

[3]. http://www.communicationstoday.co.in/index.php/daily-news/6710-broadband-india-forum-with-ey-releases-the-research-paper-on-incentivizing-domestic-handset-manfacturing-under-gst Added after publication - June 6, 2017

[4]. For a detailed exposition of the GST question and why raising customs duties on imported equipment/components is not feasible because of the terms of the Information Technology Agreement 1997 under the WTO, see: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/incentivising-manufacturing-mobile-phones-india-parag-kar

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-june-5-business-standard-and-organizing-india-blogspot-broadband-reforms-for-local-manufacturing

Stockholm Internet Forum 2017

praskrishna — 2017-06-06T13:43:25Z

Elonnai Hickok participated in the Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 held in Stockholm from May 15 to 18, 2017. She spoke on the panel "Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online". The event was organized by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

Pre-SIF 15 May at Sida HQ

Welcoming and informal lunch at Sida 12.00 – 14.00 (Location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF regional sessions: 14.00 – 17.00 (breaks included)

MENA: Access, power and gender (Location: Hörsalen)

AFRICA: Inequality and the digital revolution in Africa (Location: Oasen)

LATIN AMERICA: Human rights and technology in Latin America: Where to from here? (Location: Room 19, Asante)

EURASIA: Media freedom and fact checking practices (Location: Room 18, Djenné)

SOUTH EAST ASIA: Regional internet freedom unconference (Location: Room 23, Quirigua)

STUDY VISIT: Kista Science City

Mingle: 17.00 – 18.00

Dinner: 18.00 – 20.00

Pre-SIF 16 May at Sida HQ

Welcome and framing access and power 09.00 – 11.30 (break included, location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF Parallel sessions: 11.30 – 13.00

1A From divides to dividends – DDP and SDG17 (Location: Oasen)

1B Online threats: Operational response and kick-ass solutions (Location: Hörsalen)

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 15.00 (Location: Oasen)

Pre-SIF Parallel sessions: 15.00 – 17.00

2A Financial services in a digital era: Development, livelihoods and privacy (Location: Oasen)

2B Responsible data forum: Open source investigation for human rights (Location: Hörsalen)

Mingle: 17.00 – 18.00

Dinner: 18.00 – 20.00

SIF 17 May at Münchenbryggeriet

Opening and main session 1: 9.00 – 11.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

Welcoming remarks by Sida Director General Lennart Båge

Speech by Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke

Main session 1: Equal access – Distributed power

The theme of SIF 2017 is “Access and Power” – a duality that can be analysed in many different ways. It is not enough to have access to the Internet, ICT’s and digital tools to achieve social justice and development outcomes. The question of what people have access to and what possibilities access gives also needs to be addressed. Access to the Internet is more than technical aspects and solutions – there are also dimensions related to rights, policy and power that need to be addressed.

At SIF we are keen on framing the current struggles and challenges in order to formulate possible ways ahead. One way to approach this is to discuss the co-relation between access and power. The first main session on the various aspects of access and power, is designed to get the conversation started.

Speech by State Secretary Annika Söder 11.00 – 11.15 (Location: Mässhallen)

Coffee break 11.15 – 11.45

Parallel sessions: 11.45 – 13.00

#SIF1A Digital Identity (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF1B Community access – Helping the last 4 billion get connected (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF1C Gender based violence online: levelling the discussion (Location: Riddarsalen)

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 14.00

Parallel sessions: 14.00 – 15.30

#SIF2A OPEN SIF (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF2B The promises and risks of the platform economy (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF2C The global shut down epidemic – From rights, tech and economic perspective (Location: Riddarsalen)

Coffee break 15.30 – 16.00

Breakout sessions: 16.00 – 17.30

#SIFB1 The (alternative) truth is out there (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIFB2 Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online (Location: Galleriet)

#SIFB3 Access and human rights in the smart city (Location: Riddarsalen)

#SIFB4 Empowering technologies in hostile environments (Location: Milles)

#SIFB5 Freedom Online Coalition: Open forum (Location: Fogelström)

Reflections and highlights from the day: 17.45 – 18.45

(Location: Mässhallen)

Mingle and Dinner: 19.00 – 21.00

SIF 18 May at Münchenbryggeriet

Welcome and keynote: 09.00 – 09.30 (Location: Mässhallen)

Parallel sessions: 09.30 – 11.00

#SIF3A OPEN SIF (Location: Mässhallen)

#SIF3B Digital rights 2.0: challenges and opportunities to empowerment (Location: Fogelström)

#SIF3C Safe media in conflict and chaos (Location: Riddarsalen)

Coffee break: 11.00 – 11.30

Main session 2: 11.30 – 13.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

A positive outlook: Leave no one offline

Half of the world’s population — specifically women, the poor and marginalised populations in developing countries — are still being left offline. What is needed to reach those still offline?

Beyond access, there are still many obstacles to achieving a digital inclusive society. Access to the Internet, ICT’s and digital tools is not only a catalyst for economic growth but increasingly a means for people to participate in today’s society. Too often access is measured by number of subscribers. This session will address access and power from a multidimensional approach – including infrastructure, affordability and contextual factors such as regulation and social and power structures.

Mingle and lunch: 13.00 – 14.00

Closing session: 14.00 – 15.00 (Location: Mässhallen)

This session will focus on summarizing knowledge and experiences shared at SIF17 and mapping the road ahead – identifying constraints but also opportunities for equal access and Internet freedom in the strive for global development and a digital inclusive society. The closing session will be interactive with the participants being the centre of the discussion.

Side happenings

During breaks you will have the opportunity to develop your digital skills, participate in discussions and expand your knowledge at this year’s side happenings.

16 May at Sida HQ

11.00 – 17.30

New media documentation clinic with Witness

(Location: Room 19 Asante)

11.00 – 17.00

Developing Internet universality indicators with UNESCO and the APC Internet indicators consortium

(Location: Room 21 Tsodilo)

14.30 – 17.30

Local access and community based networks with APC and ISOC

(Location: Djenné)

17 – 18 May at Münchenbryggeriet

All day

Digital security clinic with Access Now

(Location: Mässtorget)

Healing justice pod with Astraea Foundation

(Location: Bergrummet)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/stockholm-internet-forum-2017

May 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-06-17T02:46:03Z

Welcome to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for May 2017.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
CIS compiled a report that highlighted four government projects run by various government departments that have made sensitive personal financial information and Aadhaar numbers public on the project websites. Article 19 had put out a call for applications for its Internet of Rights Fellowship in February 2017. Vidushi Marda was selected for Internet of Rights Fellowship. CIS gave inputs on a document on implementing digital accessibility to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on May 2, 2017. The 34th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) was held in Geneva from May 1 to 5, 2017. Anubha Sinha participated in the event and a summary report is available here. She made statements on behalf of CIS on the Discussion on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and on the Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment. CIS-A2K’s widely well-regarded flagship skill building program, Train The Trainer and MediaWiki Training was conducted in Kolkata earlier this year. Tito Dutta captured the developments in a blog post. Although it has made the topographic maps or the Open Series Maps available to general public, Survey of India’s (SoI) Nakshe portal will have to go through a variety of litmus test, as the initiative fails to implement the mandates of public sharing of government data using open standards and open license as put forward by the NMP 2005 and NDSAP 2012, said Sumandro Chattapadhyay in an interview with Geospatial World on May 02, 2017. In an interview with nettime.org, Geert Lovink discussed with Ramesh Srinivasan Tech Anthropology Today and "how can we embrace the realities of communities too-often relegated to the margins". In an article published in the Business Standard on May 3, 2017, Shyam Ponappa examined whether policies can be better framed to harness the market potential. Why is so much investment flowing into India's securities markets?

CIS in the news:

130 Million Aadhaar Numbers Were Made Public, Says New Report (The Wire; May 1, 2017 and MensXP.com; May 5, 2017).
Aadhaar Details Of 13.5 Crore People Available On Government Sites (Mahima Kapoor; Bloomberg Quint; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (Press Trust of India; May 2, 2017).
Details of 135 million Aadhaar card holders may have leaked, claims CIS report (Hindustan Times; May 2, 2017).
UIDAI remains silent on #Aadhaarleaks of 13 crore users through government portals (Shruti Menon; Newslaundry; May 2, 2017).
১৩ কোটি আধার তথ্য ফাঁস চার সরকারি পোর্টাল থেকে! বিস্ফোরক দাবি রিপোর্টে (Amar Bazar Patrika; May 2, 2017).
13 crore Aadhaar numbers on four government websites compromised: Report (Akram Mohammed; New Indian Express; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (DNA; May 2, 2017).
Biggest blast on Aadhaar leak so far: govt sites leaked data of 13 crore people (Jikku Varghese Jacob; Manorama; May 2, 2017).
Around 13 crore Aadhaar numbers easily available on government portals, says report (Scroll.in; May 2, 2017).
What privacy? 13 crore Aadhaar numbers accessible on government portals (Anusha Ravi; Oneindia; May 2, 2017).
Govt may have made 135 million Aadhaar numbers public: CIS report (Komal Gupta; Livemint; May 2, 2017).
Aadhaar numbers of 135 mn may have leaked, claims CIS report (The Times of India; May 2, 2017)
Aadhaar data leaks not from UIDAI: Centre (Krishnadas Rajagopal; Hindu; May 3, 2017).
135 MEELLION Indian government payment card details leaked (Richard Chirgwin; The Register; May 3, 2017).
Aadhaar data of over 13 crore people exposed: New report (Indian Express; May 3, 2017).
In The Biggest Data Leak, Info Of 13 Crore Aadhaar Card Holders Has Been Compromised And Is Available Online (Bobins Abraham; The Times of India; May 3, 2017).
Around 130-135M Aadhaar Numbers published on 4 sites alone (Nikhil Pahwa; Medianama; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar's the largest biometric database globally but it is leaky by design (Rohith Jyotish; Global Voices; May 2, 2017 and Business Standard; May 5, 2017).
Why Aadhaar leaks should worry you, and is biometrics really safe? (Rakesh Mehar; Newsminute; May 4, 2017).
Indian Government says it is still drafting privacy law, but doesn’t give timelines (Vivek Pai; Medianama; May 4, 2017).
आधार नंबर, नाम, पता, बैंक अकाउंट और दूसरी संवेदनशील जानकारियां लीक: CIS रिपोर्ट (Aaj Tak; May 4, 2017).
With digitisation at the forefront, government departments need to be cautious about digital security (Manas Pratap Singh; NDTV; May 4, 2017).
Kashmir: Telecom firms struggle to block 22 banned social media sites (Aijaz Hussain; Livemint; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar data of 130 millions, bank account details leaked from govt websites: Report (India Today; May 4, 2017).
Aadhaar: Are a billion identities at risk on India's biometric database (Soutik Biswas; BBC News; May 4, 2017 and Rawlson King; Biometric Update.com; May 5, 2017).
135 million aadhaar details, 100 million bank accounts "leaked" from government websites: Researchers (Counterview; May 5, 2017).
Suicide videos: Facebook beefs up team to monitor content (Kim Arora; The Times of India; May 5, 2017).
Aadhaar assurances fail to assuage privacy concerns (Anirban Sen; Livemint; May 5, 2017).
A 13-year-old's rape in TN highlights the major threat online sexual grooming poses to children (Priyanka Thirumurthy; May 6, 2017).
Experts stress on need for enhanced security (New Indian Express; May 6, 2017).
Taking Cognisance of the Deeply Flawed System That Is Aadhaar (Shreyashi Roy; Wire; May 10, 2017).
Plug data leak before imposing Aadhaar (Deccan Herald; May 11, 2017).
Aadhaar data leak: Take precautions while sharing info on websites, MEITy tells all depts (Indian Express; May 11, 2017).
Aadhaar security: Here's how your private information can be protected (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; May 11, 2017).
Online Trolls Attack Critics of India's Aadhaar State ID System (Rohith Jyothish; Global Voices; May 31, 2017).
India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people — and enrollment is mandatory (Shashank Bengali; Los Angeles Times; May 12, 2017).
Watch: Aadhaar has become a whipping boy: Nandan Nilekani (Alnoor Peermohamed and Raghu Krishnan; Business Standard; May 13, 2017).
Partnership on AI Adds Corporate, NGO Members, Charts Initial Course (Benjamin Romano; Xconomy; May 16, 2017).
WannaCry: ATMs not to shut down, clarifies RBI, but how safe are our machines? (Soumya Chatterjee; May 16, 2017).
Google, Facebook's AI group adds new members (Jens Meyer; Axios; May 16, 2017).
22 companies join Partnership on AI, begin to study AI's impact on work and society (Alison DeNisco; TechRepublic; May 17, 2017).
Intel, Salesforce, eBay, Sony and others join the grand AI partnership club (CIOL; May 17, 2017).
IT companies in Bengaluru on high alert over WannaCry ransomware (Kiran Parashar K M & Shruthi H M; New Indian Express; May 17, 2017).
Partnership on AI adds new organizations to its network (Madison Moore; Software Development Times; May 17, 2017).
Intel, eBay, SAP, Salesforce y Sony colaborarán en inteligencia artificial (Monica Tilves; Silicon; May 17, 2017).
22 nieuwe leden voor Partnership on AI (Telecom Paper; May 17, 2017).
Provide hacker details, outfit that claimed data leak told (Mahendra Singh; The Times of India; May 18, 2017).
UIDAI asks Centre for Internet & Society to provide hacker details (Mahendra Singh; Economic Times; May 18, 2017).
Hack exposes Zomato's weak protection of customer data, say Cyber experts (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; May 19, 2017).
What’s Hard To Digest About The Zomato Hacking (Aayush Ailawadi; Bloomberg Quint; May 19, 2017).
UIDAI puts posers to CIS over Aadhaar data leak claim (Press Trust of India and Financial Express; May 19, 2017).
Faking it on WhatsApp: How India's favourite messaging app is turning into a rumour mill (Samarth Bansal; Hindustan Times; May 19, 2017).
Debate over #Aadhaar Turns Nasty as Critics Accuse Supporters of Online Trolling (Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprahasta; The Wire; May 19, 2017).
Hacker steals 17 million Zomato users’ data, briefly puts it on dark web (Kim Arora and Digbijay Mishra with inputs from Ranjani Ayyar; The Times of India; May 19, 2017).
UIDAI goes after org that disclosed government departments were releasing Aadhaar data (Nikhil Pahwa; May 19, 2017).
Developer releases WannaCry key-recovery tool for Windows XP (Cirilo Laguardia; Hoyen TV; May 20, 2017).
Will Aadhaar leaks be used as an excuse to shut out scrutiny of welfare schemes? (Anumeha Yadav; Scroll.in; May 20, 2017).
Microsoft says WannaCry ransomware must be a wake-up call for governments (Journaldu Maghreb; May 20, 2017).
Noida cyber cell gives tips on preventing WannaCry attack (Juana McKenzie; World News Journal; May 20, 2017).
Chinese state media says U.S. should take some blame for cyber attack (Ellis Neal; Villages Suntimes; May 21, 2017).
Zomato hack: You need to enhance online security with a password manager (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; May 23, 2017).
Sharad Sharma Apologises for Trolling Aadhaar Critics; Unmasking Ispirit's Controversial Trolling Program (Shweta Modgil; Inc 42; May 23, 2017).
iSpirt's Sharad Sharma: Sorry, I trolled Aadhaar critics (Shalina Pillai and Anand J; The Times of India; May 24, 2017).
Sharad Sharma's case shows how rampant troll culture has become under Modi (Catch News; May 25, 2017).
Aadhaar Card: One Identity, Multiple Disorders (Gaurav Raj; India Saga; May 25, 2017).
Tweets from the afterlife (Heena Khandelwal; DNA; May 28, 2017).
BBMP faces ire for publishing pourakarmikas' Aadhaar details on website (Bharat Joshi; Economic Times; May 29, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Aadhaar Case: Beyond Privacy, An Issue of Bodily Integrity (Amber Sinha and Aradhya Sethia; Quint; May 1, 2017).
Digital native: Free speech? You must be joking! (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 14, 2017).
Digital native: Look before you (digitally) leap (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 28, 2017).

-------------------------------------
Accessibility & Inclusion
-------------------------------------
India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Submission

Comments on the draft Policy on IT Accessibility for People with Disabilities (Nirmita Narasimhan; May 19, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright

Blog Entries

34th SCCR: A Summary Report (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Discussion on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; May 15, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Proposal for Analysis of Copyright related to the Digital Environment (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).
34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; May 30, 2017).

Participation in Event

Fixing Copyright for Education (SCCR34 Side Event) (Hosted by Communia, EIFL, Creative Commons, and PIJIP; May 5, 2017). Anubha Sinha was a speaker.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

Wiki Loves Mayabazaar (Pavan Santhosh; May 1, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics (Subodh Kulkarni; May 1, 2017).
Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District (Subodh Kulkarni; May 4, 2017).
Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; May 10, 2017).
Train The Trainer 2017 (Manasa Rao; May 10, 2017).
Continuing community engagement: Communities of interest and Quarrying (Manasa Rao; May 19, 2017).
Preliminary research result on Wikipedia gender gap in India (Ting-Yi Chang; May 22, 2017).
MediaWiki Training 2017 (Tito Dutta and Ananth Subray; May 23, 2017).
Mini TTT and MWT held in Kolkata (Tito Dutta; May 23, 2017).

Note: The workshops for the above blog posts were held earlier but the reports were published during the month of May.

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Blog Entry

SoI’s Open Series Maps Fails to Implement Public Sharing of Govt Data (Geospatial World; May 4, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay was interviewed.

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Freedom of Speech and Expression

Submission

Comments from the Centre for Internet and Society on Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement (Vidushi Marda with inputs from Pranesh Prakash and Sunil Abraham; May 31, 2017).

Event Organized

Communication Design and Visualising Information (CIS, Bengaluru; May 5, 2017). Saumyaa conducted a session on the broad principles of communication design and visualising information.

Participation in Events

World Press Freedom Day 2017 (UNESCO and the Digital Empowerment Foundation; New Delhi; May 3, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari participated in the event.
Consilience 2017 - A Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (Organized by National Law School of India University; May 20, 2017). Vidushi Marda was a panelist.

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on the Statistical Disclosure Control Report (Srinivs Kodali and Amber Sinha; May 2, 2017).

Blog Entry

(Updated) Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar Numbers with sensitive personal financial information (Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali; May 1, 2017).

Events Organized

Stand Shielded of Digital Rights (CIS; New Delhi; May 5, 2017). Amutha Arunachalam gave a talk.
Meeting on Proactive Disclosure and Personal Data (CIS; New Delhi; May 13, 2017).

Participation in Events

4th National Standards Conclave Evolving a Comprehensive National Strategy for Standards Sectoral and Regional Inclusiveness (Organized by Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry; May 1 - 2, 2017).
Stockholm Internet Forum 2017 (Organized by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency; Stockholm; May 15 to 18, 2017). Elonnai Hickok was a panelist in the session, "Private sector and civil society collaboration to advance freedom online".
Open house on information breaches (Organized by Has Geek; Bengaluru; May 26, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari was a speaker.
T20 Germany and Beyond: Digital Economy (Organized by GIZ and EPF; May 29 - 30, 2017). Elonnai Hickok participated in a round-table discussion.

-----------------------------------

Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Policies to Sustain India's Market (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; May 3, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; May 4, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Blog Entry

Tech Anthropology Today: Collaborate, Rather than Fetishize from Afar (Geert Lovink and Ramesh Srinivasan; nettime.org; May 16, 2017).

Participation in Event

Consultative Meeting for a Digital Archive Lab (Organized by Ambedkar University, New Delhi; May 20, 2017). P.P. Sneha participated in the meeting.

-----------------------------------

About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2017-newsletter

34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:55:43Z

Observers made the following statements on the agenda of limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives on 3rd May 2017.

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA):
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We congratulate you as leaders of body and looks forward to working with you to achieve the goals of the in the interests of the national copyright system. We thank the Secretariat for their hard work and IFLA is proud to have attended sessions of the SCCR for many years and gratified that Member States understand and support the role of libraries, archives and museums in promoting knowledge and the understanding of diverse cultures.

As the U.S. states and its principles document SCCR/26/8, exceptions and limitations facilitate the public service role of libraries and are executives maintaining the balance between the rights of authors and larger public interest, particularly education, research, and access to information that is essential in today's society. But that balance has eroded over time as rights holders have promoted fell ashes notion that copyright is primarily or only about protection of rights not the public good. In a world where information is increasingly borderless, as borderless as broadcast signals, the idea that issues related to access to information are local as one delegate astonishingly stated earlier this week is really incomprehensible and misguided. This is not to say, however, that local or national action is not needed as one element in the equation of access to information. In this limited sense, we agree that the exchange of national experiences in this body over the past several years has been helpful as have been the studies commissioned by WIPO from Professor Kenneth Crews which demonstrated the wide variation in exceptions and limitations existing in SCCR's Member States, including their absence in numerous countries. We applaud WIPO for commissioning these studies and urge that the Secretariat build on the studies produced by professor cruise to develop a regularly updated searchable database of exceptions and limitations for libraries, archives and museums to be accessible across borders so that legislators and citizens who do not attend these sessions can easily learn from other's experience on an ongoing basis. We further recommend that SCCR capitalize on the past sharing of Member States' national experiences and the suggested approaches in the Chair's chart of SCCR/33 by creating a draft law on exceptions and limitations for libraries, archives and museums in collaboration with all stakeholders so that there will be practical outcomes for recent discussions in this body. Such a draft law would draw on the committee's past discussions on the subject but not be binding or prejudice in any way the outcome of the committee's own work. IFLA stands ready to work with its colleagues in the archival and museum communities as well as with rights holders delegates to SCCR and the Secretariat to achieve this objective. As for our recommendations or reactions to the Chair's final chart from SCCR/33, IFLA supports this and we urge the Chair's chart be upped as a working document and certainly to the qua as an outcome of SCCR35. Finally in response to the proposal by the Delegation of Argentina, SCCR/33/4, we hope that the committee will request the Secretariat to prepare a study on issues related to limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives and museums and a cross-border context including digital uses. We are grateful to the Member States that have placed and maintained limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives on the SCCR agenda and look forward to continuing these discussions. These outcomes will affect access to information and knowledge for people throughout the world. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Society of American Archivists:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, I will try to be brief. The Society of American Archivists, North America's largest professional archival organisation looks forward to working with you and your Vice Chairs. Our members manage billions of primary source works from across the global. SAA believes in the importance of WIPO's work because copyright is central to the mission of archivists. Archivists collect and preserve all types of creative works for one reason only, use. Most archived works, however, have never been in commerce, but people globally need them to maintain their culture, identity, protect Human Rights and support innovation through new creative works. If such works cannot be made available digitally, however, and across borders, they might as well not exist. Archivists and librarians are conscientious about copyright, but sometimes strict adherence to the law conflicts with our collections and our mission. For example, a 1970's collection of over 120 interviews of legendary jazz musicians are available for on site study in the archives of the U.S. research library, but, their general usefulness has been hobbled by unbalanced copyright law because the original copyright assignment mentioned neither derivative works nor the yet to be invented Internet. As a result, risk averse librarians and lawyers were unwilling to allow zing tall accessibility of the interviews. Although jazz cannot thrive without taking risks, an archivist's obligation to the future requires that we minimize risk. That's why we need reasonable exceptions to deal with the streams ambiguity inherent in our collections. Copyright is already perceived to be under attack. Can WIPO afford to torn away allies such as archivists? We have a very positive public approval rating from the very people that you need to reach. To keep archivists on board the development of exceptions for archives must remain on SCCR's agenda. To this end the committee's work should continue based on the previous Chair's chart and that chart should become a working document for the committee. Thank you.

Centre for Internet and Society:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. CIS works on issues of access to knowledge and other digital rights in India. I would like to share with you my experience which highlights the difficulty of building digital archives in India. Mr. Chair, earlier last year the government of India embarked upon the important project of digitizing the cultural audiovisual material stored in government and private collections to store material for preservation purposes, and set up a virtual network of these repositories to offer online access. My organization has been assisting them in this crucial public service mission. These works are oral traditions, dance, music, theatrical practices, cultural practices – all of which lie largely inaccessible and languishing in several small and large collections in India. Since, the Indian copyright Act does not contain an exception for the purposes of preservation by an archive; the entire project has suffered high costs in terms of money and time. Money, because the project had to get expensive legal assistance to set up processes to obtain rights clearance from all the performers who were a part of the works and copyright holders- some of which are orphan works, thereby compounding the problem. Further, partnering organizations also expressed legitimate fears of supplying their works, in case of a potential copyright and related rights violation that could implicate them with civil/criminal liability.

In such a scenario, for the benefit of other states to update their standards corresponding to this international legal instrument as well, it would indeed be useful to adopt the proposals mentioned in the document SCCR/26/3 that address these issues, and others. Thank you.

International Council of Archives:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And the ICA congratulates you on your election and that of your Vice Chairs and we look forward to working with you. Archival institutions exist throughout the world. Governments, organisations and individuals create records to provide evidence of their actions to document their rights and obligations and to preserve their heritage. Archives acquire and preserve these documents and make them available for all to use as the raw materials for cultural, academic, social and scientific research. The nature of archival material presents a particular problem. Archives hold billions of copyright works that were not created or intended for commercial purposes. Because they were never published, the rights holders for such works cannot be located. For these reasons, collective licensing is not a workable solution. The archival mission to make their holdings available for research is ham strung by a web of inconsistent copyright laws that have failed to keep up with social and technological development. In this body systemic discussion of the eleven topics, archivists provided a rich array of real life examples that clearly demonstrate the need for exceptions, for mutual recognition by Member States of exceptions and limitations to copyright that would permit archives everywhere to serve an international audience. The results of that excellent work was summarized in the Chair's informal chart on limitations, exceptions for libraries and archives. Every creator benefits from the work of his or her predecessors. Knowledge of that earlier work comes largely from libraries and archives. Many of the rights holders represented in this room could not have created their works without us. Why would creators not wholeheartedly support exceptions for archives and libraries that would only benefit their work. Regrettably, we continue to hear assertions from some groups that national solutions are suffer. It should be abundantly clear by now that national solutions are far from sufficient. We need solutions that apply in a global network environment. And in that regard, Mr. Chair, the Chair's informal chart on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives prepared at the end of SCCR33 refined and clarified the topics to be addressed and provides a practical approach to continue to move this initiative forward. We would support our IFLA colleagues called to have it adopted as a working document of the committee, and we would also support IFLA's call for a study of cross-border issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

German Library Association:
I congratulate you on your election as a Chair and I speak on behalf of German Library Association representing 10,000 libraries in Germany. Libraries and archives face a problem. There is a high level of the international copyright protection, on the other hand, there is no such uniformity in limitations. Limitations like the ones fixed in the already mentioned Chair's informal chart, for example, for preservation, lending, document delivery, are the basis of library services. But limitations and exceptions are like a patchwork of different national legislations. For every library service crossing borders that means to act legally library staff has to know about the limitations and exceptions not only in their own country, country of origin but also in the country of destination of that service. Respective to the German library index and university libraries in 2016 around 60% of the acquisitions were electronic in technical universities the portion of electronic acquisitions is even much higher. These numbers in international comparison are even low. We can assert that research libraries are digital more than they are paper based. In the electronic world, the problem is resources usually are only available after agreement on license stipulations formulated by the rights holders mostly. That means contracts are concluded. Contracts eventually can override the limitations and exceptions. This committee might agree on in one form or the other. The objective of facilitating cross-border library teaching and research services could be achieved by introducing an international mandatory instrument on limitations and exceptions. Another track to facilitate cross-border use could be the introduction of principles of harmonizations combined with a rule of mutual recognitions like proposed in the document of the Delegation of Argentina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

International Federation of Journalists:
The International Federation of Journalists congratulates, again, the Chair and Vice Chairs on their election and the members of the Secretariat for their diligent work. We represent about 600,000 journalists in 140 countries worldwide north and south. The International Federation of Journalists, of course, understands ts essential role of libraries and archives specifically we fully support them having the freedom to have copies for preservation. The International Federation of Journalists has repeatedly called for libraries and archives to have proper direct funding to do this themselves and not to be forced to subcontract digital archiving to commercial operations. The honorable representative of Brazil referred earlier this morning to the potential to extend the outreach of libraries and archives in unprecedents ways.. Of course, this, the making of works available on the Internet, for example, and on its successes is an important supplement to the vital role of libraries and archives in the education and training of many including journalists. But when it comes to libraries and are executives making copies of works available off the premises, that is is it not, a publishing operation? The International Federation of Journalists believes that the solution to this issue is collective licensing and necessarily capacity building to insure that efficient Democratically controlled collective licensing is available in all Member States and can deal with cross-border issues as the collective licenses that already exist already do. Many of those 600,000 journalists particularly those who focus on international reporting are poorly paid. Where there is such collective licensing it makes important contribution to their economic survival as independent professionals with their own essential contribution to make to the recording and preservation of our culture from within our cultures and not relying on foreign reporting. Thank you.

Knowledge Ecology International:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and congratulations for your election. And for your Co-Chairs'. One thing I just wanted to mention as related to libraries is in addition to the excellent studies that have been done by Kenneth Crews and other people that have looked at library exceptions, I thought it might be interesting to have the chief economist or other people involved, but certainly the chief economist to look at the economics of the library industry. I think that we look at libraries as part of the research and development infrastructure for a country, not only as places people go to read novels, but an essential part of the competitiveness and ability for a country to have a strong high tech sector but also play an important role in the development. And it would be interesting to know what the assessment is because we hear it from other industries all of the time. They talk about the number of jobs in the film industry or the number of jobs. It would be interesting to know how many people are employed in different countries in the library sector, but also what contributions the library sector makes to the economic development of the country, and what challenges they face on pricing. The last point I wanted to make is that clearly there is a set of issues that it's really hard to reach on census on, and there is other areas where it's easier, I would think, to reach consensus on. This discussion of the archiving and the preservation of documents is a pretty good case. Certainly the making available of what's put into, what's archived and preserved in terms of documents, it's more challenging to reach consensus on that than it is to insure that people have adequate exceptions to merely do archiving and preservations. And I think that it would be unfortunate if in looking at their wide range of issues that are facing libraries, recognizing that there is a very inadequate set of exceptions in many countries according to the studies that have already been done, that people don't move forward in areas where consensus could be reached such as preservation and archiving because there are other areas that are more controversial. Thank you.

Electronic Information for Libraries:
Thank you, Chairman. I'm speaking on behalf of the Electronic Information for Libraries and I would like to thank you for giving me the floor and congratulate you upon your election to Chair this committee. I would also like to congratulate your Vice Chairs. We would like to thank the African Group, GRULAC, Asia-Pacific Group and the other delegates for having spoken of the interrelationship between the Sustainable Development Goals and the establishment of access to libraries and archives because emphasis is placed on access to information. Ladies and gentlemen, the Internet is global, but legislation on copyright stops at borders and that is why we are here today. Digital technology has changed the world, which people have access to information. Today the way we study and learn in fact means that people do not have full access. We believe that copyright is important, and that limitations and exceptions are crucial for a modern information infrastructure as well as for open access and other licensin wills. We are very pleased that other countries have modified proposals on copyright.. We are pleased that some countries have expanded their exceptions or introduced new ones. However, some countries who are updating their law are not enough to resolve a broader problem, the demand for cross-border access to information for research and culture. And the need to insure that nobody is left behind in access to knowledge means that there is say need for this aspect to be taken into account. There are specific issues which were compiled in a document and submitted to this committee and I would like to invite you to read it. There are printed copies available, but it can also be found on line. It begins with the Internet is global. We also support IFLA's and ICAS interventions and we hope that progress will be made swiftly in the SCCR in this issue. We thank you very much for your attention.

International Council of museums (ICOM):
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity to address this important agenda item.. The international Council of museums represents important 36,000 museum professionals world wide. We are here, Mr. Chair, to give our voice to museum professionals for this important agenda item. After consultation with the international museum community and in keeping with the results of the WIPO study on exceptions and limitations on copyright for museums ICOM joined forces with our library and archive colleagues to pursue exceptions to copyright for the benefit of libraries, archives and museums as enumerated in the Chair's informal chart that provide for exceptions for all three. This pursuit is not intended to disrupt markets, but instead is targeted to instances where museums and indeed libraries and archives are unable to carry out their often shared mission. ICOM was very pleased that the Canadian delegation called for a museum study in 2013 while at the 26th session of the Standing Committee on copyright and related rights. The study on exceptions first draft was distributed and presented at the 30th session of the SCCR in 2015. The study distributed business WIPO provides a broad basis of understanding of the status of exceptions for museums within WIPO Member States and provides for the basis for ICOM's continued advocacy of exceptions for museums. The purpose of our intervention today is to signal that ICOM is committed to the belief that a harmonized approach towards libraries, archives and museums is both possible and necessary to achieve the overall objective of obtaining operational exceptions for materials and cultural heritage collections at the international level. [..] there are many instances where museums, libraries and archives cross mandates given the nature of distinctive collections. Libraries hold collections that include artifacts more traditionally aligned with museum collections or have accessioned collections that include unpublished materials often found in archives. Museums hold archival collections, have libraries within museums, and include study collections as part of their overall collections. Museums like archives nay oftentimes include a vast array of artifacts in their collections and include materials that have often been published and unpublished. At the same time, libraries, archives and museums face the same obstacles created by copyright law in trying to fulfill their respective missions being education, public interest, access to collections and communication of scholarship. This is particularly true when museums are examined not simply as stewards of art collections but as stewards of historic scientific and natural collections as well. The similarities are in fact magnified when we examine the collections we face with our 20th century collections. Museums, libraries and archives face similar challenges in preserving, exhibiting and providing access and communicating about art collections. Thank you, Mr. Chair for the opportunity to address this important issue.

European Bureau of library, information and documentation associations:
Mr. Chair, we congratulate you and the Vice Chairs on your elections to office, and thank you for inviting the European Bureau of library information and documentation associations which is the voice of libraries in Europe to take the floor. The consolidated libraries and archives studies in the SCCR30 and the museum study both from 2015 reveal that the national frontier-based approach to copyright with regard to libraries, archives and museums now in disarray, too disparate and stuck in the pre-Internet era. In the E.U. this has been the justification of proposal of mandatory cross-border exceptions to copyright. Yet in face of the ever expanding world wide web. National copyright laws are in need of constant modernization to allow institutions to function optimally in an international cross-border online environment. Now that the detailed discussion of the topic has been summarized by the previous Chair's SCCR/33 document. We offer practical suggestions for moving forward. First, we suggest that this committee establishes the principles to inclusion in the note for overarching international copyright framework for copyright exceptions and limitations affecting libraries, archives and museums. The proposals made by the US delegation in 26/8 offer useful guidance that can shape the content of the committee's work. A comprehensive and effective solution for libraries should set standard for and protect national copyright exceptions that impact on the functions of these institutions, including preservation of materials and content, copying for document delivery in any format including cross-borders. Lending of works including remotely. Protecting limitations and exceptions for override by contract terms and by holding partially inaccessible can due to legal protections of TPMs. Making orphan works available on line to the public, text and data mining of legally accessed coven tent. Acquiring work including by importation and protecting libraries, archives and museums and staff accounting for them in good faith for criminal or civil liability for unintended copyright infringement. There are various ways in which the committee can support work. And could be usefully adopted by this committee. Secondly, in line with the EU's call for guidance to Member States, we would welcome efforts from the Secretariat to further inform our discussions. In line with the Poe proposal from Argentina which correctly addresses the need for minimum set of exceptions and limitations nationally and the solution for cross-border issues this what the E.U. itself is seeking to do domestically. We would welcome a study on cross-border issue as a basis for further discussion. In order to provide further guidance to Member States, this committee could request the Secretariat to convene an expert group first and foremost of library archive and museum copyright experts as well as copyright academics, lawyers and relevant stakeholders to support the commissioning and tasking of an agreed expert to develop modern WIPO draft law for libraries, archives and museums. Finally this committee might wish to request that the Secretariat provides a useful tool to assist its work by creating online publicly accessible database of copyright exceptions and limitations. Additionally since the pace of change in copyright law affecting the library, archive and museum sector is to fast moving the committee might request an annual report from the Secretariat of changes to nationals and practices in copyright and related rights. Thank you for your attention.

Innovarte Corporacion:
Thank you very much, Chairman. We would like to congratulate you upon your election. We would like to thank the excellent work on studies on libraries and archives. The proposal to work with the aim of a treaty on exceptions and limitations to copyright to protect the balance and legitimacy of the system for copyright and related rights with regard to libraries and people with disabilities is something we have been discussing in this committee since 2004 starting from a proposal which came from Chile. As discussions of the Marrakesh Treaty has shown that provisions on copyright to protect categories of people who are threatened or under mined by a lack of exceptions is not only possible but good and it shows a means to protect libraries, archives and possibly also museums. In this regard, we would like to request the members of the committee in good faith to consolidate all of the work done based on the text which has already been considered, the informal summary of the Chair of the committee as we have seen it's based on textual proposals either for treaty or another form of instrument which was proposed by various delegations including Brazil, India, the United States and many others. We propose that the committee would adopt this text without any prejudice to what form the work might take in the future. We believe on another point that the proposal from Argentina is particularly useful since it seeks to come up with a solution to the obstacle, namely, the lack of harmonization of rules on libraries and archives at international level. We believe it is a compliment to what has already been worked on by the committee with regard to principles and topics which are necessary for exceptions other than a national level. It should be subject to greater analysis by this committee, thank you very much.

Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Thank you Mr. Chair. The EFF work supports the work of libraries and archives which have become more relevant in the digital age and which are more challenging now. The updating of exceptions and limitations are an important way to insure that libraries and archives are equipped to meet these two challenges of fulfilling missions in the digital age. In an ideal world EFF sees norm setting as the only way to ensure that WIPO members provide a basic level of modernized limitations and exceptions for libraries, however, we recognize that members do not have the appetite for norm setting in this area at this point in time for various reasons. In that light, we do support the proposal IFLA has made for a draft law and searchable database on library limitations and exceptions. This strikes us as a workable compromise that does not commit members to hard norm setting but which would be a useful interim step towards the harmonization of limitations and exceptions for libraries worldwide. Finally and on a different topic, I would like to express EFF's hope that in the next SCCR session time will also be made available for NGOs to make statements about the broadcast treaty. Thank you very much.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives

34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Educational and Research Institutions

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:51:42Z

Observers made the following statements on discussion around limitations and exceptions for educational and research institutions on 3rd May 2017.

Communia:

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to address for the limitations and exceptions for educational purposes. I would like to give a brief statement that by saying Professor Seng's studies, national countries had exceptions narrowly in various ways the copyright works of educational activities. These narrow exceptions prevent certain educational practices such as the quotation of entire image in a school presentation. When it comes to modern educational practices, namely those that occur in digital and online teaching environments, the legal standing is even more problematic. Indeed, certain acts which teachers are allowed to perform in face-to-face teaching may not be permitted in digital and online contexts. For instance, in the Netherlands, the law is clear that a teacher can show a movie from a DVD in class, but if the same teacher wants to show a video from a free publicly accessible website, it seems that you'll need to be -- you will not be able to do it. This is due either to inappropriate legislative techniques or to domestic policy decisions. In any case, what is certain is cross-border educational uses are compromised at the outset due to the current national copyright laws, including within regions that enjoy a high level of harmonization, such as the European Union. Therefore, continue to discuss this issue in the forum which we will lead toward from an internationally binding instrument as mandated by the General Assembly 2017 seems essential. Thank you.

International Federation of Journalists:

Good afternoon. We've already introduced ourselves. All these works are and remain one of the key raw materials for education. The international federation of journalists deeply regrets the educational and research institutions underfunded. No one is proposing, however, as far as I'm aware, that schools and colleges should get free electricity or free phone calls. Here, most clearly of all, the solution is collective licensing through collective management organizations that are democratically controlled by the rights holders they represent. There is a wealth of misunderstanding of the issues. I take as one example the very first statement on a pro education site and the magic of Internet indexing may enable you to identify it, are which demonstrates how ill thought out the costs of education can be, not withstanding the previous. This is addressed to the European Union. It says, quotes, we want you to have the freedom to teach without breaking the law. Good. Quotes, before teaching her students about how representations of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet have changed through the ages, a teacher may have to ask permission from the rights holders of every movie she wants to screen in class, unquote. It says, this is -- we want to relieve educators from this impossible task, but I'm aware of nowhere in the European Union and few countries in the -- what we're pleased to call the more advanced economies where this is an impossible task. The school just pays for a license from a collecting society and goes ahead with no further administration. In my home country, United Kingdom, the collecting societies are working successfully on streamlining the system of licensing and making it more efficient in time and cash. Personally, I do recognize that some categories of textbooks are overpriced...(Speaker went over time and was asked to stop).

International Authors Federation:

Thank you very much. As this is the first time the International Office Forum has taken the floor this session, we'd like to congratulate you, Chair, and your vice chairs on your election and thank the Secretariat on their work. The international authors forum represents authors from the text, screenwriting, and visual arts sectors and their interests in copyright, as members of 60 organizations representing well over 600,000 authors worldwide. In ran increasingly homogenized world, cultural diversity is important, authors maintain that in digital arts, literatures, language, and music. It is the authors works being considered in the proposals being discussed at WIPO. There are individual authors whose rights are involved in all countries. Those rights must be given primary consideration. They need fair remuneration if they are to continue the work everybody wants access to. Without payment, they will not be able to continue to create. The diversity and quality of content will suffer and the quantity of works produce produced will be limited. We believe that there are already international copyright provisions in place that work well to enable the development of licensing frameworks, which enable access, including cross-border access provision through educational institutions and ensure fair payment. Authors believe that these existing provisions contain sufficient flexibility for countries represented at WIPO to continue to work towards national solutions, such as licensing frameworks, which can be developed according to local needs. Thank you for your time.

Corporacion Innovarte:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The study of exceptions for educational limitations in current legislation shows that there is a fragmentation, that it's not appropriate to the countries, and very often this is an insolvable problem for international and learning cooperation in the area of communication. In order to overcome these, we think it's ins dispensable to have an international agreement which will enable us to have a minimum of common exceptions and limitations which will make it possible to have compatible roles for cross-border use of educational resources. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Programme on Information Justice and IP:

Thank you, Chair. You and I are from countries that have educational exceptions that are open to the use of any work, for any education related activity or purpose, and by any user — subject to a fairness test that takes into account the rights of authors and rights holders. This openness in the exceptions environment enables innovations that promote access to learning materials, including through new technologies and over the internet. Tomorrow at a side meeting over lunch, Communia and American University will be presenting the outcomes of different research projects that examine the operation of user rights in practice. That research shows that wealthy countries are developing openness in these factors much more quickly and thoroughly than poorer countries currently. But the research also shows that this is not a developing country problem alone. Many wealthy countries as well lack exceptions that allow such basic practices as showing a movie, streaming a video or performing a play in a classroom setting. These problems are compounded when we deliver educational products across borders through distance learning. A lack of harmonization on these issues will produce a race to the bottom where teachers like myself are forced to not deliver the best materials possible for our students because of the lack of rights to do so in some countries.I would encourage the process going forward to focus on the value of educational exceptions that
cover all:

Works,
Apply to all users, and that
Extend to a full range of activities

Thank you.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-educational-and-research-institutions-and-persons-with-other-disabilities

34th SCCR: Observer Statements on Proposal for Analysis of Copyright related to the Digital Environment

sinha — 2017-05-30T05:39:22Z

Observers made the following statements on GRULAC's proposal on analysis of copyright related to the digital environment on 5th May 2017. CISAC:

Thank you, Chairman. I'd like to thank the WIPO Secretariat for this initiative because I think it can contribute to a constructive discussion in this committee on a number of issues raised in the document proposed by GRULAC. CISAC would like to thank the two professors on their presentations on the work done in April, and we look forward in great interest to the presentation of the conclusions at the next meeting of SCCR in November. (CISAC) we have a number of -- I'd like to refer to the need to the transfer of values. The greatest challenge -- which is the greatest challenge facing creators, and then there's the changing role of Internet service providers. As very often the authors are marginalized by the digital economy and the value chain. And then the comments about the need to interpret WIPO treaties in the most faithful way possible to the original spirit and also prudence in implementing exceptions and limitations using other alternatives where possible, such as licenses. Thank you.

FILE:
Thank you, Chairman, and I congratulate you and your vice chairs on your guidance at this meeting, and I associate myself with these statements made by -- the statements made by states such as the USA, E.U.. I'd also like to congratulate GRULAC on this proposal and recommend the committee, in the face of all these studies, which are very interesting, that we performers believe there are priorities, including, for example, the very low or zero remuneration being paid to authors for our works and our performances on Internet in the digital environment, and so we would, therefore, recommend that mainly this study should focus on that and the GRULAC proposal should be a permanent item on the agenda, and as regards the discussion of the legal systems used -- so this should be included and also the three conclusions reached by the professor should be included on the agenda of this committee. And in all this, the market is developing so rapidly, so we should invent our norms as quickly as possible so that we can compete on an equal footing, on a level playing field in this market. Thank you.

Knowledge Ecology International:
Thank you very much. I was -- like others, we'd like to take a harder look at the study. One observation I would make is in the original GRULAC proposal, looming large were issues about economics, concentration of ownership in the area of distributing works, questions about the fairness of the distribution of revenue between creative people and distributors of works. I think in some ways that what was described as the study, although it looked very competent and a great cast of characters in terms of the researchers, I would -- I think you may want to examine whether there's more economics or economists that can be brought in to shed more light on the issues raised in the initial paper. And the last thing I wanted to say is we're -- and we've talked to some Delegates about this, or actually, I should say they've talked to us about it and we agree, that the issue of metadata as it relates to digital works is really a new topic that has come about because of the digitalization of works and the development of the Internet. We often feel that the metadata's managed on behalf of right owners but not necessarily on behalf of either the creative individuals or the audiences or the readers or the listeners, and so I think this is a -- related to the GRULAC proposal. It may be a subset, but I also think it's a topic that we would like to see explored more. Thank you very much.

PAAIG:
Thank you, Chair. I would like to focus on the role of limitations and exceptions in the digital environment for the priority of the committee at this time. There's things called non expressive uses, uses that are necessary for technological processes but do not compete with the copyright owner necessary to offer the services and Internet offer over it. We have been doing research on this topic and have been doing studies that suggest the presence of such exceptions is related to investment in growth of local digital technologies. We cannot have streaming without buffering, we can't have artificial intelligence, machine learning, text and data mining, Internet-based translation services without the right to use whole works for purposes that do not compete with the original, but only a small number of countries around the world provide these clear limitations and exceptions, and the lack of those limitations and exceptions is reducing local investment and local innovation in this area. As the experts note, the E.U. has taken a step in the right direction in this regard, creating a mandatory exception for certain technological processes in the directive. That model's not perfect. Many of these digital innovations that I mention actually require permanent copies. Nonetheless, the concept that we need a mandatory exception in this regard that can facilitate cross-border digital trade and local production and innovation should guide this committee. Thank you.

Corporacion Innovarte:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We're grateful for the work done by the Secretariat on this topic, as also the explanations from the professors that gave us their opinions. We think that the issue of guaranteeing fair remuneration for creators is extremely important. This item should be considered as a standing item on the committee's agenda. However, we also wanted to hearken back to what El Salvador said; in other words, there should be more participation and transparency in the work done in the group of experts in order to guarantee that all of the concerns and issues are covered that are related to this work. Finally, as to the checklists on contracts, this should include not just intermediary platforms such as YouTube, but also contracts between authors and producers or collective entities which also should be a subject of interest for this committee. Thank you.

Latin Artists:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Latin artists represents associations of actors and other performers in the audiovisual field. We are grateful for looking at the precarious situation of artists and other creators in connection with the use of their performances in the digital era. This was described, effectively, by GRULAC in its proposal. This affects not only musical work but audiovisual works as clarified by the Delegation of Brazil at the last session of this committee, and despite the fact that the same Delegation has referred exclusively today to music. In this situation, we think that the solution is not just exploratory studies, as we heard this morning. We also need to bear in mind that this scope exceeds the specific problems indicated in the GRULAC proposal, more particularly in the need to find appropriate formulas to guarantee that artists and other creators can benefit from the economic content of their performances in the digital era; in other words, formulas that guarantee that artists and authors can have fair remuneration in online use of their interpretation and performance and works. From this viewpoint, we think in the framework of the study we have to look not just at computers or databases. This can simply distract us from the questions we have before us, something that seems to be of concern to certain Delegations, as was expressed this very morning. In fact, ultimately, sir, if the debate that took place at the last session of this committee focused on the proposal of GRULAC, the study should focus exclusively on the problems identified in that proposal. That is all. At any rate, we are attentive to the conclusions which we hope will be reached and presented at the next session of this committee, and we hope that they will foster a debate that can no longer be delayed. Artists and authors need solutions. With all due respect, we cannot allow this time wastage to take place. We need an equitable sharing and the economic benefits derived from the digital use of their interpretations and works. Lastly, Latin artists understands that this question should be a standing independent item on the agenda of the committee. Thank you very much.

LCA:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to echo the statement of El Salvador and the United States that it will be very helpful to have written conclusions of the experts in advance so that we can react to them intelligently. Also, I would like to agree with the United States that the committee should focus on copyright issues and not more abstract market issues. If we start focusing on issues like the value gap, we also need to consider the value to authors of the free global distribution provided by Internet platforms. Thank you.

AADI:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the general association of performers and collective management of related rights of musical performers in the Republic of Argentina, I should like to congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman of this committee as also your new vice chairs. We wish them every success in their work with the cooperation of the Secretariat and the Delegations of the countries making up this committee. I have no doubt that you will have a successful outcome. Also, I'd like to congratulate professors to thank them for both of their presentations and also the Secretariat for its necessary and positive work to bring information to us. Since the first time that the GRULAC brought a document forward has welcomed this discussion. This was an informed document made available in December 2015 by the Delegation of Brazil. At that time and today, apart from a legal solution for each country, that has found four questions on this item, the document is 31/4, which plays a major role placing on the agenda the issue of performers' rights in a digital era to make the possible damage visible to them that are suffered by performers and artists as also to make it obvious who has caused this damage; in other words, major musical production companies. We have made this public and we have fought for obligatory reflective remuneration for artists and performers in my country. I would like to point out today we are not the only ones to have this stance. We have the extraordinary of Filia, which is a Latin America company of artists and performers, which stated at its annual meeting in October 2016, it is important for document SCCR/31/4, which proposes an analysis of copyright in the digital age to be made visible and to make obvious the various difficulties encountered as also to enable our artists to consolidate their work. I do not wish to dwell on these matters further, but I must say that on a daily basis, I see how major corporations make huge profits at the expense of performers. Is this some kind of a joke? But what we need is actions from whatever quarter can prevent their action and promote our action as performers in the digital era. Thank you.

Centre for Internet and Society:
Thank you Mr. Chair. On behalf of CIS, it is my submission that the study can additionally focus on all the key actors along the entire supply and value chain involved in content dissemination in the digital environment, complementing the study of the legal environments. This would shed considerable light on national legal frameworks and also provide us evidence of transparency, or the lack thereof in the businesses involved and the extent of low proportions of copyright and related rights payment to the creators and their unfair treatment. Thank you.

Electronic Information for Libraries:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were very many proposals on the interest of libraries, including the management of copyright limitations and exceptions in the digital environment, digital exhaustion, licenses, territoriality, and the interpretation of the three-step test. I'd like to thank the two professors for their presentations. We'd be very interested in the findings with regard to the review of copyright laws for digital uses that was dealt with at the start of the presentation. When we looked at data from the Crews study on limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives, we found that in countries that have amended their copyright laws in the last five years, digital copying is expressly barred in over 1/3 of them, even for preservation reasons. My question is are you also considering in the work the evidence and examples of problems experienced by beneficiaries of certain exceptions, such as the library and archive community, when working in the digital environment, as presented to this committee by the community over the last number of years? That would help to further inform the discussion and the possible conclusions. Thank you.

Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property:
I would like to support that aspect of the GRUAC proposal that focuses on the role of limitations and exceptions in the digital environment as a top priority for this committee.
There is an increasing recognition that so-called non-expressive uses – uses necessary for technological processes that do not compete with the copyright owner – are necessary to enable the internet and the services that are offered over it.
We at American university have been doing studies that suggest that the presence of open exceptions for technological processes isrelated to investment and growth of local digital technologies. Countries with more open exceptions do better at attracting investments in fields such as software engineering. We cannot have local streaming services without local buffering rights. We cannot have local search, artificial intelligence, machine learning, text and data mining, and internet based translation services without local rights to use whole works for purposes that do not compete with the original.
Only a small number of countries around the world provide the clear limitations and exceptions in these areas. And only a small number of countries have robust industries in related fields. But all these services are international by nature, and therefore the lack of harmonization of enabling rights is increasingly perceived as a barrier to trade.
As the experts note, the EU has taken a step in the right direction that can serve as a model in this regard – creating a mandatory exception for certain technological uses in the INFOSOC directive.
That model is not perfect. Many digital innovations I have mentioned use entire works on a basis that might not be viewed as temporary. Nonetheless, the concept that we need a mandatory exception in this regard to facilitate cross border digital trade is salient, and should guide this committee.
Thank you.

Note: Source of the statement texts are WIPO's realtime transcription service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/34th-sccr-observer-statements-on-proposal-for-analysis-of-copyright-related-to-the-digital-environment

iSpirt's Sharad Sharma: Sorry, I trolled Aadhaar critics

praskrishna — 2017-05-26T00:13:38Z

Sharad Sharma, the man who is seen as one of the critical backbones of India's digital drive, profusely apologized on Tuesday for anonymously trolling those arguing for better privacy and security standards in Aadhaar.

The article by Shalina Pillai and Anand J was published in the Times of India on May 24, 2017.

The apology came a few days after Kiran Jonnalagadda, co-founder of developer community platform HasGeek and one of those who were at the receiving end of the trolling, used internet tools to discover the faces behind the trolling.

The trolls allegedly included several other members of iSpirt, the software product association co-founded by Sharma and which leads IndiaStack, a set of technologies that can be used to digitise many everyday processes used by common people. The issue has divided India's nascent startup community like never before, and coming soon after the division over the arrest of Stayzilla co-founder Yogendra Vasupal, there are many who now worry for the ecosystem.This may also explain the apology by Sharma, who has been at the forefront of building this ecosystem.

In the apology mail that he tweeted, Sharma said: "There was a lapse of judgment on my part. I condoned tweets with uncivil comments. So I would like to unreservedly apologise to everybody who was hurt by them. Anonymity seemed easier than propriety, and tired as I was by personal events and attack on iSpirt's reputation, I slipped. I won't be part of anything like this again nor passively allow such behaviour to happen, even in the worst of times."

Nandan Nilekani tweeted in response to Sharma's apology that it was brave of him to do so. Several others in iSpirt also backed Sharma after the public apology . There was a surge of tweets in response to Sharma's and Nilekani's tweets, some welcoming the turn of events and others saying it wasn't enough. Jonnalagadda is among those who are not satisfied. "There were several individuals at iSpirt behind these trolls and Sharma's apology is not enough," he told TOI.

Aadhaar, aggressively pushed by the government, is being fiercely questioned by privacy and security advocates. Though most of these activists say they are asking for implementation of safeguards, the Twitter hashtags used by some of them include #antiaadhaar, #destroyaadhaar and #attackaadhaar, which seem to suggest they are entirely opposed to the authentication mechanism.

Both sides have used intemperate and often abusive language on social media -many using anonymous names. The latest flashpoint was a report by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) released earlier this month that said some 135 million Aadhaar numbers were leaked through government databases. There have also been accusations that private companies that verify Aadhaar credentials often get access to the full Aadhaar information of individuals. These provoked the proAadhaar trolls. Jonnalagadda, Nikhil Pahwa, co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, which works on issues including net neutrality, and free expression and privacy on the internet, and Sunil Abraham of CIS were under particular attack.

Some of the iSpirt fellows and volunteers TOI spoke to had little remorse. "I am not saying iSpirt should have done what it did. But I can imagine why iSpirt reacted like this as we all have been under constant personal attack for a year now," said an iSpirt fellow, who did not want to be identified. Jas Gulati, co-founder and CEO at Nowfloats and a volunteer at iSprit, said iSpirt was an open organisation. "Sharad was upfront about it and I think it's very positive."

The Aadhaar privacy advocates, including Jonnalagadda and Pahwa, are clear they value iSpirt, but say it was undermining itself by its actions. One pointed to a February meeting of iSpirt where they created a programme called Sudham that distributed prominent Aadhaar critiques into four quadrants -`Misinformed, fearful and engaging', `Informed, fearful and engaging', `Misinformed and trolling' and `Informed and trolling' -and assigned different members to deal with each quadrant. Some of those who were assigned responsibilities appear to have taken their job too seriously .

Pahwa told TOI, "The work done by the Product Nation initiative at iSpirt is what makes it an important organization. But when people raise questions of IndiaStack and Aadhaar, many in that team respond with venom. iSpirt is unique, in that it is a thinktank that plays the role of an activist and lobbyist with a high degree of influence with the government and so they must develop processes for better governance, transparency and accountability ."

Anand Venkatanarayanan, a senior engineer at NetApp and independent Aadhaar researcher, said iSpirt should not be judged based on what Sharma did. "What we are trying to do is strengthen the Aadhaar system. Currently, they do not even have a process to report bugs. Large companies all have SOPs (standard operating procedures) to deal with issues. UIDAI does not," he said, noting that his views are personal and not that of his employer's.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-may-24-2017-shalina-pillai-anand-j-ispirts-sharad-sharma-sorry-i-trolled-aadhaar-critics

Preliminary research result on Wikipedia gender gap in India

ting — 2017-05-23T11:09:23Z

Since June 2016, Ting-Yi Chang from the University of Toronto has worked with the CIS-A2K team to conduct action research on the Wikipedia gender gap in India. The research aims to improve the understanding of the gender gap (imbalance) issue in the Indian Wikipedia communities while examining local interventions.

This post is an extraction from the Wikipedia Gender Gap Bridging Toolkit - South Asia Edition which will be published on Wiki (Commons and meta) in late May 2017. The toolkit is a derivative of the gender gap research initiative.

Wikipedia has a wide gender gap in participation and content coverage. The editor survey in 2011 showed that among the active editors worldwide only 9% identified themselves as female. While research and initiatives have been proposed and conducted to “bridge the gender gap,” mass majority of these studies are done in the Western context (English/European language Wikipedias and communities). The movement dynamics and situation of other Wikipedian communities are not well explored or documented. Of the few studies that did focus on non-Western contexts, this action research is one of the few to look at the issue in India.

Due to the timeline of the research and the limitation of space in this post, we will only discuss the preliminary findings of the study, specifically for the following questions:

Q1: What are existing female Wikipedians’ (regardless of one’s activeness in editing) experience in the Wikimedian communities?

Q2: What are new female Wikipedians’ (who participated in gender gap bridging events) attitude and preference toward these gender gap bridging activities?

In Q1, we used open coding to find recurring themes in the qualitative data collected through 18 semi-structured interviews with 21 female Wikipedians, and label them to find certain patterns of answers. To answer question 2, discussion and infographics will be presented to summarize the 64 survey responses we have gathered.

Q1: What are existing female Wikipedians’ experience in the Wikimedian communities?

Western-based research and survey has shown that a plausible reason behind the gender gap on Wikipedia is the discriminatory and unwelcoming environment within the editor communities. Research was much needed to explore the reasons in the Indian context as we cannot simply apply the same results or rule out the possibility of the same situation. Among the 9 reasons that Sue Gardner, the former Executive Director of WMF, had pointed out in her 2011 blog post, we deem the “misogynist atmosphere” as the most problematic - it signals an unhealthy environment and structure for diversity and long term growth.

Thus, 18 private interviews were held to understand the positive and negative experience that existing female (Indian) Wikipedians have faced in the communities. In this question we are specifically looking at the interaction and interpersonal relationship between community members (editors), hence it does not include experiences like discouragement from speedy deletion or technical difficulty in editing.

In each of the two categories (positive and negative), we use three labels to cover the recurring themes mentioned. In “positive experience,” these are (a) emotional support and respect, (b) bonding and friendship, and (c) other support. In “negative experience,” the three labels are (a) neglected or belittled, (b) sexist comments, and (c) safety concern.

It is interesting to note that although in most (Western-based) research, the positive and negative experiences were in the online context, our interviewees (Indian female Wikipedians) had mostly pointed out experiences that were either offline or in non-specified context. Comments on the online interaction dynamics were fairly rare and neutral, while negative experiences mostly occurred in the offline settings.

This can indicate that the communities’ offline interaction dynamics leaves a much more significant impression (sadly, especially when it is negative) to female Wikipedians on their overall community experience. Additionally, it seems that compared to the Western/English context, Indian Wikipedian communities are more close-knit and active offline, that is, the editors are more likely to know each other personally. This dynamic is a great plus to create positive experience such as strong bonding and emotional support. However, it may also be more toxic when the experience is negative as compared to if the experience was online and anonymous. In other words, sexist comments, deliberate neglect, and safety concerns can have an aggravated effect when faced personally.

In numbers, more positive experiences were mentioned than negative ones when a neutral question was asked (such as “How do you think about the community?” / ”what is your experience in the editor community so far?”). Most negative experience were only revealed when a negative-oriented question was asked (such as “Have you had any negative or uncomfortable experience so far?”). This may be interpreted that the interviewees’ overall experiences are positive with only occasional negative encounters. However, this interpretation can still be biased if we consider the possibility that:

There is a lack of trust between the researcher and the interviewees (i.e. Interviewees may have the intention to provide a more pleasing/non-controversial answer), or
the selection of our interviewees was already biased since “existing” female Wikipedians can be those that have not experienced much negative experience (i.e. the female editors who were upset by more negative experiences and had already quit editing were not reachable when the interviews were conducted, or they might simply be uninterested in participating in the research).

Q2: What are new female Wikipedians’ (who participated in gender gap bridging events) attitude and preference toward these gender gap bridging activities?

As indicated in our last question, the offline interaction and activities seem to be very crucial in determining a female Wikipedian’s overall experience in the community. In other questions throughout the semi-structured interview, we had asked existing female Wikipedians - who had been active in gender gap bridging event conduct - to discuss what can make an event more welcoming to women. Below are some of the answers given:

A women-only event (although some also criticized that this approach often made the gender gap a “women-only” discussion)
Female tutor’s presence
Offline events where women can meet others face to face (although some had mention that they prefer to participate online - which makes them feel safer and more comfortable)
The chance for participants to socialize and make friends
Write about women-related topics (although some had argued that a gender gap bridging event should not promote the tokenizing logic that (only) women should (only) edit on women-related topics)

As you may notice, there are divergence of ideas regarding the points A, C, and E. In order to cross-check all these ideas, a survey of 11 scale-rating questions was developed to understand the new female Wikipedians’ (who participated in a gender gap bridging event) attitude and preferences. Three clusters of questions were formed - general experience, cross-checking questions, and attitude.

Below is an infographics on the 64 responses we had collected: (You may click on the image at the top of this page (under the blog title) to zoom in)

From the infographics above we can see that event participants’ overall experience are positive. However, it may still be far from perfect as there were 2 respondents who “fully disagreed” with the statement “I find the event environment safe, friendly, and welcoming.” There are still more than 40% of the respondents who thought editing is difficult (or somewhat difficult), which means improvement is needed in our event tutorship or a re-estimation participants’ skill levels is needed. Participants’ attitude towards the events was also mostly positive as indicated in the last two questions.

Cross-checking (A): Do women prefer a women-only event?

During the events, the presenters and resource persons usually encouraged male participation in the initiatives and stressed that the gender gap bridging efforts cannot be a further segregation between men and women editors. Hence, we do expect this to influence the answers given to the statement “I still prefer a women-only event.” Still, more than one-third of the participants indicated their preference in women-only events; we expect the actual rate to be even higher if the said factor was not present.

Cross-checking (B): Is the presence of female tutor(s) important? (Does a tutor’s gender matter?)

Question 5 and 6 show very interesting results. In the offline (in real life) event context, there seem to be more disagreement on the statement “I would prefer a woman to be my tutor.” These responses can be affected by the fact that majority of the tutors in Wikipedia events were still men, and if a participant had generally positive experience throughout the event, they might not be against the idea of having a male tutor again. Nonetheless, interestingly, the answer turned the other way around when the scenario changed to an “online” setting. More respondents then agreed that they would prefer a women as their tutor. This may be a sign that women are more alert and defensive when it comes to online interaction with people in the opposite sex.

Cross-checking (C) : Do women prefer offline (in-real-life) events over online ones?

Over 50% of the respondents chose “fully agree” to the statement while only 5 respondents chose either fully or partially disagree. We can conclude that women who had experience in an offline (in-real-life) event would still prefer the same setting in the future. However, of course, we cannot be sure how many women may have turned down this first event experience because it was offline. In other words, we do not know if the preference of women who had never attended any events. However, what we know is that mass majority of those who had one offline event experience would prefer the offline setting over an online participation.

Cross-checking (D): Does socializing matter to women?

Majority of the respondents fully agreed with the statement “I would like to socialize with and know more Wikipedians.” This is one of the very few questions where no one disagreed to. Although we cannot calculate the personal utility of socializing or conclude that socializing is “necessary” to make women feel more comfortable, we can assume that it will be a positive addition to the events if women can make new friends in the communities.

Cross-checking (E): Are women interested in women-related topics? Or would they have preferred to write about their expertise areas?

From the survey, we found that more women actually showed interest in writing on women-related topics than on their domain knowledge subjects. Over 80% of the respondents agreed that they were interested in writing more about women (and related topics) while slightly fewer women said the same about their expertise knowledge. Only 8 out of 64 respondents expressed a preference for writing on their domain knowledge topics over women-related topics. Hence, it seems that women-related topics are a good place to start (for one’s first Wikipedia event experience) as most women enjoyed it. One thing we are not able to estimate is how long can this interest be sustained.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/preliminary-research-result-on-wikipedia-gender-gap-in-india

April 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T12:59:17Z

Welcome to the CIS newsletter for April 2017.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
In a report on the information security practices of Aadhaar, Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali documented numerous instances of publicly available Aadhaar numbers along with other personally identifiable information of individuals on government websites. CIS along with like minded organizations made a submission to the Government of India to frame a feasible accessibility guidelines for mobile apps since there is no single standard in existence at the moment. A two-day 100 Women Edit-a-thon was held in March 2017 by CIS-A2K team along with Odisha's biggest newspaper Sambad. The event was inspired by BBC’s 100 Women series and edit-a-thons with the same name in December 2016. More than 20 female journalists participated and registered as new Odia Wikipedians. On March 31, 2017, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training released a Circular framing rules under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI Rules”). The Ministry invited comments on on the RTI Rules. CIS submitted its comments. In an article originally published in Hindu Businessline on March 31, Sunil Abraham lists out 11 reasons why Aadhaar is not just non-smart but also insecure. Shuttleworth Foundation has announced Sunil Abraham as Honorary Steward for its September 2017 fellowship round. CIS worked on a three part case study. The first case study on digital protection of traditional knowledge was published by GIS Watch in December 2016. The other two case studies along with the synthesis overview has also been published.

CIS in the news:

NGOs, individuals urge state CMs to curb Internet shutdown (The Times of India; April 4, 2017).
India’s National ID Program May Be Turning The Country Into A Surveillance State (Pranav Dixit; BuzzFeed News; April 4, 2017).
Privacy, what? Bengaluru police leaks 46,000 phone numbers on Twitter (Neha Vashishth; India Today; April 6, 2017).

Bengaluru cops' twitter handle in ethical storm (Umesh Yadav; The Times of India; April 6, 2017).

Opposition questions govt move to make Aadhaar must (Komal Gupta; Livemint; April 12, 2017).
Aadhaar: A widening net (Komal Gupta, Apurva Vishwanath and Suranjana Roy; Livemint; April 21, 2017).
Chemistry research in India 'still not in big league' (IANS and India Online News Portal; April 24, 2017).
Stop the Haphazard Internet Shutdown Says MP Jay Panda (Regina Mihindukulasuriya; Businessworld; April 26, 2017).
Now, Aadhaar details displayed in Mizoram too (Sebastian P.T.; National Herald; April 26, 2017).
After SPB-Ilaiyaraaja, Sony Music and Sun Network lock horns over copyrights (Priyanka Thirumurthy; Newsminute; April 26, 2017).
Analysis: Data Protection in India - Getting It Right (Suparna Goswami and Varun Haran; Info Risk Today; April 26, 2017).
India bans social media in Kashmir for one month (Telegraph; April 27, 2017).
J&K social media ban: Use of 132-year-old Act can’t stand judicial scrutiny, say experts (Shruti Dhapola; Indian Express; April 28, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

How Aadhaar compromises privacy? And how to fix it? (Sunil Abraham; Hindu; April 1, 2017).
Digital native: You can check out, you can never leave (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 2, 2017).
Aadhaar marks a fundamental shift in citizen-state relations: From ‘We the People’ to ‘We the Government’ (Pranesh Prakash; Hindustan Times; April 3, 2017).
It’s the technology, stupid (Sunil Abraham; Hindu Businessline; April 7, 2017).
Privacy in the Age of Big Data (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; April 10, 2017).
Digital native: Are You Still Having Fun? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 17, 2017).
Digital native: Snap out of outrage mode (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 30, 2017).

Submission

Mobile Accessibility Practices (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 12, 2017).

Event

Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017 (Organized by Prakat Solutions, Mithra Jyothi and CIS; Bengaluru; May 18, 2017).

-----------------------------------

Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Note: All the following events were held earlier but the reports were published in the month of April:

Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jeewan Jyoti Women's Empowerment Centre, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Savitribai Phule Mahila Ekatma Samaj Mandal, Aurangabad (Subodh Kulkarni; April 13, 2017).
Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: January iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia stall at Vijayawada Book Festival (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jnana Prabodhini (Subodh Kulkarni; April 15, 2017).
Bargarh Manuscript Digitisation Project (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
Imperial College Orientation Program, Bargarh (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
Orientation & Training session for Environmental Activists in Satara (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Sangli, Maharashtra (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Orientation & Training session of Jalbiradari Activists (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Guntur (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Vijayawada (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
Adikavi Nannaya University Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
Odia Wikipedia Workshop in IIMC, Dhenkanal (Sailesh Patnaik; April 17, 2017).
Sambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon (Ting Yi Chang and Sailesh Patnaik; April 18, 2017).
Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: February iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 18, 2017).

►Copyright and Patent

National Conference on Intellectual Property Rights and Public Interest (Organized by Indian Law Institute; New Delhi; April 7 - 8, 2017). Maggie Huang took part in the event.

►Openness

Publication

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in India: Opportunities for Advocacy in Intellectual Property (Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda; GIS Watch and Association for Progressive Communications; April 23, 2017). Total 4 reports: Synthesis Overview, Access to Mobile Technology, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, and FOSS and Open Standards.

Submission

Comments on the Right to Information Rules, 2017 (Amber Sinha; April 27, 2017).

Event Organized

NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 (CIS, Bengaluru, April 22, 2017).

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entries

Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations (Amber Sinha; April 3, 2017).
Right to be Forgotten: A Tale of Two Judgements (Amber Sinha; April 7, 2017).

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

Killing of Yameen Rasheed Reveals Worsening Human Rights Situation in the Maldives (Pranesh Prakash; April 25, 2017).
Internet Shutdowns in 2016 (Japreet Grewal; April 27, 2016).

►Miscellaneous

Blog Entry

Regulating Bitcoin in India (Vipul Kharbanda; April 20, 2017).

Event

Amutha Arunachalam - Stand Shielded of Digital Rights (CIS; New Delhi; May 5, 2017).

Participation in Event

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 27 Meetings (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; University of Waikato and Novotel; New Zealand; April 18 - 25, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the meetings.

►Cyber Security

Event Organized

Dr. Madan M. Oberoi - Digital Forensics and Cyber Investigations (CIS; New Delhi; April 7, 2017).

Participation in Event

Brainstorming Session on the Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS 2017) (Organized by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology; New Delhi; April 12, 2017). Japreet Grewal attended the session.

-----------------------------------

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2017-newsletter

February 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T12:46:41Z

Welcome to the February 2017 newsletter of the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

We are pleased to bring you the Centre for Internet & Society's February newsletter. Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Submitted comments on the Vision Document 2030 published by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in February 2017. Our submission recommended that the vision articulate more clearly in terms of quantifiable targets what it seeks to achieve at different points of time and that these targets are not so minimally set as to undermine the aims of the Act and the national commitments outlined therein. Ting-Yi Chang wrote an article on the state of women editors in Wikipedia. In a write-up published by Your Story on February 7, Ting-Yi explored the reasons for the low percentage of women centric articles on the social media platform and how could the gender gap be bridged. In a research paper Anisha Gupta has assessed the privacy protections under 15 e-governance schemes. The paper analysed the schemes rolled out by the government, starting from 2010. Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh and Vidushi Marda authored a research paper that has sought to understand the most effective way of researching Big Data in the Global South. The second edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference, an annual conference initiated by CIS to bring researchers, academicians and others on a common platform to share insights and chart the way foreword was held in Bengaluru. Divij Joshi and Aditya Chawla in a report studied five Indian telecommunication companies and three Indian online service providers. The report has evaluated the practices and policies of companies which provide internet infrastructure or internet services, and are integral intermediaries to the everyday experience of the internet in India. General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 was passed, which shall replace the present Data Protection Directive DPD 95/46/EC. This step is likely to impact the way of working for many organisations. In this light CIS requests you to take part in a survey aimed at understanding how various organisations view the changes in the Data Protection Regime in the European Union.

CIS in the news:

India WhatsApp Privacy Fight May Affect Multinationals (Nayanima Basu; Bloomberg BNA; February 1, 2017).
Crowdsourced innovation for government projects and services is easier said than done (Kunal Talgeri; The Times of India; February 3, 2017).
Giving out your fingerprint for Aadhar payments is as bad as telling the seller your banking password (Nimish Sawant; First Post Tech 2; February 3, 2017).
Don't dive headlong into money-making schemes on the internet (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; February 7, 2017).
Indian public concerned about fingerprint payment scheme (Rawlson King; Biometricupdate.com; February 9, 2017).
India's Aadhaar with biometric details of its billion citizens is making experts uncomfortable (Mashable India; February 14, 2017).
No Genie At Your Fingertips (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; February 20, 2017).
LinkedIn will help people in India train for semi-skilled jobs (John Riberio; IDG News Service and mirrored on CIO Blog; February 21, 2017).
India To Let Private Companies Access Citizens’ Biometric Data (Joshua Kopstein; Vocativ; February 21, 2017).
Is Your Aadhar Biometrics Safe? Firms Accused Of Storing Biometrics And Using Them Illegally (Outlook; February 24, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

Digital Native: Do not go Gently into the Good Night (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; February 9, 2017).
Digital Native: Who will Watch the Watchman? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; February 19, 2017).
Can the Judiciary Upturn the Lok Sabha Speaker’s Decision on Aadhaar? (Amber Sinha; Wire; February 21, 2017).

Jobs

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

Submission

Comments on Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities 'Vision Document 2030' (Nirmita Narasimhan; February 28, 2017).

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (Subodh Kulkarni; February 8, 2017)
Only 8.5pc of Wikipedia Editors are Women. How do we fix the Gender Gap on the Internet? (Ting-Yi Chang; February 9, 2017).
WikiTungi: Bhubaneswar City Wiki Community Turns 1 (Sailesh Patnaik; February 27, 2017).

Event Organized

Marathi Wikisource & Digitisation Workshop (Organized by CIS, Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited and Jnana Prabhodini; Jnana Prabodhini, Sadashiv Peth, Pune; February 17, 2017 and C Trade Tower, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune; February 18, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Research Papers

Comparison of General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Directive (Aditi Chaturvedi and Edited by Leilah Elmokadem; February 7, 2017).
Ranking Digital Rights in India (Divij Joshi and Aditya Chawla; February 12, 2017).

Privacy Gaps in India's Digital India Project (Anisha Gupta; edited by Amber Sinha; February 21, 2017).

Survey

Survey on Data Protection Regime (Aditi Chaturvedi and Elonnai Hickok; February 10, 2017).

Participation in Events

Surveillance in India: Policy and Practice (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; February 9, 2017). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker.
T20 Mumbai 2017: Dialogue on the Emerging World Economy (Organized by Gateway House, Indian Council on Global Relations; Mumbai; February 13 - 14, 2017). Elonnai Hickok attended the event.

►Big Data

Research Paper

Big Data in Governance in India: Case Studies (Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh and Vidushi Marda and Edited by Elonnai Hickok, Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Sunil Abraham; February 19, 2017).

►Freedom of Expression and Cyber Security

Participation in Event

Digital Security for Journalists (February 2 and 3, 2017). Pranesh Prakash conducted two workshops on consecutive days. The first one organized by IndiaSpend was held in their office. The second one organized by a fellow with the International Center Journalists was held in the Hindustan Times office.
Securing Digital Payments: Imperatives for a Growing Ecosystem (Organized by ORF and Koan Advisory; The Claridges, New Delhi; February 3, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the round-table conference.
Fake News, Rumors & Online Content Regulation (Organized by Medianama and Mint; India Habitat Centre; February 22, 2017). Japreet Grewal and Amber Sinha attended the event.

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

A Pathfinding Approach for Digital India (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 31, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; February 1, 2017).

Event Organized

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (Organized by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy and CIS; International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru; March 3 - 5, 2017).

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2017-newsletter

Will Aadhaar leaks be used as an excuse to shut out scrutiny of welfare schemes?

Anumeha Yadav — 2017-05-20T07:09:51Z

Aadhaar data of all 23 crore beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer schemes could be publicly available, says a report by Centre for Internet and Society.

The blog post by Anumeha Yadav was published on Scroll on May 20, 2017.

In the past three months, there have been several reports about caches of Aadhaar data being publicly displayed on government websites across the country.

Personal information associated with the biometric-based 12-digit unique identification number, which the government wants every Indian resident to have, is mandated to be confidential under the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

But exactly how much Aadhaar data has been compromised by negligent government departments?

On May 2, researchers at the non-profit Centre for Internet and Society released a comprehensive report on the extent of the data breaches. They documented four government portals using Aadhaar for making payments and found that sensitive personal and financial information of nearly 13 crore people was being displayed on them, including details of about 10 crore bank accounts.

Two of the portals, for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Social Assistance Programme, belong to the Union rural development ministry. The others are run by the Andhra Pradesh government for the workers’ insurance scheme Chandranna Bima and for filing Daily Online Payment Reports of MNREGA.

The researchers estimated that Aadhaar data of all 23 crore beneficiaries of the central government’s various Direct Benefit Transfer schemes could be publicly available. This means nearly a fifth of India’s population is potentially exposed to irreversible privacy harm, and financial and identity fraud.

The Unique Identification Authority of India, the agency which manages the Aadhaar database, however, and had earlier denied any breach of confidential data, has now reportedly said that such a data leak could only be the result of a potentially illegal hack attack and asked CIS to provide details of the persons involved in the data theft.

The rural development ministry, on its part, has changed how its MNREGA database is accessed, redacting Aadhaar numbers and bank account details of the beneficiaries. Senior officials of the ministry, however, denied making systemic changes in the wake of the Centre for Internet and Society report.

“The researchers claimed that financial information of over 10 crore individuals was available publicly, on pension and MNREGA portals,” said Nagesh Singh, additional secretary in the ministry, “but bank account details were displayed only on two state department websites of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as these states are far advanced in transparency practices.”

“For all other states,” Singh added, “financial information and Aadhaar numbers were removed or masked last year. For pension schemes we masked the data in June 2016, and for MNREGA this data was removed in December. Even if any data was showing, it would only be for the particular block the resident is in, not for any other state workers.”

All this was done, he said, “because the UIDAI communicated to us that this information is sensitive and should not be displayed and the Aadhaar regulations prohibit display of Aadhaar numbers”. The Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations were introduced last September.

Contrary to Singh’s claims, social activists outside Andhra Pradesh and Telangana confirmed they could access bank account details of MNREGA workers until May 3. Only on May 4, two days after the Centre for Internet and Society report was released, did the details stop showing on the Management Information System.

“We could no longer access the electronic muster roll, and it started returning error messages,” said Ashish Ranjan of Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, a registered union of unorganised workers in Araria, Bihar. But until early May, he added, the Management Information System allowed anyone in any state to access the personal information of workers, even from other states.

Activists and beneficiaries relied on this system for two things. “Several of the new bank accounts have errors, and accessing this information directly helped get the discrepancies corrected without going to block level officials,” Ranjan explained. “It also helped track where the wages of workers were stuck.”

When activists asked why the data was no longer accessible, Ranjan said, rural development department officials said the Management Information System was changed “on the directions of the Supreme Court and the Union cabinet secretary.”

“This has been the pattern with the MNREGA MIS for long,” Ranjan said, referring to the information system. “Senior officials change access to a feature as they wish without clear processes or explanations.”

James Herenj, an activist with NREGA Watch, a non-profit which monitors the implementation of MNREGA in Jharkhand, had the same experience. “Bank account details were removed from the website last week,” he said, “this is a problem as we can no longer help MNREGA workers get data entry errors corrected.”

The Centre for Internet and Society researchers too contested the rural development ministry’s claim that Aadhaar numbers and bank account details were displayed only on Andhra Pradesh and Telangana government websites. They released a video clip showing them accessing bank account details and Aadhaar numbers of 801 MNREGA workers of Agara panchayat in Bengaluru through an internet search on March 25.

Screenshot of a Chandigarh Union Territory website displaying Aadhaar information.

Consent, please?

The Aadhaar Act, 2016 requires both government and private agencies to take informed consent before using a person’s Aadhaar for authentication, but there is little evidence that consent is sought before Aadhaar is seeded with personal and financial information.

Indeed, when the Supreme Court first permitted the voluntary use of Aadhaar for MNREGA in October 2015, Aadhaar numbers of 2.36 crore workers had already been seeded to their bank accounts, without the consent of over 99% of them.

The rural development ministry’s data shows that until June 2016, only about 4,10,000, or less than 1% of the 10.7 crore MNREGA workers, had agreed to Aadhaar-based payments. The ministry worked around this by organising “consent camps” to retrospectively collect proof of consent.

Poor standards

Writing in The Economic Times, Ram Sewak Sharma, chairperson of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and former director general of the Unique Identification Authority of India, argued that the reports about “Aadhaar leaks” on government websites failed to account for provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005. Section 4 of this law provides for proactive disclosure of government decisions while Section 8 mandates public authorities to publish all information on welfare schemes, including details of beneficiaries.

This has created a situation, Sharma pointed out, where the transparency law may require even Aadhaar numbers of beneficiaries to be made public even though the Aadhaar Act mandates them to be confidential.

Right to Information activists, however, said the authorities were anything but devoted to the transparency law. Crucial information they seek on the efficacy of Aadhaar in welfare schemes is routinely denied.

“The government is willfully manipulating information systems to subvert details of biometric failures,” said Amrita Johri, a member of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information and an activist with the Right to Food campaign, which has petitioned the Delhi High Court against Aadhaar being mandatory for food rations. “We have come across instances of ration cardholders being turned back because of fingerprints being falsely rejected, or network failure, but on the Delhi government’s website, this is shown as the beneficiaries not having come to the ration shop at all.”

“Similarly, the government claims it has removed bogus ration cards through Aadhaar,” Johri added, “but they do not show any administrative action if such bogus cards were really found through Aadhaar even though Section 4 of the RTI Act requires disclosure of such decisions.”

Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security displayed Aadhaar numbers, bank accounts numbers and transaction details of over 15 lakh pensioners.

Johri is concerned that the “Aadhaar leaks” could become an excuse to deny people “other useful information”. “When we requested officials to display how many biometric transaction were not successful, they told us that in a few days, they will remove the entire MIS as there had received orders from the food ministry to not display demographic data associated with Aadhaar,” she said. “But we pointed out that it was the creation of a single identification number that is the problem. Why should information on all other government schemes be removed?”

The Centre for Internet and Society report points out that while the law now makes Aadhaar numbers confidential, the government has failed to specify data masking standards. Section 6 of the Aadhaar Regulations lays down that no government or private agency should publish Aadhaar numbers unless they are redacted or blacked out “through appropriate means”.

But this is too vague, the report points out. “In some instances, the first four digits are masked while in others the middle digits are masked,” Srinivas Kodali, one of the authors of the report, explained, “which means someone with access to different databases can use tools for aggregation to reconstruct information hidden or masked in a particular database.”

Kodali said that for information other than Aadhaar numbers, each ministry and department is required to classify the data that is sensitive, restricted or open, which they have failed to do. “The National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012 requires securing information of sensitive and restricted data but it does not recommend the ways to do it,” he said. “The standards around information disclosure and control do not exist, and the Ministry of Statistics expert committee on this was unable to suggest one last month.”

“Even for MNREGA data,” Kodali continued, “the Ministry of Rural Development’s chief data officer should have classified the financial information as restricted or open when the database was first created. But did they do this.”

Nagesh Singh, the additional secretary, however said his ministry “does not have a chief data officer to do this”. “The ministry’s economic advisor is the official responsible for categorising data and advises us on this,” he added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll-may-20-2017-anumeha-yadav-will-aadhaar-leaks-be-used-as-an-excuse-to-shut-out-scrutiny-of-welfare-schemes

Aadhaar assurances fail to assuage privacy concerns

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T06:23:32Z

While Aadhaar may be secure from external attacks, a failsafe system hasn’t been developed to protect it from Edward Snowden-style leakages and hacks.

The article by Anirban Sen was published by Livemint on May 5, 2017. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

As calls for a privacy and data protection law grow louder with each passing day amid reports of a central government ministry having made up to 130 million Aadhaar numbers public on its website, widespread concerns continue to emerge over loopholes in the security of the unique identification programme, though the man who created the system continues to defend the security and integrity of the system.

Most worryingly, a consensus is emerging among security and privacy experts, who have argued that while the Aadhaar system may be secure from external attacks, a failsafe system has not been developed to protect it from Edward Snowden-style internal leaks or hacks.

“(What has been suggested by the Unique Identification Authority of India and Nandan Nilekani) is that there will never be a data breach like what we saw in the US with the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, or Office of Personnel and Management breaches (data of federal government personnel, including more than 5.6 fingerprints, was leaked), or in Mexico or Turkey, or even in India when the department of defence was breached for cyber-espionage for multiple years without detection,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society.

“While the system may be secure from external attacks, there is no failsafe system to make it invulnerable to Snowden-style breaches,” he added.

In an interview, former UIDAI chairman and Infosys Ltd co-founder Nandan Nilekani continued to defend the security of the system and said steps are being taken everyday to enhance the failsafe processes surrounding the system.

“I think the Aadhaar system is extremely well-designed. It’s not an online system that is exposed to the Internet. When enrolment happens, the packet is encrypted at source and sent, so that there can’t be a man-in-the-middle attack. And when the authentication happens, that is also encrypted—not compared to the original data, but to a digital minutiae. The point is that the system is very, very secure. So, if the objection is to centralization, then you should not have clouds. Clouds are also centralized,” said Nilekani. He added that Aadhaar was also safe from internal breaches, an assumption that is being challenged by security experts all across.

“Within seven years of its launch, the Aadhaar system has made a remarkable leap in terms of its security and privacy and it will keep improving things. Technology does not come through immaculate conception, where one morning some perfect technology is born. It has to evolve. It’s called learning by doing,” added Nilekani. He added that improving the security of the system is an ongoing process and conceded that a data protection and privacy law needs to be in place to supplement the current Aadhaar law.

“I know the government has sent a notice to everyone. If somebody has done it; they ought not to have done it—there’s a law for that,” said Nilekani when asked about recent instances of Aadhaar numbers being made public by government departments.

“We should have a data protection and privacy law which is an umbrella law, which looks at all these phenomena and certainly Aadhaar should be part of that. That’s perfectly fine—but people are behaving as if Aadhaar is the only reason why we should have a privacy law,” added Nilekani.

The last few weeks and months have witnessed a steady stream of negative news surrounding Aadhaar and three main cases are currently being fought in the Supreme Court, including one challenging the government’s decision to make the 12-digit ID mandatory for filing income tax returns as well as for obtaining and retaining a PAN Card.

Meanwhile, as Mint reported in April, questions are being raised on the Aadhaar biometric authentication failure rate in the rural job guarantee scheme in areas such as Telangana.

The report of Aadhaar numbers being listed on the government ministry website has caused widespread uproar, although a lawyer pointed out that it is not due to a breach in the Aadhaar system.

“It’s a misnomer to say this a leak because this was voluntarily, very actively put up there. A leak is when some information being kept securely gets breached somehow and comes out. Now, why is this information up on government websites? This is the problem of our government’s perception of transparency...The fact that the Aadhaar numbers are on the government website is not a flaw of the Aadhaar system, but it is a flaw of the understanding of what needs to be done to demonstrate transparency,” said Rahul Matthan, partner at Trilegal.

In a column in Mint, Matthan had also pointed out that while Aadhaar has been a transformative project, there remains enough scope of misusing the database.

“There is a legitimate fear that this identity technology will open us all up to discrimination, prejudice and the risk of identity theft,” Matthan wrote. “Aadhaar has given us the tools to harness data in large volumes. If used wisely, this technology can transform the nation. If not, it can cause us untold harm. We need to be prepared for the impending flood of data—we need to build dams, sluice gates and canals in its path so that we can guide its flow to our benefit.”

Even as both sides debate the issue of Aadhaar’s security, calls are getting louder to revamp the unique identification database.

“The point is that the UIDAI knows the device ID of the machine with which the biometric transaction took place along with the time and date, which means that by just using basic data analytics, any one with access to the transaction logs from the UIDAI (which have to be kept for a period of 5 years and 6 months) can have a complete view of a person’s Aadhaar-based interactions that are increasing day by day.”

“Further, the UIDAI has built up a biometric profile of the entire country. This means that courts can order UIDAI to provide law enforcement agencies the biometrics for an entire state (as the Bombay high court did) to check if they match against the fingerprints recovered from a crime scene. This too is surveillance, since it collects biometrics of all residents in advance rather than just that of criminal suspects,” said Prakash of CIS.

“The UIDAI could have chosen to derive unique 16 digit numbers from your Aadhaar number and provide a different one to each requesting entity. That would have prevented much of these fears. But the UIDAI did not opt for that more privacy-friendly design,” he added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-may-5-2017-anirban-sen-aadhaar-assurances-fail-to-assuage-privacy-concerns

Policies to Sustain India's Market

Shyam Ponappa — 2017-05-20T03:06:30Z

The question is whether policies can be better framed to harness the market potential. Why is so much investment flowing into India's securities markets?

The article published in the Business Standard on May 3, 2017 was also mirrored on Organizing India Blogspot on May 4, 2017.

Probably because of (a) India’s market size and (b) growth, despite all its inconsistencies and difficulties. Are higher price-earnings multiples desirable? Yes if they are sustained, because more capital is available for equivalent productivity; otherwise, no. The question is whether policies can be better framed to harness the market potential.

India’s large market with its headroom for prosperity seems propelled partly by its own momentum, and its stocks partly by liquidity. The net investment in mutual funds in 2016-17 of Rs 3.43 lakh crore was reportedly double the previous year, the highest in the last decade. Domestic investment in pure equity funds in the last two years exceeded foreign portfolio investment (FPI), because of lower FPI and higher domestic investment. Retail investors grew in the last three years from 28.6 million to 39.3 million. Other positive factors were a government with a strong mandate and falling oil prices.

Now, reasonable earnings from some large companies and rising global markets augur well, although earnings must improve broadly and a number of caveats remain. These relate to non-performing assets/loans (NPAs/NPLs), structural problems in sectors such as iron and steel, construction, power, telecom, transport, agriculture, continuing deficiencies in infrastructure and institutions, and in productivity. There are social pressures from divisive electioneering, a disturbing rise of exclusionary tendencies echoed globally, and government overreach. There are also self-induced crises because of inappropriate policies, as in telecom, unviable situations created by populism, or by judicial orders, as seen in telecom, coal and power. There could also be failure to improve productivity (by a third to 9 per cent, as during the growth years), or adverse external developments.

The room for improvement is epitomised by low per capita productivity. According to Bloomberg, the International Labour Organization’s output per worker for India in 2017 is 20 times lower than for Germany. Yet, expectations run high for India in reports from sources such as Euromonitor, the International Monetary Fund, London’s Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Euromonitor predicts India’s consumer market will be the third largest by 2030, ahead of Japan and Germany. Growth will be for products such as smartphones, automobiles, and durables such as TV sets, refrigerators and air conditioners. For instance, India is the third largest market for smartphones after China and the US. In automobiles, India is the fifth largest market with over 3.3 million cars sold in 2016 and continues to attract global manufacturers.

However, Euromonitor cautions against rising inequality with the Gini index rising from 39.9 per cent in 2011 to 41.6 per cent in 2016 and estimated at 43.4 per cent by 2030. The CEBR estimates that by 2028, India’s gross domestic product will be the third largest after China and the US. PwC forecasts that in 2050, India will be the second largest economy (in purchasing power parity) after China, the US being third and Indonesia fourth, with a caveat: “Emerging economies need to enhance their institutions and their infrastructure significantly if they are to realise their long-term growth potential.”

Can our policies better contribute to realising this market potential? Consider the options. One approach is open exploitation, unmindful of whether the ownership and distribution of profits is domestic or foreign. Prices are determined solely by supply and demand, without government regulation or any other authority. Another extreme is that the government decides everything, which has been seen to fail. A third option is a mix, with open-market principles in areas that can sustain them, such as in consumer goods, tempered with appropriate regulation, e.g., against harmful substances. Ideally, policies should be for the long-term common good with sustainable levels of equitable access. Regulation is essential where network economics apply with few players, as in electricity and communications. Our mix is not ideal because realpolitik and populism overwhelm the need for deep understanding followed by the objective and convergent deliberation needed to frame beneficial policies (through sound institutions, also lacking).

Our policies are often indifferent to where ownership lies, and sometimes, this is a problem. For example, heavy industries or electronics majors abroad often have government backing. Indian enterprises start with a disadvantage, because of restricted access to capital, and at higher cost. Another aspect is when the ownership of major local corporates with privileged access to markets changes to being majority foreign-owned, because the profits are sent abroad. Yet another is that we do not have ecosystems for manufacturing start-ups through commercialisation and scaling up, in terms of financing, production and procurement. Attention seems confined to early-stage start-ups or to small-and-medium enterprises, with no ecosystem to see them through to establishing scale, comparable, for instance, to the building up of Huawei through consistent procurement.

Our greatest deficiency, however, remains lack of good infrastructure. Correcting this requires a long view, capital, slow payback and long lead times for results, usually beyond election cycles. Easily sidelined for populist measures for immediate gains, this area needs concerted, bipartisan, societal convergence. A case in point is telecom and broadband, where spectrum auctions loom again, even as operators struggle with low revenues and high debt from previous auctions. Another is the recent Supreme Court ruling against compensatory tariffs for two ultra-mega power projects at Mundra, of 4,000 Megawatt (Mw) (Tata) and 4,620 Mw (Adani), based on whether a “change in law” applies only to Indian laws. If the tariffs were upheld, five buyer states would get a lower than average price paid, substantially below the current market price. If these projects become unviable, they will add to the deadweight of NPAs. The banks they owe will also suffer, and there will be the opportunity cost of benefits foregone from the lower-priced electricity.

There may be a case for prioritising infrastructure, beginning with defining our objectives and then framing policies to achieve them. For power projects, it’s reasonably priced electricity; for telecom, it’s reasonably priced services. Until these are made possible through appropriate policies, there’s little likelihood of realising our full potential.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-may-3-2017-shyam-ponappa-policies-to-sustain-indias-market

Human Rights vs National Security

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T02:48:20Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/human-rights-versus-national-security.pdf

IT Accessibility for People with Disabilities Policy and Guidelines

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T15:25:49Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/files/policy-and-guidelines.pdf