Centre for Internet and Society

Presentation on MLATS

praskrishna — 2012-12-21T07:11:08Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/presentation-on-mlats.pdf

Presentation at TIFR: 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons'

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:42:49Z

CIS Distinguished Fellow Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam will give a talk titled 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons' at TIFR, Mumbai, on Friday, 24 July 2009.

Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Scholarly communication in the age of the commons, 24/07/09, 1600Hrs, AG-66

Abstract

Scholarly communication plays a central role in the creation and assimilation of new knowledge, especially in the sciences. In its turn scholarly communication depends on developments in technology. Unfortunately, scientists who do cutting edge science often follow communication practices of a bygone era and are therefore holding back the development of knowledge. In this talk we will look at state-of-the-art developments in scholarly communication and literature-based evaluation of science and see how we in India can benefit by adopting them.

About Dr.Subbiah Arunachalam

Subbiah Arunachalam is an information scientist. He has been an editor of scientific journals, teacher of information science, librarian, and a science writer. As Secretary and Editor of publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, during 1973-75, he reorganised the publications of the Academy and helped enlarge its Fellowship. Currently he is actively promoting open access to science and scholarship. His interests include scientometrics, science journalism and ICT-enabled rural development.

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See the original posting at the TIFR website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/presentation-at-tifr-scholarly-communication-in-the-age-of-the-commons

Presentation at IDRC: ‘Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons -- A Southern Perspective’

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:59:03Z

Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, CIS Distinguished Fellow, will give a talk titled 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons -- A Southern Perspective' at IDRC, Ottawa, Canada, on 13 July 2009.

Brown Bag Presentation: ‘Scholarly communication in the age of the commons - A southern perspective’ by Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India

Date: July 13, 2009

Time: 1400 hr

Location: IDRC

150 Kent Street

Ottawa, ON, Canada

Room 950

RSVP: Nicole Leguerrier nleguerrier@idrc.ca

The toll-access journal system that was set up some 350 years ago and which has served well till a few decades ago evolved, for historical reasons, largely to serve the needs of North-North knowledge exchange and has failed to take cognizance of the aspirations of the South. The need for science to be performed everywhere and take roots in all countries is now well recognized. If OA is so very important to the South, why is the progress slow? While computers, internet access and bandwidths continue to pose problems in a number of southern countries, in general the situation is improving. The more important factor is scientists' apathy. Scientists in the South, by and large, do not exercise their rights to the full; often they give away on a platter copyright to their research papers to journal publishers. The publishers themselves indulge in practices that would entice publishing scientists and librarians to act in ways that would benefit the publishers. Funding agencies and governments of southern countries are not as proactive as they should be.

Focused advocacy on the advantages of the public commons approach can bring about some revolutionary changes. Such advocacy should be aimed at all levels of stakeholders. Some examples of what is being done in India will be presented.

Biography

Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun) is a Distinguished Fellow with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, a research and advocacy organization that was founded in August 2008. Before then, he was a volunteer for 12 years with the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, a Chennai-based NGO, promoting the use of information and communication technologies to empower the poor and the marginalized and bring about holistic rural development.

Arun is an advocate of open access to scientific and scholarly literature and has conducted several workshops on knowledge management, electronic publishing, open access archiving, science communication, and South-South Exchange for sharing knowledge among development workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Arun has been a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, University of Calcutta, Annamalai University, National Institute of Advanced Study, Bangalore, and Asian Collegeof Journalism, Chennai. Immediately after returning to India Arun will join the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, as a visiting scientist. Arun has been a member of the Executive Committee of Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) for two terms, and is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of IICD, The Hague, and a Trustee of both the Voicing the Voiceless Foundation, New Delhi, and the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, UK.

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Causerie-midi: La communication scientifique à l’ère des biens communs – perspectives du Sud, par Subbiah Arunachalam, chercheur associé de marque au Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore (Inde)

Date: le 13 juillet 2009

Heure: 14 h

Lieu: CRDI

150, rue Kent

Ottawa (Ont.) Canada

pièce 950

RSVP: Nicole Leguerrier (nleguerrier@idrc.ca)

Pour des raisons historiques, le système des publications scientifiques payantes mis en place il y a trois siècles et demi et qui a produit des résultats satisfaisants jusqu’aux dernières décennies sert maintenant, en grande partie, l’échange de connaissances Nord-Nord et ne prend pas en compte les aspirations du Sud. La nécessité de favoriser partout l’activité scientifique et de conforter son enracinement dans tous les pays est aujourd’hui généralement admise. Si le libre accès revêt une telle importance pour le Sud, pourquoi les progrès sont-ils si lents ? Bien que les ordinateurs, l’accès Internet et la bande passante continuent de poser problème dans un grand nombre de pays du Sud, la situation a somme toute tendance à s’améliorer. Le facteur qui joue le plus est dès lors l’apathie des chercheurs. De façon générale, les scientifiques du Sud n’exercent pas pleinement leurs droits : ils cèdent les droits d’auteur sur leur article à l’éditeur de la revue. Et les éditeurs se livrent à des pratiques qui incitent les auteurs et les bibliothécaires à agir à leur avantage. Les bailleurs de fonds et les gouvernements des pays du Sud, quant à eux, ne sont pas aussi proactifs qu’ils le devraient.

Un plaidoyer axé sur les avantages des biens communs pourrait produire des changements révolutionnaires. Ce plaidoyer doit viser toutes les parties prenantes. M. Subbiah Arunachalam livrera des exemples d’initiatives en cours en Inde.

Notice biographique

Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun) est chercheur associé de marque au Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) de Bangalore, un organisme de recherche et de plaidoyer fondé en août 2008. Il a été auparavant bénévole, pendant 12 ans, à la Fondation de recherche M.S.Swaminathan, une ONG de Chennai ayant pour vocation d’encourager le recours aux technologies de l’information et de la communication afin de rendre les populations pauvres et marginalisées plus autonomes et de favoriser un développement rural global.

Arun est partisan du libre accès aux publications scientifiques et savantes et a animé plusieurs ateliers sur la gestion des connaissances, l’édition électronique, l’auto-archivage, les communications scientifiques et les échanges Sud-Sud afin de favoriser la mise en commun des connaissances parmi les professionnels du développement d’Asie, d’Afrique et d’Amérique latine. Il a été professeur invité à l’Institut indien de technologie de Chennai, à l’Université de Calcutta, à l’Université Annamalai et au National Institute of Advanced Studies de Bangalore. Il a siégé au comité exécutif de l’Alliance mondiale pour le savoir (GKP) pendant deux mandats et siège actuellement au comité consultatif international de l’Institut international pour la communication et le développement (IICD), à La Haye, ainsi qu’aux conseils d’administration de la fondation Voicing the Voiceless de New Delhi et de l’Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, au Royaume-Uni.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/idrc-scholarly-communication

Presentation at Global Digital Humanities Symposium

sneha-pp — 2019-05-03T09:41:53Z

P.P. Sneha gave a virtual presentation of her work on digital cultural archives at the Global Digital Humanities Symposium organised by Michigan State University on March 21-22, 2019.

Puthiya Purayil Sneha (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India)

The archive has been an important context for conversations around digital humanities (DH) in India, as it has been globally. The last few decades have seen several large-scale efforts in digitalization across various sectors, including state institutions (National Museum, National Cultural Audio-Visual Archive (IGNCA)) universities (Jadavpur University, Ambedkar University,) and individual and collaborative efforts (Indian Memory Project, Indiancine.ma ) to name a few. The emergence of new fields like DH, digital cultures and cultural analytics also indicate several shifts in scholarship, pedagogy and practice, on the one hand alluding to the potential offered by democratizing technologies, but also reflecting persistent challenges related to the digital divide, and more specifically politics around the growth and sustenance of the humanities disciplines.

The growth of new areas of study and creative practice like DH has brought about a renewed focus on the creation of digital corpora, and the need for new technologies and methods of research, more specifically through the development of digital pedagogies. The contexts of these questions are however much wider, located in long-spanning efforts in digitization and digital literacy more broadly, which are still fraught with challenges of access, usage and context. Even as the colonial imagination of state archives remains prevalent in India, digital archival initiatives facilitated by infrastructure such as open source content management systems and tools like web annotation have opened up spaces for alternate narratives. Drawing upon excerpts from a report on mapping the field of DH in India, and ongoing conversations on the digital transition in archival practices, this presentation seeks to understand the politics of digital archiving in a postcolonial context, and how it informs larger trajectories of digitalisation, and the growth of fields like DH in India today.

For more info click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/presentation-at-global-digital-humanities-symposium

Preliminary Submission on "Internet Governance Issues" to the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India

geetha — 2015-02-12T14:52:04Z

On January 30, 2015, Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) held a consultation on Internet governance. A committee was set up to draft a report on Internet governance, with a focus on issues relevant to India. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is represented on the committee, and has provided its preliminary comments to ASSOCHAM.

ASSOCHAM convened a meeting of its members and other stakeholders, at which CIS was represented. At this meeting, inputs were sought on Internet governance issues relevant for India, on which the industry body proposed to make comments to the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. Such a discussion, proposing to consolidate the views of ASSOCHAM members in consultation with other stakeholders, is a commendable move. This submission presents preliminary comments from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in light of ASSOCHAM's consultation on Internet governance.

I. About CIS

1. CIS is a non-profit research organization that works, inter alia, on issues relating to privacy, freedom of expression, intermediary liability and internet governance, access to knowledge, open data and open standards, intellectual property law, accessibility for persons with disabilities, and engages in academic research on the budding Indian disciplines of digital natives and digital humanities.

2. CIS engages in international and domestic forums for Internet governance. We are a Sector-D member of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU),[1] and participated in the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), 2012 (Dubai) [2] and the Plenipotentiary Conference, 2014 (Busan).[3] We have also participated in the WSIS+10 Multistakeholder Preparatory Platform (MPP)[4] and the WSIS+10 High Level Event, organized by the ITU.[5]

3. CIS is also a member of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) at ICANN. Pranesh Prakash, our Policy Director, held a position on the NCUC Executive Committee from December 2013 to November 2014.[6]

4. CIS has been engaging at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) since 2008, and has organized and participated in over 60 panels to date.[7] We have also organized panels at the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF (APrIGF). [8] Our Executive Director Sunil Abraham is a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) for the India-IGF, and has attended in its meetings.[9] We are also in the process of developing international principles for intermediary liability, in collaboration with international civil society organisations like EFF and Article19. [10]

II. Structure of Submission

5. In this submission, we identify issues in Internet governance where engagement from and within India is necessary. In particular, brief descriptions of issues such as freedom of expression and privacy online, cyber-security, critical Internet resources and ICANN, multistakeholderism and net neutrality are provided.

III. Internet Governance Issues

6. The history of the Internet is unique, in that it is not exclusively government-regulated. Though governments regulate the Internet in many ways (for instance, by ordering website blocking or filtering, licensing of ISPs, encryption controls, investment caps, etc.), the running of the Internet is largely in the hands of private businesses, technical organisations and end-users.

7. International processes like the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), and forums such as ICANN, the ITU, the IGF and the UN are involved in governing in the Internet in many ways. Regional organisations like the OECD, APEC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are also involved (for instance, in cyber-security matters).

8. The issues surrounding Internet governance are many, and range from telecom infrastructure and technical coordination to human rights and access to information.

Rights Online

9. The status of 'human rights online' has come under discussion, with the NETmundial Outcome Document affirming that offline rights must also be protected online. These issues are important in the context of, among others, the large scale violations of privacy in light of the Snowden Revelations,[11] and increased instances of website blocking and takedowns in different parts of the world.[12]

10. Internationally, issues of freedom of speech, privacy and access or the digital divide (though it is debatable that the latter is a human right) are discussed at the UN Human Rights Council, such as the resolution on human rights and the Internet, and the UN Human Rights Commissioner's report on the right to privacy in the digital age , which discusses the need for checks and balances on digital mass surveillance. During the Universal Periodic Review of India in 2012, India noted a recommendation from Sweden to " ensure that measures limiting freedom of expression on the internet is based on clearly defined criteria in accordance with international human rights standard ".

11. Freedom of speech and privacy are also relevant for discussion at the ITU.[13] For instance, at the Plenipotentiary meeting in 2014 (Busan), India proposed a resolution that sought, among other things, complete traceability of all Internet communications. [14] This has implications for privacy that are not yet addressed by our domestic laws. A Privacy Bill and such other protections are only in the pipeline in India.[15]

12. At ICANN as well, the root zone management function may affect freedom of expression. If, for instance, a top level domain (TLD) such as .com is erased from the root zone file, hundreds of thousands of websites and their content can be wiped from the World Wide Web. A TLD can be erased by Verisign if a request to that effect is raised or accepted by ICANN, and signed off on by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the US government. Similarly,the WHOIS database, which contains information about the holders of domain names and IP addresses, has implications for privacy and anonymity.

13. In India, the judiciary is currently adjudicating the constitutionality of several provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (as amended in 2008), including S. 66A, S. 69A and S. 79. A series of writ petitions filed, among others, by the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) and Mouthshut.com, relate to the constitutionality of the nature of content controls on the Internet, as well as intermediary liability. [16]

14. A judgment on the constitutionality of Ss. 66A, 69A and 79 are crucial for end-users and citizens, as well as companies in the Internet ecosystem. For instance, an uncertain intermediary liability regime with penalties for intermediaries - S. 79, IT Act and Intermediaries Guidelines Rules, 2011 - disincentivises ISPs, online news websites and other content providers like Blogger, Youtube, etc. from allowing free speech to flourish online. [17] The ongoing cases of Kamlesh Vaswani v. UOI and Sabu George v. UOI also have consequences for ISPs and search engines, as well as for fundamental rights.[18] International and domestic engagement is desirable, including in consultations with the Law Commission of India (for instance, the consultation on media laws).

Critical Internet Resources

15. Critical Internet Resources form the backbone of the Internet, and include management of IP addresses, the domain name system (DNS) and the root zone. [19] ICANN, a global non-profit entity incorporated in California, manages the IANA functions (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) for the global Internet. These functions include allocating the global pool of IP addresses (IPv4 and IPv6) to Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), administering the domain name system and maintaining a protocol registry.

16. At present, the IANA functions are performed under a contract with the NTIA. On March 14, 2014, the NTIA announced its intention to transition oversight of the IANA functions to an as-yet-undetermined "global multi-stakeholder body". The deadline for this transition is September 30, 2015, though the NTIA has expressed its willingness to renew the IANA contract and extend the deadline. ICANN was charged with convening the transition process, and set up the IANA Coordination Group (ICG), a team of 30 individuals who will consolidate community input to create a transition proposal. At the moment, thenames (CWG-Names),numbers (CRISP) and protocols (IETF) communities are debating existing draft proposals. A number of new entities with which ICANN will have contractual arrangements have been proposed. At ICANN's meetings in Singapore (February 7-12, 2015) and Buenos Aires (June 2015), these proposals will be discussed.

17. At the same time, a parallel track to examine ICANN's own transparency and accountability has been introduced. The CCWG-Accountability is considering ICANN's accountability in two Workstreams: first, in light of the IANA transition and second, a revision of ICANN's policies and by-laws to strengthen accountability. ICANN's accountability and transparency are crucial to its continued role in Internet governance.

18. Several issues arise here: Should ICANN continue to remain in the US? Should the IANA Functions Department be moved into a separate entity from ICANN? Ought ICANN's by-laws be amended to create oversight over the Board of Directors, which is now seen to have consolidated power? Ought ICANN be more transparent in its financial and operational matters, proactively and reactively?

19. It is, for instance, beneficial to the stability of the Internet and to India if the IANA department is separate from ICANN - this will ensure aseparation of powers. Second, stronger transparency and accountability mechanisms are necessary for ICANN; it is a growing corporate entity performing a globally Internet function. As such, granular information about ICANN's revenues and expenses should be made public. See, for ex.,CIS' request for ICANN's expenses for travel and meetings, and ICANN's response to the same.

20. The most ideal forum to engage in this is ICANN, and within India, working groups on Internet governance at the Ministry level. As such, ASSOCHAM may seek open, transparent and inclusive consultations with the relevant departments of the Government (the Ministry of External Affairs, DeitY, Department of Telecommunications). At ICANN, industry bodies can find representation in the Business Constituency or the Commercial Stakeholders Group. Additionally, comments and proposals can be made to the ICG and the CCWG-Accountability by anyone.

Cyber-security

21. Cyber-security is often used as an umbrella-term, covering issues ranging from network security (DNSSEC and the ICANN domain), cyber-crime, and cyber-incidents such as the Distributed Denial of Service attacks on Estonian public institutions and the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran's nuclear programme. Within the ITU, spam and child safety online are also assessed as security issues (See Study Group 17 under ITU-T).

22. At the international level, the UN Group of Governmental Experts has published three reports to date, arguing also that in cyber-security incidents, international humanitarian law will apply. International humanitarian law applies during armed attacks on states, when special rules apply to the treatment of civilians, civilian and military buildings, hospitals, wounded soldiers, etc.

23. The ITU also launched a Global Cybersecurity Agenda in 2007, aiming at international cooperation. Such cooperative methods are also being employed at the OSCE, APEC and the SCO, which have developed drafts of Confidence Building Measures. The Global Conferences on Cyberspace (London 2011, Budapest 2012, Seoul 2013, The Hague 2015) resulted in, inter alia, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. India has not ratified the Convention, and remains tight-lipped about its security concerns.

24. Surveillance and monitoring of online communications is a crucial issue in this regard. In India, the surveillance power finds its source in S. 5, Telegraph Act, 1888, and the Rule 419A of the Telegraph Rules, 1951. Further, S. 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Interception Rules, 2009 enable the government and authorized officers to intercept and monitor Internet traffic on certain grounds. Information regarding the implementation of these Rules is scant.

25. In any event, the applicability of targeted surveillance should be subject to judicial review , and a balance should be struck between fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and privacy and the needs of security. An accountability model such as that present in the UK for the Interception of Communications Commissioner may provide valuable insight.

26. In India, the government does not make public information regarding its policies in cyber-security and cybercrime. This would be welcome, as well as consultations with relevant stakeholders.

Models of Internet Governance

27. Multi-stakeholderism has emerged as one of the catchphrases in Internet governance. With the display of a multi-stakeholder model at NETmundial (April 2014), controversies and opinions regarding the meaning, substance and benefits of multi-stakeholderism have deepened.

28. The debates surrounding stakeholder-roles in Internet governance began with ¶49 of the Geneva Declaration of Principles and ¶35 of the Tunis Agenda, which delineated clear roles and responsibilities. It created a 'contributory' multi-stakeholder model, where states held sovereign authority over public policy issues, while business and civil society were contributed to 'important roles' at the 'technical and economic fields' and the 'community level', respectively.

29. As the WGEC meeting (April 30-May 2, 2014) demonstrated, there is as yet no consensus on stakeholder-roles. Certain governments remain strongly opposed to equal roles of other stakeholders, emphasizing their lack of accountability and responsibility. Civil society is similarly splintered, with a majority opposing the Tunis Agenda delineation of stakeholder-roles, while others remain dubious of permitting the private sector an equal footing in public policy-making.

30. The positions in India are similarly divided. While there is appears to be high-level acceptance of "multi-stakeholder models" across industry, academia and civil society, there exists no clarity as to what this means. In simple terms, does a multi-stakeholder model mean that the government should consult industry, civil society, academia and the technical community? Or should decision-making power be split among stakeholders? In fact, the debate is more specific.

31. In India, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) for the India-IGF was established in February 2014, and some meetings were held. Unfortunately, neither the minutes of the meetings nor action points (if any) are publicly available.

32. The Indian government's position is more complex. At the 68^th UN General Assembly session in 2011, India argued for a (multilateral) 50-member UN Committee on Internet-related Policies (CIRP). However, the Ministry for Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has, over the years, presented differing views at the IGF and ITU through its two departments: DeitY and DoT. Further, at the meetings of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC), India has presented more nuanced views, suggesting that certain issues remain within the governmental domain (such as cyber-security and child online protection). At the 9^th IGF (Istanbul, September 2014), Mr. R.S. Sharma of the DeitY echoed such a view of delineated roles for stakeholders.

33. A clear message from the Indian government, on whether it favours multistakeholderism or governmental policy authority for specific issues, would be invaluable in shaping opinion and domestic processes. In any event, a transparent consultative procedure to take into account the views of all stakeholders is desirable.

Emerging Issues

Net Neutrality

34. In simple terms, net neutrality concerns differential treatment of packets of data by carriers such as ISPs, etc. over networks. The issue has gained international attention following the U.S. FCC's regulatory stance, and the U.S. Court of Appeal's 2014 decision in Verizon v. FCC. Though this decision turned on the interpretation of 'broadband providers' under the Communications Act, 1934, net neutrality has since been debated in the US, both by the FCC and other stakeholders. There is no international consensus in sight; the NETmundial Outcome Document recognized net neutrality as an emerging issue (page 11, no. IV).

35. In India, a TRAI consultation on Over-The-Top Services on August 5, 2014 brought concerns of telecom and cellular operators to light. OTTs were seen as hijacking a portion of telcos' revenues, and as lacking consumer protection and privacy safeguards. While these concerns are legitimate, net neutrality regulation is not yet the norm in India. In any event, any such regulation must take into account the consequences of regulation on innovation, competition, and consumer choice, as well as on the freedom of the medium (which may have detrimental impacts freedom of expression).

36. Though net neutrality regulation is being mooted, there is as yet anarray of definitions of 'net neutrality'. The views of telcos themselves differ in India. Further study on the methods of identifying and/or circumventing net neutrality is necessary before a policy position can be taken.

IV. Conclusions

37. CIS welcomes ASSOCHAM's initiative to study and develop industry-wide positions on Internet governance. This note provides brief descriptions of several issues in Internet governance where policy windows are open internationally and domestically. These issues include freedom of expression and privacy under Part III (Fundamental Rights) of the Constitution of India. The Supreme Court's hearing of a set of cases alleging unconstitutionality of Ss. 66A, 69, 69A and 79 (among others) of the IT Act, 2000, as well as consultations on issues such as pornography by the Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Committee and media laws by the Law Commission of India are important in this regard.

38. International and domestic engagement is necessary in the transition of stewardship of the IANA functions, as well as ICANN's own accountability and transparency measures. Similarly, in the area of cyber-security, though several initiatives are afoot internationally, India's engagement has been cursory until now. A concrete position from India's stakeholders, including the government, on these and the question of multi-stakeholderism in Internet governance would be of immense assistance.

39. Finally, net neutrality is an emerging issue of importance to industry's revenues and business models, and to users' rights such as access to information and freedom of expression.

[1] CIS gets ITU-D Sector Membership, goo.gl/PBGKWt (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[2] Letter for Civil Society Involvement in WCIT, goo.gl/gXpYQD (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[3] See, ex., Hariharan, What India's ITU Proposal May Mean for Internet Governance, goo.gl/hpWaZn (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[4] Panday, WSIS +10 High Level Event: Open Consultation Process MPP: Phase Six: Fifth Physical Meeting, goo.gl/3XR24X (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[5] Hariharan, WSIS+10 High Level Event: A Bird's Eye Report, goo.gl/8XkwyJ (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[6] Pranesh Prakash elected as Asia-Pacific Representative to the Executive Committee of NonCommercial Users Constituency, goo.gl/iJM7C0 (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[7] See, ex., CIS@IGF 2014, goo.gl/Werdiz (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[8] Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance: The Way Ahead , goo.gl/NuktNi; Minimising legal risks of online Intermediaries while protecting user rights, goo.gl/mjQyww (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[9] First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum, goo.gl/NCmKRp (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[10] See Zero Draft of Content Removal Best Practices White Paper, goo.gl/RnAel8 (l.a. 8 Feb. 2015).

[11] See, ex., UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful 'for seven years', goo.gl/vG8W7i (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[12] See, ex., Twitter: Turkey tops countries demanding content removal, goo.gl/ALyO3B (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[13] See, ex., The ITU convenes a programme on Child Online Protection, goo.gl/qJ4Es7 (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[14] Hariharan, Why India's Proposal at the ITU is Troubling for Internet Freedoms, goo.gl/Sxh5K8 (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[15] Hickok, Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy vs. The Leaked 2014 Privacy Bill, goo.gl/454qA6 (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[16] See, Supreme Court Of India To Hear Eight IT Act Related Cases On 11th April 2014 - SFLC, goo.gl/XLWsSq (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[17] See, Dara, Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet, goo.gl/bwBT0x (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[18] See, ex., Arun, Blocking online porn: who should make Constitutional decisions about freedom of speech?,goo.gl/NPdZcK; Hariharan & Subramanian, Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law, goo.gl/xMj4Zw (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

[19] CSTD, The mapping of international Internet public policy issues, goo.gl/zUWdI1 (l.a. 9 Feb. 2015).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/preliminary-submission-on-internet-governance-issues-to-assocham

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

Predictive Policing: What is it, How it works, and its Legal Implications

Rohan George — 2015-11-24T16:31:41Z

This article reviews literature surrounding big data and predictive policing and provides an analysis of the legal implications of using predictive policing techniques in the Indian context.

Introduction

For the longest time, humans have been obsessed with prediction. Perhaps the most well-known oracle in history, Pythia, the infallible Oracle of Delphi was said to predict future events in hysterical outbursts on the seventh day of the month, inspired by the god Apollo himself. This fascination with informing ourselves about future events has hardly subsided in us humans. What has changed however is the methods we employ to do so. The development of Big data technologies for one, has seen radical applications into many parts of life as we know it, including enhancing our ability to make accurate predictions about the future.

One notable application of Big data into prediction caters to another basic need since the dawn of human civilisation, the need to protect our communities and cities. The word 'police' itself originates from the Greek word 'polis', which means city. The melding of these two concepts prediction and policing has come together in the practice of Predictive policing, which is the application of computer modelling to historical crime data and metadata to predict future criminal activity[1]. In the subsequent sections, I will attempt an introduction of predictive policing and explain some of the main methods within the domain of predictive policing. Because of the disruptive nature of these technologies, it will also be prudent to expand on the implications predictive technologies have for justice, privacy protections and protections against discrimination among others.

In introducing the concept of predictive policing, my first step is to give a short explanation about current predictive analytics techniques, because these techniques are the ones which are applied into a law enforcement context as predictive policing.

What is predictive analysis

Facilitated by the availability of big data, predictive analytics uses algorithms to recognise data patterns and predict future outcomes[2]. Predictive analytics encompasses data mining, predictive modeling, machine learning, and forecasting[3]. Predictive analytics also relies heavily on machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches [4]. The aim of such analysis is to identify relationships among variables that may not be immediately apparent using hypothesis-driven methods.[5] In the mainstream media, one of the most infamous stories about the use of predictive analysis comes from USA, regarding a department store Target and their data analytics practices [6]. Target mined data from purchasing patterns of people who signed onto their baby registry. From this they were able to predict approximately when customers may be due and target advertisements accordingly. In the noted story, they were so successful that they predicted pregnancy before the pregnant girl's father knew she was pregnant. [7]

Examples of predictive analytics

Predicting the success of a movie based on its online ratings[8]
Many universities, sometimes in partnership with other firms use predictive analytics to provide course recommendations to students, track student performance, personalize curriculum to individual students and foster networking between students.[9]
Predictive Analysis of Corporate Bond Indices Returns[10]

Relationship between predictive analytics and predictive policing

The same techniques used in many of the predictive methods mentioned above find application into some predictive policing methods. However two important points need to be raised:

First, predictive analytics is actually a subset of predictive policing. This is because while the steps in creating a predictive model, of defining a target variable, exposing your model to training data, selecting appropriate features and finally running predictive analysis [11] maybe the same in a policing context, there are other methods which may be used to predict crime, but which do not rely on data mining. These techniques may instead use other methods, such as some of those detailed below along with data about historical crime to generate predictions.

In her article "Policing by Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment"[12], Joh categorises 3 main applications of Big data into policing. These are Predictive Policing, Domain Awareness systems and Genetic Data Banks. Genetic data banks refer to maintaining large databases of DNA that was collected as part of the justice system. Issues arise when the DNA collected is repurposed in order to conduct familial searches, instead of being used for corroborating identity. Familial searches may have disproportionate impacts on minority races. Domain Awareness systems use various computer software and other digital surveillance tools such as Geographical Information Systems [13] or more illicit ones such as Black Rooms[14] to "help police create a software-enhanced picture of the present, using thousands of data points from multiple sources within a city" [15]. I believe Joh was very accurate in separating Predictive Policing from Domain Awareness systems, especially when it comes to analysing the implications of the various applications of Big data into policing.

In such an analysis of the implications of using predictive policing methods, the issues surrounding predictive technologies often get conflated with larger issues about the application of big data into law enforcement. That opens the debate up to questions about overly intrusive evidence gathering and mass surveillance systems, which though used along with predictive technology, are not themselves predictive in nature. In this article, I aim to concentrate on the specific implications that arise due to predictive methods.

One important point regarding the impact of predictive policing is how the insights that predictive policing methods offer are used. There is much support for the idea that predictive policing does not replace policing methods, but actually augments them. The RAND report specifically cites one myth about predictive policing as "the computer will do everything for you[16]". In reality police officers need to act on the recommendations provided by the technologies.

What is Predictive policing?

Predictive policing is the "application of analytical techniques-particularly quantitative techniques-to identify likely targets for police intervention and prevent crime or solve past crimes by making statistical predictions".[17] It is important to note that the use of data and statistics to inform policing is not new. Indeed, even twenty years ago, before the deluge of big data we have today, law enforcement regimes such as the New York Police Department (NYPD) were already using crime data in a major way. In order to keep track of crime trends, NYPD used the software CompStat[18] to map "crime statistics along with other indicators of problems, such as the locations of crime victims and gun arrests"[19]. The senior officers used the information provided by CompStat to monitor trends of crimes on a daily basis and such monitoring became an instrumental way to track the performance of police agencies[20]. CompStat has since seen application in many other jurisdictions [21].

But what is new is the amount of data available for collection, as well as the ease with which organisations can analyse and draw insightful results from that data. Specifically, new technologies allow for far more rigorous interrogation of data and wide-ranging applications, including adding greater accuracy to the prediction of future incidence of crime.

Predictive Policing methods

Some methods of predictive policing involve application of known standard statistical methods, while other methods involve modifying these standard techniques. Predictive techniques that forecast future criminal activities can be framed around six analytic categories. They all may overlap in the sense that multiple techniques are used to create actual predictive policing software and in fact it is similar theories of criminology which undergird many of these methods, but the categorisation in such a way helps clarify the concept of predictive policing. The basis for the categorisation below comes from a RAND Corporation report entitled 'Predictive Policing: The Role of Crime Forecasting in Law Enforcement Operations' [22], which is a comprehensive and detailed contribution to scholarship in this nascent area.

Hot spot analysis: Methods involving hot spot analysis attempt to "predict areas of increased crime risk based on historical crime data"[23]. The premise behind such methods lies in the adage that "crime tends to be lumpy" [24]. Hot Spot analysis seeks to map out these previous incidences of crime in order to inform potential future crime.

Regression methods: A regression aims to find relationships between independent variables (factors that may influence criminal activity) and certain variables that one aims to predict. Hence, this method would track more variables than just crime history.

Data mining techniques: Data mining attempts to recognise patterns in data and use it to make predictions about the future. One important variant in the various types of data mining methods used in policing are different types of algorithms that are used to mine data in different ways. These are dependent on the nature of the data the predictive model was trained on and will be used to interrogate in the future. Two broad categories of algorithms commonly used are clustering algorithms and classification algorithms:

· Clustering algorithms "form a class of data mining approaches that seek to group data into clusters with similar attributes" [25]. One example of clustering algorithms is spatial clustering algorithms, which use geospatial crime incident data to predict future hot spots for crime[26].

· Classification algorithms "seek to establish rules assigning a class or label to events"[27]. These algorithms use training data sets "to learn the patterns that determine the class of an observation"[28] The patterns identified by the algorithm will be applied to future data, and where applicable, the algorithm will recognise similar patterns in the data. This can be used to make predictions about future criminal activity for example.

Near-repeat methods: Near-repeat methods work off the assumption that future crimes will take place close to timing and location of current crimes. Hence, it could be postulated that areas of high crime will experience more crime in the near future[29]. This involves the use of a 'self-exciting' algorithm, very similar to algorithms modelling earthquake aftershocks [30]. The premise undergirding such methods is very similar to that of hot spot analysis.

Spatiotemporal analysis: Using "environmental and temporal features of the crime location" [31] as the basis for predicting future crime. By combining the spatiotemporal features of the crime area with crime incident data, police could use the resultant information to predict the location and time of future crimes. Examples of factors that may be considered include timing of crimes, weather, distance from highways, time from payday and many more.

Risk terrain analysis: Analyses other factors that are useful in predicting crimes. Examples of such factors include "the social, physical, and behavioural factors that make certain areas more likely to be affected by crime"[32]

Various methods listed above are used, often together, to predict the where and when a crime may take place or even potential victims. The unifying thread which relates these methods is their dependence on historical crime data.

Examples of predictive policing:

Most uses of predictive policing that have been studied and reviewed in scholarly work come from the USA, though I will detail one case study from Derbyshire, UK. Below is a collation of various methods that are a practical application of the methods raised above.

Hot Spot analysis in Sacramento: In February 2011, Sacramento Police Department began using hot spot analysis along with research on optimal patrol time to act as a sufficient deterrent to inform how they patrol high-risk areas. This policy was aimed at preventing serious crimes by patrolling these predicted hot spots. In places where there was such patrolling, serious crimes reduced by a quarter with no significant increases such crimes in surrounding areas[33].

Data Mining and Hot Spot Mapping in Derbyshire, UK: The Safer Derbyshire Partnership, a group of law enforcement agencies and municipal authorities sought to identify juvenile crime hotspots[34]. They used MapInfo software to combine "multiple discrete data sets to create detailed maps and visualisations of criminal activity, including temporal and spatial hotspots" [35]. This information informed law enforcement about how to optimally deploy their resources.

Regression models in Pittsburgh: Researchers used reports from Pittsburgh Bureau of Police about violent crimes and "leading indicator" [36] crimes, crimes that were relatively minor but which could be a sign of potential future violent offences. The researcher ran analysis of areas with violent crimes, which were used as the dependent variable in analysing whether violent crimes in certain areas could be predicted by the leading indicator data. From the 93 significant violent crime areas that were studied, 19 areas were successfully predicted by the leading indicator data.[37]

Risk terrain modelling analysis in Morris County, New Jersey: Police in Morris County, used risk terrain analysis to tackle violent crimes and burglaries. They considered five inputs in their model: "past burglaries, the address of individuals recently arrested for property crimes, proximity to major highways, the geographic concentration of young men and the location of apartment complexes and hotels." [38] The Morris County law enforcement officials linked the significant reductions in violent and property crime to their use of risk terrain modelling[39].

Near-repeat & hot spot analysis used by Santa Cruz Police Department: Uses PredPol software that applies the Mohler's algorithm [40] to a database with five years' worth of crime data to assess the likelihood of future crime occurring in the geographic areas within the city. Before going on shift, officers receive information identifying 15 such areas with the highest probability of crime[41]. The initiative has been cited as being very successful at reducing burglaries, and was used in Los Angeles and Richmond, Virginia[42].

Data Mining and Spatiotemporal analysis to predict future criminal activities in Chicago: Officers in Chicago Police Department made visits to people their software predicted were likely to be involved in violent crimes[43], guided by an algorithm-generated "Heat List"[44]. Some of the inputs used in the predictions include some types of arrest records, gun ownership, social networks[45] (police analysis of social networking is also a rising trend in predictive policing[46]) and generally type of people you are acquainted with [47] among others, but the full list of the factors are not public. The list sends police officers (or sometimes mails letters) to peoples' homes to offer social services or deliver warnings about the consequences for offending. Based in part on the information provided by the algorithm, officers may provide people on the Heat List information about vocational training programs or warnings about how Federal Law provides harsher punishments for reoffending[48].

Predictive policing in India

In this section, I map out some of the developments in the field of predictive policing within India. On the whole, predictive policing is still very new in India, with Jharkhand being the only state that appears to already have concrete plans in place to introduce predictive policing.

Jharkhand Police

The Jharkhand police began developing their IT infrastructure such as a Geographic Information System (GIS) and Server room when they received funding for Rs. 18.5 crore from the Ministry of Home Affairs[49]. The Open Group on E-governance (OGE), founded as a collaboration between the Jharkhand Police and National Informatics Centre[50], is now a multi-disciplinary group which takes on different projects related to IT[51]. With regards to predictive policing, some members of OGE began development in 2013 of data mining software which will scan online records that are digitised. The emerging crime trends "can be a building block in the predictive policing project that the state police want to try."[52]

The Jharkhand Police was also reported in 2012 to be in the final stages of forming a partnership with IIM-Ranchi[53]. It was alleged the Jharkhand police aimed to tap into IIM's advanced business analytics skills [54], skills that can be very useful in a predictive policing context. Mr Pradhan suggested that "predictive policing was based on intelligence-based patrol and rapid response"[55] and that it could go a long way to dealing with the threat of Naxalism in Jharkhand[56].

However, in Jharkhand, the emphasis appears to be targeted at developing a massive Domain Awareness system, collecting data and creating new ways to present that data to officers on the ground, instead of architecting and using predictive policing software. For example, the Jharkhand police now have in place "a Naxal Information System, Crime Criminal Information System (to be integrated with the CCTNS) and a GIS that supplies customised maps that are vital to operations against Maoist groups"[57]. The Jharkhand police's "Crime Analytics Dashboard" [58] shows the incidence of crime according to type, location and presents it in an accessible portal, providing up-to-date information and undoubtedly raises the situational awareness of the officers. Arguably, the domain awareness systems that are taking shape in Jharkhand would pave the way for predictive policing methods to be applied in the future. These systems and hot spot maps seem to be the start of a new age of policing in Jharkhand.

Predictive Policing Research

One promising idea for predictive policing in India comes from the research conducted by Lavanya Gupta and others entitled "Predicting Crime Rates for Predictive Policing"[59], which was a submission for the Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award. The research uses regression modelling to predict future crime rates. Drawing from First Information Reports (FIRs) of violent crimes (murder, rape, kidnapping etc.) from Chandigarh Police, the team attempted "to extrapolate annual crime rate trends developed through time series models. This approach also involves correlating past crime trends with factors that will influence the future scope of crime, in particular demographic and macro-economic variables" [60]. The researchers used early crime data as the training data for their model, which after some testing, eventually turned out to have an accuracy of around 88.2%.[61] On the face of it, ideas like this could be the starting point for the introduction of predictive policing into India.

The rest of India's law enforcement bodies do not appear to be lagging behind. In the 44^th All India police science congress, held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat in March this year, one of the Themes for discussion was the "Role of Preventive Forensics and latest developments in Voice Identification, Tele-forensics and Cyber Forensics"[62].Mr A K Singh, (Additional Director General of Police, Administration) the chairman of the event also said in an interview that there was to be a round-table DGs (Director General of Police) held at the conference to discuss predictive policing[63]. Perhaps predictive policing in India may not be that far away from reality.

CCTNS and the building blocks of Predictive policing

The Ministry of Home Affairs conceived of a Crime and Criminals Tracking and Network System (CCTNS) as part of national e-Governance plans. According to the website of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), CCTNS aims to develop "a nationwide networked infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking system around 'investigation of crime and detection of criminals' in real time" [64]

The plans for predictive policing seem in the works, but first steps that are needed in India across police forces involve digitizing data collection by the police, as well as connecting law enforcement agencies. The NCRB's website described the current possibility of exchange of information between neighbouring police stations, districts or states as being "next to impossible"[65]. The aim of CCTNS is precisely to address this gap and integrate and connect the segregated law enforcement arms of the state in India, which would be a foundational step in any initiatives to apply predictive methods.

What are the implications of using predictive policing? Lessons from USA

Despite the moves by law enforcement agencies to adopt predictive policing, one reality is that the implications of predictive policing methods are far from clear. This section will examine these implications on the carriage of justice and its use in law, as well as how it impacts privacy concerns for the individual. It frames the existing debates surrounding these issues with predictive policing, and aims to apply these principles into an Indian context.

Justice, Privacy & IV Amendment

Two key concerns about how predictive policing methods may be used by law enforcement relate to how insights from predictive policing methods are acted upon and how courts interpret them. In the USA, this issue may finds its place under the scope of IV Amendment jurisprudence. The IV amendment states that all citizens are "secure from unreasonable searches and seizures of property by the government"[66]. In this sense, the IV amendment forms the basis for search and surveillance law in the USA.

A central aspect of the IV Amendment jurisprudence is drawn from United States v. Katz. In Katz, the FBI attached a microphone to the outside of a public phone booth to record the conversations of Charles Katz, who was making phone calls related to illegal gambling. The court ruled that such actions constituted a search within the auspices of the 4^th amendment. The ruling affirmed constitutional protection of all areas where someone has a "reasonable expectation of privacy"[67].

Later cases have provided useful tests for situations where government surveillance tactics may or may not be lawful, depending on whether it violates one's reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, in United States v. Knotts, the court held that "police use of an electronic beeper to follow a suspect surreptitiously did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search"[68]. In fact, some argue that that the Supreme Court's reasoning in such cases suggests " any 'scientific enhancement' of the senses used by the police to watch activity falls outside of the Fourth Amendment's protections if the activity takes place in public"[69]. This reasoning is based on the third party doctrine which holds that "if you voluntarily provide information to a third party, the IV Amendment does not preclude the government from accessing it without a warrant"[70]. The clearest exposition of this reasoning was in Smith v. Maryland, where the presiding judges noted that "this Court consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties"[71].

However, the third party has seen some challenge in recent time. In United States v. Jones, it was ruled that the government's warrantless GPS tracking of his vehicle 24 hours a day for 28 days violated his Fourth Amendment rights[72]. Though the majority ruling was that warrantless GPS tracking constituted a search, it was in a concurring opinion written by Justice Sonya Sotomayor that such intrusive warrantless surveillance was said to infringe one's reasonable expectation of privacy. As Newell reflected on Sotomayor's opinion,

"Justice Sotomayor stated that the time had come for Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to discard the premise that legitimate expectations of privacy could only be found in situations of near or complete secrecy. Sotomayor argued that people should be able to maintain reasonable expectations of privacy in some information voluntarily disclosed to third parties"[73].

She said that the court's current reasoning on what constitutes reasonable expectations of privacy in information disclosed to third parties, such as email or phone records or even purchase histories, is "ill-suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks"[74].

Predictive policing vs. Mass surveillance and Domain Awareness Systems

However, there is an important distinction to be drawn between these cases and evidence from predictive policing. This has to do with the difference in nature of the evidence collection. Arguably, from Jones and others, what we see is that use of mass surveillance and domain awareness systems, drawing from Joh's categorisation of domain awareness systems as being distinct from predictive policing mentioned above, could potentially encroach on one's reasonable expectation of privacy. However, I think that predictive policing, and the possible implications for justice associated with it, its predictive harms, are quite distinct from what has been heard by courts thus far.

The reason for distinct risks between predictive harms and privacy harms originating from information gathering is related to the nature of predictive policing technologies, and how they are used. It is highly unlikely that the evidence submitted by the State to indict an offender will be mainly predictive in nature. For example, would it be possible to convict an accused person solely on the premise that he was predicted to be highly likely to commit a crime, and that subsequently he did? The legal standard of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt [75] can hardly be met solely on predictive evidence for a multitude of reasons. Predictive policing methods could at most, be said to inform police about the risk of someone committing a crime or of crime happening at a certain location, as demonstrated above.

Predictive policing and Criminal Procedure

It may therefore pay to analyse how predictive policing may be used across the various processes within the criminal justice system. In fact, in an analysis of the various stages of criminal procedure, from opening an investigation to gathering evidence, followed by arrest, trial, conviction and sentencing, we see that as the individual gets subject to more serious incursions or sanctions by the state, it takes a higher standard of certainty about wrongdoing and a higher burden of proof, in order to legitimize that particular action.

Hence, at more advanced stages of the criminal justice process such as seeking arrest warrants or trial, it is very unlikely that predictive policing on its own can have a tangible impact, because the nature of predictive evidence is probability based. It aims to calculate the risk of future crime occurring based on statistical analysis of past crime data[76]. While extremely useful, probabilities on their own will not come remotely close meet the legal standards of proving 'guilt beyond reasonable doubt'. It may be at the earlier stages of the criminal justice process that evidence predictive policing might see more widespread application, in terms of applying for search warrants and searching suspicious people while on patrol.

In fact, in the law enforcement context, prediction as a concept is not new to justice. Both courts and law enforcement officials already make predictions about future likelihood of crimes. In the case of issuing warrants, the IV amendment makes provisions that law enforcement officials show that the potential search is based "upon probable cause"[77] in order for a judge to grant a warrant. In US v. Brinegar, probable cause was defined as existing "where the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge, and of which they have reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient in themselves to warrant a belief by a man of reasonable caution that a crime is being committed" [78]. Again, this legal standard seems too high for predictive evidence meet.

However, the police also have an important role to play in preventing crimes by looking out for potential crimes while on patrol or while doing surveillance. When the police stop a civilian on the road to search him, reasonable suspicion must be established. This standard of reasonable suspicion was defined in most clearly in Terry v. Ohio, which required police to "be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion"[79]. Therefore, "reasonable suspicion that 'criminal activity may be afoot' is at base a prediction that the facts and circumstances warrant the reasonable prediction that a crime is occurring or will occur"[80]. Despite the assertion that "there are as of yet no reported cases on predictive policing in the Fourth Amendment context"[81], examining the impact of predictive policing on the doctrine of reasonable suspicion could be very instructive in understanding the implications for justice and privacy [82].

Predictive Policing and Reasonable Suspicion

Ferguson's insightful contribution to this area of scholarship involves the identification of existing areas where prediction already takes place in policing, and analogising them into a predictive policing context[83]. These three areas are: responding to tips, profiling, and high crime areas (hot spots).

Tips

Tips are pieces of information shared with the police by members of the public. Often tips, either anonymous or from known police informants, may predict future actions of certain people, and require the police to act on this information. The precedent for understanding the role of tips in probable cause comes from Illinois v. Gates[84]. It was held that "an informant's 'veracity,' 'reliability,' and 'basis of knowledge'-remain 'highly relevant in determining the value'"[85] of the said tip. Anonymous tips need to be detailed, timely and individualised enough[86] to justify reasonable suspicion [87]. And when the informant is known to be reliable, then his prior reliability may justify reasonable suspicion despite lacking a basis in knowledge[88].

Ferguson argues that whereas predictive policing cannot provide individualised tips, it is possible to consider reliable tips about certain areas as a parallel to predictive policing[89]. And since the courts had shown a preference for reliability even in the face of a weak basis in knowledge, it is possible to see the reasonable suspicion standard change in its application[90]. It also implies that IV protections may be different in places where crime is predicted to occur [91].

Profiling

Despite the negative connotations and controversial overtones at the mere sound of the word, profiling is already a method commonly used by law enforcement. For example, after a crime has been committed and general features of the suspect identified by witnesses, police often stop civilians who fit this description. Another example of profiling is common in combating drug trafficking[92], where agents keep track of travellers at airports to watch for suspicious behaviour. Based on their experience of common traits which distinguish drug traffickers from regular travellers (a profile), agents may search travellers if they fit the profile[93]. In the case of United States v. Sokolow[94], the courts "recognized that a drug courier profile is not an irrelevant or inappropriate consideration that, taken in the totality of circumstances, can be considered in a reasonable suspicion determination" [95]. Similar lines of thinking could be employed in observing people exchanging small amounts of money in an area known for high levels of drug activity, conceiving predictive actions as a form of profile[96].

It is valid to consider predictive policing as a form of profiling[97], but Ferguson argues that the predictive policing context means this 'new form' of profiling could change IV analysis. The premise behind such an argument lies in the fact that a prediction made by some algorithm about potential high risk of crime in a certain area, could be taken in conjunction observations of ordinarily innocuous events. Read in the totality of circumstances, these two threads may justify individual reasonable suspicion [98]. For example, a man looking into cars at a parking lot may not by itself justify reasonable suspicion, but taken together with a prediction of high risk of car theft at that locality, it may well justify reasonable suspicion. It is this impact of predictive policing, which influences the analysis of reasonable suspicion in a totality of circumstances that may represent new implications for courts looking at IV amendment protections.

Profiling, Predictive Policing and Discrimination

The above sections have already brought up the point that law enforcement agencies already utilize profiling methods in their operations. Also, as the sections on how predictive analytics works and on methods of predictive policing make clear, predictive policing definitely incorporates the development of profiles for predicting future criminal activity. Concerns about predictive models generate potentially discriminatory predictions therefore are very serious, and need addressing. Potential discrimination may be either overt, though far less likely, or unintended. A valuable case study of which sheds light on such discriminatory data mining practices can be found in US Labour law. It was shown how predictive models could be discriminatory at various stages, from conceptualising the model and training it with training data, to eventually selecting inappropriate features to search for [99]. It is also possible for data scientists to (intentionally or not) use proxies for identifiers like race, income level, health condition and religion. Barocas and Selbst argue that "the current distribution of relevant attributes-attributes that can and should be taken into consideration in apportioning opportunities fairly-are demonstrably correlated with sensitive attributes" [100]. Hence, what may result is unintended discrimination, as predictive models and their subjective and implicit biases are reflected in predicted decisions, or that the discrimination is not even accounted for in the first place. While I have not found any case law where courts have examined such situations in a criminal context, at the very least, law enforcement agencies need to be aware of these possibilities and guard against any forms of discriminatory profiling.

However, Ferguson argues that "the precision of the technology may in fact provide more protection for citizens in broadly defined high crime areas" [101]. This is because the label of a 'high-crime area' may no longer apply to large areas but instead to very specific areas of criminal activity. This implies that previously defined areas of high crime, like entire neighbourhoods may not be scrutinised in such detail. Instead, police now may be more precise in locating and policing areas of high crime, such as an individual street corner or a particular block of flats instead of an entire locality.

Hot Spots

Courts have also considered the existence of notoriously 'high-crime areas as part of considering reasonable suspicion[102]. This was seen in Illinois v. Wardlow [103], where the "high crime nature of an area can be considered in evaluating the officer's objective suspicion"[104]. Many cases have since applied this reasoning without scrutinising the predictive value of such a label. In fact, Ferguson asserts that such labelling has questionable evidential value[105]. He uses the facts of the Wardlow case itself to challenge the 'high crime area' factor. Ferguson cites the reasoning of one of the judges in the case:

"While the area in question-Chicago's District 11-was a low-income area known for violent crimes, how that information factored into a predictive judgment about a man holding a bag in the afternoon is not immediately clear."[106]

Especially because "the most basic models of predictive policing rely on past crimes"[107], it is likely that the predictive policing methods like hot spot or spatiotemporal analysis and risk terrain modelling may help to gather or build data models about high crime areas. Furthermore, the mathematical rigour of the predictive modelling could help clarify the term 'high crime area'. As Ferguson argues, "courts may no longer need to rely on the generalized high crime area terminology when more particularized and more relevant information is available" [108].

Summary

Ferguson synthesises four themes to which encapsulate reasonable suspicion analysis:

Predictive information is not enough on its own. Instead, it is "considered relevant to the totality of circumstances, but must be corroborated by direct police observation"[109].
The prediction must also "be particularized to a person, a profile, or a place, in a way that directly connects the suspected crime to the suspected person, profile, or place"[110].
It must also be detailed enough to distinguish a person or place from others not the focus of the prediction [111].
Finally, predicted information becomes less valuable over time. Hence it must be acted on quickly or be lost [112].

Conclusions from America

The main conclusion to draw from the analysis of the parallels between existing predictions in IV amendment law and predictive policing is that "predictive policing will impact the reasonable suspicion calculus by becoming a factor within the totality of circumstances test"[113]. Naturally, it reaffirms the imperative for predictive techniques to collect reliable data [114] and analyse it transparently[115]. Moreover, in order for courts to evaluate the reliability of the data and the processes used (since predictive methods become part of the reasonable suspicion calculus), courts need to be able to analyse the predictive process. This has implications for the how hearings may be conducted, for how legal adjudicators may require training and many more. Another important concern is that the model of predictive information and police corroboration or direct observation[116] may mean that in areas which were predicted to have low risk of crime, the reasonable suspicion doctrine works against law enforcement. There may be less effort paid to patrolling these other areas as a result of predictions.

Implications for India

While there have been no cases directly involving predictive policing methods, it would be prudent to examine the parts of Indian law which would inform the calculus on the lawfulness of using predictive policing methods. A useful lens to examine this might be found in the observation that prediction is not in itself a novel concept in justice, and is already used by courts and law enforcement in numerous circumstances.

Criminal Procedure in Non-Warrant Contexts

The most logical way to begin analysing the legal implications of predictive policing in India may probably involve identifying parallels between American and Indian criminal procedure, specifically searching for instances where 'reasonable suspicion' or some analogous requirement exists for justifying police searches.

In non-warrant scenarios, we find conditions for officers to conduct such a warrantless search in Section 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr PC). For clarity purposes I have stated section 165 (1) in full:

"Whenever an officer in charge of a police station or a police officer making an investigation has reasonable grounds for believing that anything necessary for the purposes of an investigation into any offence which he is authorised to investigate may be found in any place with the limits of the police station of which he is in charge, or to which he is attached, and that such thing cannot in his opinion be otherwise obtained without undue delay, such officer may, after recording in writing the grounds of his belief and specifying in such writing, so far as possible, the thing for which search is to be made, search, or cause search to be made, for such thing in any place within the limits of such station." [117]

However, India differs from the USA in that its Cr PC allows for police to arrest individuals without a warrant as well. As observed in Gulab Chand Upadhyaya vs State Of U.P, "Section 41 Cr PC gives the power to the police to arrest without warrant in cognizable offences, in cases enumerated in that Section. One such case is of receipt of a 'reasonable complaint' or 'credible information' or 'reasonable suspicion'" [118] Like above, I have stated section 41 (1) and subsection (a) in full:

"41. When police may arrest without warrant.

(1) Any police officer may without an order from a Magistrate and without a warrant, arrest any person-

(a) who has been concerned in any cognizable offence, or against whom a reasonable complaint has been made, or credible information has been received, or a reasonable suspicion exists, of his having been so concerned"[119]

In analysing the above sections of Indian criminal procedure from a predictive policing angle, one may find both similarities and differences between the proposed American approach and possible Indian approaches to interpreting or incorporating predictive policing evidence.

Similarity of 'reasonable suspicion' requirement

For one, the requirement for "reasonable grounds" or "reasonable suspicion" seems to be analogous to the American doctrine of reasonable suspicion. This suggests that the concepts used in forming reasonable suspicion, for the police to "be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion"[120] may also be useful in the Indian context.

One case which sheds light on an Indian interpretation of reasonable suspicion or grounds is State of Punjab v. Balbir Singh[121]. In that case, the court observes a requirement for "reason to believe that such an offence under Chapter IV has been committed and, therefore, an arrest or search was necessary as contemplated under these provisions"[122] in the context of Section 41 and 42 in The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985[123]. In examining the requirement of having "reason to believe", the court draws on Partap Singh (Dr) v. Director of Enforcement, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act[124], where the judge observed that "the expression 'reason to believe' is not synonymous with subjective satisfaction of the officer. The belief must be held in good faith; it cannot be merely a pretence….."[125]

In light of this, the judge in Balbir Singh remarked that "whether there was such reason to believe and whether the officer empowered acted in a bona fide manner, depends upon the facts and circumstances of the case and will have a bearing in appreciation of the evidence" [126]. The standard considered by the court in Balbir Singh and Partap Singh is different from the 'reasonable suspicion' or 'reasonable grounds' standard as per Section 41 and 165 of Cr PC. But I think the discussion can help to inform our analysis of the idea of reasonableness in law enforcement actions. Of importance was the court requirement of something more than mere "pretence" as well as a belief held in good faith. This could suggest that in fact the reasoning in American jurisprudence about reasonable suspicion might be at least somewhat similar to how Indian courts view reasonable suspicion or grounds in the context of predictive policing, and therefore how we could similarly conjecture that predictive evidence could form part of the reasonable suspicion calculus in India as well.

Difference in judicial treatment of illegally obtained evidence - Indian lack of exclusionary rules

However, the apparent similarity of how police in America and India may act in non-warrant situations - guided by the idea of reasonable suspicion - is only veneered by linguistic parallels. Despite the existence of such conditions which govern the searches without a warrant, I believe that Indian courts currently may provide far less protection against unlawful use of predictive technologies. The main premise behind this argument is that Indian courts refuse to exclude evidence that was obtained in breaches of the conditions of sections of the Cr PC. What exists in place of evidentiary safeguards is a line of cases in which courts routinely admit unlawfully or illegally obtained evidence. Without protections against unlawfully gathered evidence being considered relevant by courts, any regulations on search or conditions to be met before a search is lawful become ineffective. Evidence may simply enter the courtroom through a backdoor.

In the USA, this is by and large, not the case. Although there are exceptions to these rules, exclusionary rules are set out to prevent admission of evidence which violates the constitution[127]. "The exclusionary rule applies to evidence gained from an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment "[128]. Mapp v. Ohio [129] set the precedent for excluding unconstitutionally gathered evidence, where the court ruled that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Federal Constitution is inadmissible in a criminal trial in a state court" [130].

Any such evidence which then leads law enforcement to collect new information may also be excluded, as part of the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine[131], established in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States [132]. The doctrine is a metaphor which suggests that if the source of certain evidence is tainted, so is 'fruit' or derivatives from that unconstitutional evidence. One such application was in Beck v. Ohio[133], where the courts overturned a petitioner's conviction because the evidence used to convict him was obtained via an unlawful arrest.

However in India's context, there is very little protection against the admission and use of unlawfully gathered evidence. In fact, there are a line of cases which lay out the extent of consideration given to unlawfully gathered evidence - both cases that specifically deal with the rules as per the Indian Cr PC as well as cases from other contexts - which follow and develop this line of reasoning of allowing illegally obtained evidence.

One case to pay attention to is State of Maharastra v. Natwarlal Damodardas Soni - in this case, the Anti-Corruption Bureau searched the house of the accused after receiving certain information as a tip. The police "had powers under the Code of Criminal Procedure to search and seize this gold if they had reason to believe that a cognizable offence had been committed in respect thereof"[134]. Justice Sarkaria, in delivering his judgement, observed that for argument's sake, even if the search was illegal, "then also, it will not affect the validity of the seizure and further investigation"[135]. The judge drew reasoning from Radhakishan v. State of U.P[136]. This which was a case involving a postman who had certain postal items that were undelivered recovered from his house. As the judge in Radhakishan noted:

"So far as the alleged illegality of the search is concerned, it is sufficient to say that even assuming that the search was illegal the seizure of the articles is not vitiated. It may be that where the provisions of Sections 103 and 165 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, are contravened the search could be resisted by the person whose premises are sought to be searched. It may also be that because of the illegality of the search the court may be inclined to examine carefully the evidence regarding the seizure. But beyond these two consequences no further consequence ensues." [137]

Shyam Lal Sharma v. State of M.P.[138] was also drawn upon, where it was held that "even if the search is illegal being in contravention with the requirements of Section 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898, that provision ceases to have any application to the subsequent steps in the investigation"[139].

Even in Gulab Chand Upadhyay, mentioned above, the presiding judge contended that even "if arrest is made, it does not require any, much less strong, reasons to be recorded or reported by the police. Thus so long as the information or suspicion of cognizable offence is "reasonable" or "credible", the police officer is not accountable for the discretion of arresting or no arresting"[140].

A more complete articulation of the receptiveness of Indian courts to admit illegally gathered evidence can be seen in the aforementioned Balbir Singh. The judgement aimed to:

"dispose of one of the contentions that failure to comply with the provisions of Cr PC in respect of search and seizure even up to that stage would also vitiate the trial. This aspect has been considered in a number of cases and it has been held that the violation of the provisions particularly that of Sections 100, 102, 103 or 165 Cr PC strictly per se does not vitiate the prosecution case. If there is such violation, what the courts have to see is whether any prejudice was caused to the accused and in appreciating the evidence and other relevant factors, the courts should bear in mind that there was such a violation and from that point of view evaluate the evidence on record."[141]

The judges then consulted a series of authorities on the failure to comply with provisions of the Cr PC:

State of Punjab v. Wassan Singh[142]: "irregularity in a search cannot vitiate the seizure of the articles"[143].
Sunder Singh v. State of U.P[144]: 'irregularity cannot vitiate the trial unless the accused has been prejudiced by the defect and it is also held that if reliable local witnesses are not available the search would not be vitiated."[145]
Matajog Dobey v.H.C. Bhari[146]: "when the salutory provisions have not been complied with, it may, however, affect the weight of the evidence in support of the search or may furnish a reason for disbelieving the evidence produced by the prosecution unless the prosecution properly explains such circumstance which made it impossible for it to comply with these provisions."[147]
R v. Sang[148]: "reiterated the same principle that if evidence was admissible it matters not how it was obtained."[149] Lord Diplock, one of the Lords adjudicating the case, observed that "however much the judge may dislike the way in which a particular piece of evidence was obtained before proceedings were commenced, if it is admissible evidence probative of the accused's guilt "it is no part of his judicial function to exclude it for this reason". [150] As the judge in Balbir Singh quoted from Lord Diplock, a judge "has no discretion to refuse to admit relevant admissible evidence on the ground that it was obtained by improper or unfair means. The court is not concerned with how it was obtained."[151]

The vast body of case law presented above provides observers with a clear image of the courts willingness to admit and consider illegally obtained evidence. The lack of safeguards against admission of unlawful evidence are important from the standpoint of preventing the excessive or unlawful use of predictive policing methods. The affronts to justice and privacy, as well as the risks of profiling, seem to become magnified when law enforcement use predictive methods more than just to augment their policing techniques but to replace some of them. The efficacy and expediency offered by using predictive policing needs to be balanced against the competing interest of ensuring rule of law and due process. In the Indian context, it seems courts sparsely consider this competing interest.

Naturally, weighing in on which approach is better depends on a multitude of criteria like context, practicality, societal norms and many more. It also draws on existing debates in administrative law about the role of courts, which may emphasise protecting individuals and preventing excessive state power (red light theory) or emphasise efficiency in the governing process with courts assisting the state to achieve policy objectives (green light theory) [152].

A practical response may be that India should aim to embrace both elements and balance them appropriately, although what an appropriate balance again may vary. There are some who claim that this balance already exists in India. Evidence for such a claim may come from R.M. Malkani v. State of Maharashtra[153], where the court considered whether an illegally tape-recorded conversation could be admissible. In its reasoning, the court drew from Kuruma, Son of Kanju v. R. [154], noting that

" if evidence was admissible it matters not how it was obtained. There is of course always a word of caution. It is that the Judge has a discretion to disallow evidence in a criminal case if the strict rules of admissibility would operate unfairly against the accused. That caution is the golden rule in criminal jurisprudence"[155].

While this discretion exists at least principally in India, in practice the cases presented above show that judges rarely exercise that discretion to prevent or bar the admission of illegally obtained evidence or evidence that was obtained in a manner that infringed the provisions governing search or arrest in the Cr PC. Indeed, the concern is that perhaps the necessary safeguards required to keep law enforcement practices, including predictive policing techniques, in check would be better served by a greater focus on reconsidering the legality of unlawfully gathered evidence. If not, evidence which should otherwise be inadmissible may find its way into consideration by existing legal backdoors.

Risk of discriminatory predictive analysis

Regarding the risk of discriminatory profiling, Article 15 of India's Constitution[156] states that "the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them" [157]. The existence of constitutional protection for such forms of discrimination suggests that India will be able to guard against discriminatory predictive policing. However, as mentioned before, predictive analytics often discriminates institutionally, "whereby unconscious implicit biases and inertia within society's institutions account for a large part of the disparate effects observed, rather than intentional choices"[158]. As in most jurisdictions, preventing these forms of discrimination are much harder. Especially in a jurisdiction whose courts are already receptive to allowing admission of illegally obtained evidence, the risk of discriminatory data mining or prejudiced algorithms being used by police becomes magnified. Because the discrimination may be unintentional, it may be even harder for evidence from discriminatory predictive methods to be scrutinised or when applicable, dismissed by the courts.

Conclusion for India

One thing which is eminently clear from the analysis of possible interpretations of predictive evidence is that Indian Courts have had no experience with any predictive policing cases, because the technology itself is still at a nascent stage. There is in fact a long way to go before predictive policing will become used on a scale similar to that of USA for example.

But, even in places where predictive policing is used much more prominently, there is no precedent to observe how courts may view predictive policing. Ferguson's method of locating analogous situations to predictive policing which courts have already considered is one notable approach, but even this does not provide complete answer. One of his main conclusions that predictive policing will affect the reasonable suspicion calculus, or in India's case, contribute to 'reasonable grounds' in some ways, is perhaps the most valid one.

However, what provides more cause for concern in India's context are the limited protections against use of unlawfully gathered evidence. The lack of 'exclusionary rules' unlike those present in the US amplifies the various risks of predictive policing because individuals have little means of redress in such situations where predictive policing may be used unjustly against them.

Yet, the promise of predictive policing remains undeniably attractive for India. The successes predictive policing methods seem to have had In the US and UK coupled with the more efficient allocation of law enforcement's resources as a consequence of adapting predictive policing evidence this point. The government recognises this and seems to be laying the foundation and basic digital infrastructure required to utilize predictive policing optimally. One ought also to ask whether it is the even within the court's purview to decide what kind of policing methods are to be permissible through evaluating the nature of evidence. There is a case to be made for the legislative arm of the state to provide direction on how predictive policing is to be used in India. Perhaps the law must also evolve with the changes in technology, especially if courts are to scrutinise the predictive policing methods themselves.

[1] Joh, Elizabeth E. "Policing by Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, February 1, 2014. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2403028.

[2] Tene, Omer, and Jules Polonetsky. "Big Data for All: Privacy and User Control in the Age of Analytics." Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property 11, no. 5 (April 17, 2013): 239.

[3] Datta, Rajbir Singh. "Predictive Analytics: The Use and Constitutionality of Technology in Combating Homegrown Terrorist Threats." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, May 1, 2013. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2320160.

[4] Johnson, Jeffrey Alan. "Ethics of Data Mining and Predictive Analytics in Higher Education." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, May 8, 2013. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2156058.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Duhigg, Charles. "How Companies Learn Your Secrets." The New York Times, February 16, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Lijaya, A, M Pranav, P B Sarath Babu, and V R Nithin. "Predicting Movie Success Based on IMDB Data." International Journal of Data Mining Techniques and Applications 3 (June 2014): 365-68.

[9] Johnson, Jeffrey Alan. "Ethics of Data Mining and Predictive Analytics in Higher Education." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, May 8, 2013. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2156058.

[10] Sangvinatsos, Antonios A. "Explanatory and Predictive Analysis of Corporate Bond Indices Returns." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, June 1, 2005. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=891641.

[11] Barocas, Solon, and Andrew D. Selbst. "Big Data's Disparate Impact." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, February 13, 2015. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2477899.

[12] Joh, supra note 1.

[13] US Environmental Protection Agency. "How We Use Data in the Mid-Atlantic Region." US EPA. Accessed November 6, 2015. http://archive.epa.gov/reg3esd1/data/web/html/.

[14] See here for details of blackroom.

[15] Joh, supra note 1, at pg 48.

[16] Perry, Walter L., Brian McInnis, Carter C. Price, Susan Smith and John S. Hollywood. Predictive Policing: The Role of Crime Forecasting in Law Enforcement Operations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2013. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR233. Also available in print form.

[17] Ibid, at pg 2.

[18] Chan, Sewell. "Why Did Crime Fall in New York City?" City Room. Accessed November 6, 2015. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/why-did-crime-fall-in-new-york-city/.

[19] Bureau of Justice Assistance. "COMPSTAT: ITS ORIGINS, EVOLUTION, AND FUTURE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES," 2013. http://www.policeforum.org/assets/docs/Free_Online_Documents/Compstat/compstat%20-%20its%20origins%20evolution%20and%20future%20in%20law%20enforcement%20agencies%202013.pdf.

[20] 1996 internal NYPD article "Managing for Results: Building a Police Organization that Dramatically Reduces Crime, Disorder, and Fear."

[21] Bratton, William. "Crime by the Numbers." The New York Times, February 17, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/opinion/17bratton.html.

[22] RAND CORP, supra note 16.

[23] RAND CORP, supra note 16, at pg 19.

[24] Joh, supra note 1, at pg 44.

[25] RAND CORP, supra note 16, pg 38.

[26] Ibid.

[27] RAND CORP, supra note 16, at pg 39.

[28] Ibid.

[29] RAND CORP, supra note 16, at pg 41.

[30] Data-Smart City Solutions. "Dr. George Mohler: Mathematician and Crime Fighter." Data-Smart City Solutions, May 8, 2013. http://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/dr.-george-mohler-mathematician-and-crime-fighter-166.

[31] RAND CORP, supra note 16, at pg 44.

[32] Joh, supra note 1, at pg 45.

[33] Ouellette, Danielle. "Dispatch - A Hot Spots Experiment: Sacramento Police Department," June 2012. http://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/06-2012/hot-spots-and-sacramento-pd.asp.

[34] Pitney Bowes Business Insight. "The Safer Derbyshire Partnership." Derbyshire, 2013. http://www.mapinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/safer-derbyshire-casestudy.pdf.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Daniel B Neill, Wilpen L. Gorr. "Detecting and Preventing Emerging Epidemics of Crime," 2007.

[37] RAND CORP, supra note 16, at pg 33.

[38] Joh, supra note 1, at pg 46.

[39] Paul, Jeffery S, and Thomas M. Joiner. "Integration of Centralized Intelligence with Geographic Information Systems: A Countywide Initiative." Geography and Public Safety 3, no. 1 (October 2011): 5-7.

[40] Mohler, supra note 30.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Moses, B., Lyria, & Chan, J. (2014). Using Big Data for Legal and Law Enforcement
Decisions: Testing the New Tools (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2513564). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2513564

[43] Gorner, Jeremy. "Chicago Police Use Heat List as Strategy to Prevent Violence." Chicago Tribune. August 21, 2013. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-21/news/ct-met-heat-list-20130821_1_chicago-police-commander-andrew-papachristos-heat-list.

[44] Stroud, Matt. "The Minority Report: Chicago's New Police Computer Predicts Crimes, but Is It Racist?" The Verge. Accessed November 13, 2015. http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/19/5419854/the-minority-report-this-computer-predicts-crime-but-is-it-racist.

[45] Moser, Whet. "The Small Social Networks at the Heart of Chicago Violence." Chicago Magazine, December 9, 2013. http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/December-2013/The-Small-Social-Networks-at-the-Heart-of-Chicago-Violence/.

[46] Lester, Aaron. "Police Clicking into Crimes Using New Software." Boston Globe, March 18, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/03/17/police-intelligence-one-click-away/DzzDbrwdiNkjNMA1159ybM/story.html.

[47] Stanley, Jay. "Chicago Police 'Heat List' Renews Old Fears About Government Flagging and Tagging." American Civil Liberties Union, February 25, 2014. https://www.aclu.org/blog/chicago-police-heat-list-renews-old-fears-about-government-flagging-and-tagging.

[48] Rieke, Aaron, David Robinson, and Harlan Yu. "Civil Rights, Big Data, and Our Algorithmic Future," September 2014. https://bigdata.fairness.io/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-04-20-Civil-Rights-Big-Data-and-Our-Algorithmic-Future-v1.2.pdf.

[49] Edmond, Deepu Sebastian. "Jhakhand's Digital Leap." Indian Express, September 15, 2013. http://www.jhpolice.gov.in/news/jhakhands-digital-leap-indian-express-15092013-18219-1379316969.

[50] Jharkhand Police. "Jharkhand Police IT Vision 2020 - Effective Shared Open E-Governance." 2012. http://jhpolice.gov.in/vision2020. See slide 2

[51] Edmond, supra note 49.

[52] Edmond, supra note 49.

[53] Kumar, Raj. "Enter, the Future of Policing - Cops to Team up with IIM Analysts to Predict & Prevent Incidents." The Telegraph. August 28, 2012. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120828/jsp/jharkhand/story_15905662.jsp#.VkXwxvnhDWK.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid.

[57] See supra note 49.

[58] See here for Jharkhand Police crime dashboard.

[59] Lavanya Gupta, and Selva Priya. "Predicting Crime Rates for Predictive Policing." Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award, December 29, 2014. http://gyti.techpedia.in/project-detail/predicting-crime-rates-for-predictive-policing/3545.

[60] Gupta, Lavanya. "Minority Report: Minority Report." Accessed November 13, 2015. http://cmuws2014.blogspot.in/2015/01/minority-report.html.

[61] See supra note 59.

[62] See here for details about 44th All India Police Science Congress.

[63] India, Press Trust of. "Police Science Congress in Gujarat to Have DRDO Exhibition." Business Standard India, March 10, 2015. http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/police-science-congress-in-gujarat-to-have-drdo-exhibition-115031001310_1.html.

[64] National Crime Records Bureau. "About Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems - CCTNS." Accessed November 13, 2015. http://ncrb.gov.in/cctns.htm.

[65] Ibid. (See index page)

[66] U.S. Const. amend. IV, available here

[67] United States v Katz, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) , see here

[68] See supra note 1, at pg 60.

[69] See supra note 1, at pg 60.

[70] Villasenor, John. "What You Need to Know about the Third-Party Doctrine." The Atlantic, December 30, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-third-party-doctrine/282721/.

[71] Smith v Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), see here

[72] United States v Jones, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), see here

[73] Newell, Bryce Clayton. "Local Law Enforcement Jumps on the Big Data Bandwagon: Automated License Plate Recognition Systems, Information Privacy, and Access to Government Information." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, October 16, 2013. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2341182, at pg 24.

[74] See supra note 72.

[75] Dahyabhai Chhaganbhai Thakker vs State Of Gujarat, 1964 AIR 1563

[76] See supra note 16.

[77] See supra note 66.

[78] Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160 (1949), see here

[79] Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), see here

[80] Ferguson, Andrew Guthrie. "Big Data and Predictive Reasonable Suspicion." SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, April 4, 2014. http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2394683, at pg 287. See also supra note 79.

[81] See supra note 80.

[82] See supra note 80.

[83] See supra note 80.

[84] See supra note 80, at pg 289.

[85] Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983). See here

[86] See Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990). See here

[87] See supra note 80, at pg 291.

[88] See supra note 80, at pg 293.

[89] See supra note 80, at pg 308.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Ibid.

[92] Larissa Cespedes-Yaffar, Shayona Dhanak, and Amy Stephenson. "U.S. v. Mendenhall, U.S. v. Sokolow, and the Drug Courier Profile Evidence Controversy." Accessed July 6, 2015. http://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/drugcourier.html.

[93] Ibid.

[94] United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1 (1989), see here

[95] See supra note 80, at pg 295.

[96] See supra note 80, at pg 297.

[97] See supra note 80, at pg 308.

[98] See supra note 80, at pg 310.

[99] See supra note 11.

[100] See supra note 11.

^{^[101]} See supra note 80, at pg 303.

[102] See supra note 80, at pg 300.

[103] Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (2000), see here

[104] Ibid.

[105] See supra note 80, at pg 301.

[106] Ibid.

[107] See supra note 1, at pg 42.

[108] See supra note 80, at pg 303.

[109] See supra note 80, at pg 303.

[110] Ibid.

[111] Ibid.

[112] Ibid.

[113] See supra note 80, at pg 312.

[114] See supra note 80, at pg 317.

[115] See supra note 80, at pg 319.

[116] See supra note 80, at pg 321.

[117] Section 165 Indian Criminal Procedure Code, see here

[118] Gulab Chand Upadhyaya vs State Of U.P, 2002 CriLJ 2907

[119] Section 41 Indian Criminal Procedure Code

[120] See supra note 79

[121] State of Punjab v. Balbir Singh. (1994) 3 SCC 299

[122] Ibid.

[123] Section 41 and 42 in The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985, see here

[124] Partap Singh (Dr) v. Director of Enforcement, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. (1985) 3 SCC 72 : 1985 SCC (Cri) 312 : 1985 SCC (Tax) 352 : AIR 1985 SC 989

[125] Ibid, at SCC pg 77-78.

[126] See supra note 121, at pg 313.

[127] Carlson, Mr David. "Exclusionary Rule." LII / Legal Information Institute, June 10, 2009. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/exclusionary_rule.

[128] Ibid.

[129] Mapp v Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), see here

[130] Ibid.

[131] Busby, John C. "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree." LII / Legal Information Institute, September 21, 2009. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree.

[132] Silverthorne Lumber Co., Inc. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 (1920), see here.

[133] Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (1964), see here.

[134] State of Maharashtra v. Natwarlal Damodardas Soni, (1980) 4 SCC 669, at 673.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Radhakishan v. State of U.P. [AIR 1963 SC 822 : 1963 Supp 1 SCR 408, 411, 412 : (1963) 1 Cri LJ 809]

[137] Ibid, at SCR pg 411-12.

[138] Shyam Lal Sharma v. State of M.P. (1972) 1 SCC 764 : 1974 SCC (Cri) 470 : AIR 1972 SC 886

[139] See supra note 135, at page 674.

[140] See supra note 119, at para. 10.

[141] See supra note 121, at pg 309.

[142] State of Punjab v. Wassan Singh, (1981) 2 SCC 1 : 1981 SCC (Cri) 292

[143] See supra note 121, at pg 309.

[144] Sunder Singh v. State of U.P, AIR 1956 SC 411 : 1956 Cri LJ 801

[145] See supra note 121, at pg 309.

[146] Matajog Dobey v.H.C. Bhari, AIR 1956 SC 44 : (1955) 2 SCR 925 : 1956 Cri LJ 140

[147] See supra note 121, at pg 309.

[148] R v. Sang, (1979) 2 All ER 1222, 1230-31

[149] See supra note 121, at pg 309.

[150] Ibid.

[151] Ibid.

[152] Harlow, Carol, and Richard Rawlings. Law and Administration. 3rd ed. Law in Context. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

[153] R.M. Malkani v. State of Maharashtra, (1973) 1 SCC 471

[154] Kuruma, Son of Kanju v. R., (1955) AC 197

[155] See supra note 154, at 477.

[156] Indian Const. Art 15, see here

[157] Ibid.

[158] See supra note 11.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/predictive-policing-what-is-it-how-it-works-and-it-legal-implications

Pre-Budget Consultation 2016 - Submission to the IT Group of the Ministry of Finance

sumandro — 2016-01-12T13:34:41Z

The Ministry of Finance has recently held pre-budget consultations with different stakeholder groups in connection with the Union Budget 2016-17. We were invited to take part in the consultation for the IT (hardware and software) group organised on January 07, 2016, and submit a suggestion note. We are sharing the note below. It was prepared and presented by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with contributions from Rohini Lakshané, Anubha Sinha, and other members of CIS.

It is our distinct honour to be invited to submit this note for consideration by the IT Group of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, as part of the pre-budget consultation for 2016-17.

The Centre for Internet and Society is (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 diverse abilities, 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. We receive financial support from Kusuma Trust, Wikimedia Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC, and other donors.

We have divided our suggestions into the different topics that our organisation has been researching in the recent years.

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is the Basis for Digital India

We congratulate the policies introduced by the government to promote use of free/libre and open source software and that of open APIs for all e-governance projects and systems. This is not only crucial for the government to avoid vendor lock-in when it comes to critical software systems for governance, but also to ensure that the source code of such systems is available for public scrutiny and do not contain any security flaws.

We request the government to empower the implementation of these policies by making open sharing of source code a necessity for all software vendors hired by government agencies a necessary condition for awarding of tenders. The 2016-17 budget should include special support to make all government agencies aware and capable of implementing these policies, as well as to build and operate agency-level software repositories (with version controlling system) to host the source codes. These repositories may function to manage the development and maintenance of software used in e-governance projects, as well as to seek comments from the public regarding the quality of the software.

Use of FLOSS is not only important from the security or the cost-saving perspectives, it is also crucial to develop a robust industry of software development firms that specialise in FLOSS-based solutions, as opposed to being restricted to doing local implementation of global software vendors. A holistic support for FLOSS, especially with the government functioning as the dominant client, will immensely help creation of domestic jobs in the software industry, as well as encouraging Indian programmers to contribute to development of FLOSS projects.

An effective compliance monitoring and enforcement system needs to be created to ensure that all government agencies are Strong enforcement of the 2011 policy to use open source software in governance, including an enforcement task force that checks whether government departments have complied with this or not.

Open Data is a Key Instrument for Transparent Decision Making

With a wider set of governance activities being carried out using information systems, the government is increasingly acquiring a substantial amount of data about governance processes and status of projects that needs to be effectively fed back into the decision making process for the same projects. Opening up such data not only allows for public transparency, but also for easier sharing of data across government agencies, which reduces process delays and possibilities of duplication of data collection efforts.

We request the 2016-17 budget to foreground the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy and the Open Government Data Platform of India as two key enablers of the Digital India agenda, and accordingly budget for modernisation and reconfiguration of data collection and management processes across government agencies, so that those processes are made automatic and open-by-default. Automatic data management processes minimise the possibility of data loss by directly archiving the collected data, which is increasingly becoming digital in nature. Open-by-default processes of data management means that all data collected by an agency, once pre-recognised as shareable data (that is non-sensitive and anonymised), will be proactively disclosed as a rule.

Implementation of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy has been hindered, so far, by the lack of preparation of a public inventory of data assets, along with the information of their collection cycles, modes of collection and storage, etc., by each union government agency. Specific budgetary allocation to develop these inventories will be crucial not only for the implementation of the Policy, but also for the government to get an extensive sense of data collected and maintained currently by various government agencies. Decisions to proactively publish, or otherwise, such data can then be taken based on established rules.

Availability of such open data, as mentioned above, creates a wider possibility for the public to know, learn, and understand the activities of the government, and is a cornerstone of transparent governance in the digital era. But making this a reality requires a systemic implementation of open government data practices, and various agencies would require targeted budget to undertake the required capacity development and work process re-engineering. Expenditure of such kind should not be seen as producing government data as a product, but as producing data as an infrastructure, which will be of continuous value for the years to come.

As being discussed globally, open government data has the potential to kickstart a vast market of data derivatives, analytics companies, and data-driven innovation. Encouraging civic innovations, empowered by open government data - from climate data to transport data - can also be one of the unique initiatives of budget 2016-17.

For maximising impact of opened up government data, we request the government to publish data that either has a high demand already (such as, geospatial data, and transport data), or is related to high-net-worth activities of the government (such as, data related to monitoring of major programmes, and budget and expenditure data for union and state governments).

Promotion of Start-ups and MSMEs in Electronics and IT Hardware Manufacturing

In line with the Make in India and Digital India initiatives, to enable India to be one of the global hubs of design, manufacturing, and exporting of electronics and IT hardware, we request that the budget 2016-17 focus on increasing flow of fund to start-ups and Medium and Small-Scale Manufacturing Enterprises (MSMEs) in the form of research and development grants (ideally connected to government, especially defense-related, spending on IT hardware innovation), seed capital, and venture capital.

Generation of awareness and industry-specific strategies to develop intellectual property regimes and practices favourable for manufacturers of electronics and IT hardware in India is an absolutely crucial part of promotion of the same, especially in the current global scenario. Start-ups and MSMEs must be made thoroughly aware of intellectual property concerns and possibilities, including limitations and exceptions, flexibilities, and alternative models such as open innovation.

We request the budget 2016-17 to give special emphasis to facilitation of technology licensing and transfer, through voluntary mechanisms as well as government intervention, such as compulsory licensing and government enforced patent pools.

Applied Mathematics Research is Fundamental for Cybersecurity

Recent global reports have revealed that some national governments have been actively involved in sponsoring distortion in applied mathematics research so as to introduce weaknesses in encryption standards used in for online communication. Instead of trying to regulate key-length or mandating pre-registration of devices using encryption, as suggested by the withdrawn National Encryption Policy draft, would not be able to address this core emerging problem of weak cybersecurity standards.

For effective and sustainable cybersecurity strategy, we must develop significant expertise in applied mathematical research, which is the very basis of cybersecurity standards development. We request the budget 2016-17 to give this topic the much-needed focus, especially in the context of the Digital India initiative and the upcoming National Encryption Policy.

Along with developing domestic research capacity, a more immediately important step for the government is to ensure high quality Indian participation in global standard setting organisations, and hence to contribute to global standards making processes. We humbly suggest that categorical support for such participation and contribution is provided through the budget 2016-17, perhaps by partially channeling the revenues obtained from spectrum auctions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/pre-budget-consultation-2016-submission-to-the-ministry-of-finance

Pratap Vikram Singh - Why Aadhaar is Baseless?

praskrishna — 2016-04-02T05:31:30Z

This article by Pratap Vikram Singh, Governance Now, discusses the problems emerging out of the UIDAI project due to its lack of mechanisms for informed and granular consent, and for seeking recourse in the case of denial of service. The article quotes Sumandro Chattapadhyay and mentions Hans Varghese Mathew's work on the biometric basis of UIDAI. It was written before the Aadhaar bill was passed in Lok Sabha.

Cross-posted from Governance Now.

It was no less than a roller-coaster ride for Aadhaar, a programme formulated by the UPA government to assign a 12-digit unique number to every Indian resident. From the time it came into being in 2009, Aadhaar drew a volley of criticism, thanks to the misgivings and apprehensions that various critics and civil society organisations had. It was criticised for lack of a clear purpose, degree of effectiveness and absence of a privacy law and was virtually thrown into the bin by a parliamentary panel headed by BJP’s Yashwant Sinha in December 2011.

When the finance minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech, announced that the government would introduce the Aadhaar bill during the budget session, expectations were already set high. The bill, giving statutory backing to the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI), the implementing authority, was passed by the Lok Sabha on March 11. While the privacy and voluntary versus mandatory provisions are under the consideration of the supreme court, the bill makes way for linking Aadhaar with all government subsidies, benefits and services. The law on Aadhaar, former UIIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani wrote in the Indian Express, will help the government in going paperless, presence-less and cashless. The legislation, however, fails to deliver on several counts.

However, prior to evaluating the bill (yet to be passed by the Rajya Sabha at the time of this writing though it is a money bill), let us take a look at its major aspects. For those, who always wondered whether Aadhaar is mandatory or voluntary, the bill 2016 makes it mandatory to avail subsidy, benefit or a service from the government.

The bill has provisions related to information security and confidentiality (section 28) which not only extend to employees of the UIDAI but also consultants and external agencies working with the authority.

The proposed law restricts information sharing. It bars UIDAI from sharing core biometric information – the bill defines it as fingerprints and iris scan – with “anyone for any reason whatsoever” or “used for any purpose other than generation of Aadhaar numbers and authentication under this Act”. The section 32 of the bill entitles Aadhaar number holders to access her or his authentication record. It also bars the authority from collecting, keeping or maintaining information about the purpose of authentication.

Odd Drives the Bill

While the intent is clear and is aimed at streamlining welfare schemes to ensure it reaches the bottom of the pyramid, cutting through the long chain of pilferage and subversion, the bill, however, has several shortcomings. To begin with, the government should not have taken the money bill route to pass the legislation – tactfully avoiding any conclusive discussion and debate in the Rajya Sabha, where it is in minority.

The bill assumes that the technology and the biometric system used by the UIDAI are flawless and it doesn’t provide any recourse in case of denial of a service. “If your fingerprint is not matching and you lose out on service, then what is the alternative mechanism you have,” asks Sumandro Chattapadhyay, research director, centre for internet and society (CIS). The bill doesn’t provide for recourse. “What if the scanning machine fails? What if the identifiers of two people match?”

Based on experiments conducted in the initial days of the Aadhaar programme, Hans Verghese Mathews, another CIS researcher, did a study on the probability of matching of identifiers of two persons. “For the current population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicands (users whose identifiers match) is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high,” Mathews wrote in the Economic and Political Weekly in February.

“It is like putting the technology in a black box – which can’t be reviewed,” says Chattapadhyay. The bill doesn’t talk about setting up an independent body to review the logs and keep an eye on wrong and duplicate matches.

Who Defines National Security?

According to public policy experts, it is an attempt to seek “minimal legitimacy” from parliament and further adds to the unbridled power of the executive.

Although the bill restricts information sharing in section 29, sections 33 and 48 provide exemption in cases of national security and public emergency, respectively. The legislation, nevertheless, doesn’t elaborate on what constitutes national security and public emergency, leaving it to the executives. The section 33 reads: “Nothing contained in… shall apply in respect of any disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication records, made in the interest of national security….”

Similarly, section 48 states that if, at any time, the central government is of the opinion that a public emergency exists, “the central government may, by notification, supersede the Authority for such period, not exceeding six months, as may be specified in the notification and appoint a person or persons as the president may direct to exercise powers and discharge functions under this Act”.

Says Jayati Ghosh, professor, centre for economic studies and planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, “National security is a very opaque term. Who decides what national security is? Today, the whole JNU is being projected as a threat to national security.” Swagato Sarkar, associate professor and executive director, Jindal school of government and public policy, OP Jindal Global University, says, “The bill has provisions for oversight on the use of Aadhaar, but then it suspends those provisions in case of emergency in the later sections, giving the state the power to use biometric information for whatever it deems fit.”

Sarkar adds, “It seems the bill is simply an instrument for seeking minimum legitimacy from parliament. The bill tries to address the concern of privacy minimally and it hardly serves any purpose.” He believes that there is a need to define the broader contours of democratic control of the state and reassess the changing state-citizen relationship, instead of rejecting the whole idea on the basis of surveillance and privacy. In other words, there is a need for strong parliamentary oversight, and that the Aadhaar related matters shouldn’t be completely delegated to the executive.

In its recommendations on formulating Privacy Act, the justice AP Shah committee in 2012 provided for establishing the office of privacy commissioner at the regional and central levels, defining the role of self-regulating organisations and co-regulation, and creating a system of complaints and redressal for aggrieved individuals. Since the country still doesn’t have any legislation on privacy, people are left on their own in case of an infringement or violation of privacy. Moreover, section 47 states, “No court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act, save on a complaint made by the Authority or any officer or person authorised by it.”

In its report, the parliamentary committee headed by Yashwant Sinha notes that “enactment of national data protection law… is a prerequisite for any law that deals with large scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases”. The committee notes that in absence of data protection legislation, it would be difficult to deal with issues of access, misuse of personal information, surveillance, profiling, linking and matching of databases and securing confidentiality of information.

Subsidy-Aadhaar Linkage

The Sinha committee also takes a cautious view of the role of Aadhaar in curbing leakages in subsidy distribution, as beneficiary identification is done by states. It notes, “Even if the Aadhaar number links entitlements to targeted beneficiaries, it may not even ensure that beneficiaries have been correctly identified. Thus, the present problem of proper identification would persist.”

According to Ghosh, the biggest danger in using Aadhaar for social welfare programmes is that the fingerprints of the rural working class is not always in good shape and hence Aadhaar will not be the best way of identification. “If I am misidentified, I can go to so many places for recourse. But what if a labourer in a remote Jharkhand village is misidentified? Where and whether he would go?” the economist asks. Besides, the bill doesn’t limit the use of Aadhaar and defines areas where it can be used. Section 57 says that the law will not prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, “whether by the state or anybody corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force or any contract to this effect.”

According to a PRS Legislative review, since the bill also allows private persons to use Aadhaar as a proof of identity for any purpose, the provision will open a floodgate and enable private entities such as airlines, telecom, insurance and real estate companies to mandate Aadhaar as a proof of identity for availing their services.

Since the bill doesn’t restrict its application, people will not have a choice to identify themselves other than using Aadhaar when corporate organisations make it mandatory, says Chattapadhyay of the CIS. Adds Sarkar, “The bill should clearly mention sectors or services where Aadhaar will be potentially used (or made mandatory). Every time a new sector or service is added to the list, it is done after parliamentary approval.”

So far, 98 crore people have been assigned Aadhaar number. So far the project has costed Rs 8,000 crore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/gov-now-pratap-vikram-singh-17032016-why-aadhaar-is-baseless

Praja - Enhancing Democracy Through Access to Open Data: What Are the Roles of Government and Civil Society? (Delhi, Sep 08)

sumandro — 2017-09-05T10:57:38Z

Open Government Data (OGD) is widely seen to be a key hallmark of contemporary democratic practice and is often linked to the passing of freedom of information legislation. OGD is a philosophy—and increasingly a set of policies—that promotes transparency, accountability and value creation by making government data available to all. Public bodies produce and commission huge quantities of data and information. By making their datasets available, public institutions become more transparent and accountable to citizens. By encouraging the use, reuse and free distribution of datasets, governments promote business creation and innovative, citizen-centric services. Praja is organising a symposium on "open data and civil society" on Friday, Sep 8, which is supported by European Union and Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fur die Freiheit. Sumandro Chattapadhyay (Research Director) will take part in this event as a speaker in the session on "data centric approach and role of stakeholders in the urban governance ecosystem."

Details

Date: Friday, September 08 2017, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm

Venue: Juniper Hall, India Habitat Centre (Entry from Gate 1)

Invitees: Government representatives, elected representatives, civil society organisation and media representatives.

Event Page: Facebook

Objectives

To study the intersectionality between transparency, accountability and consumption of data by stakeholders.
To explore opportunities for the civil society to simplify governance through access to data, privacy of stakeholders and to address challenges faced in data collection and analysis.

Outcomes

The takeaway from the seminar should be to develop the idea of achieving data literacy. The presenters after a detailed interaction should take away the following from the event:

Reflections on the use of Internet and technology as tools for better governance
Balance the development of open data and the strategies to use this data in terms of ownership and replication of data
Identify data sets which should be prioritised for release in order to maximise public value
Data Accessibility: Capitalize on the demand for democracy and transparency by making open data more accessible to the larger public

Sessions

Through sessions, the aim is to specifically investigate the role of civil society and media in this effort. The participants will deliberate on the above-mentioned objectives of the seminar.

Session I: Praja Foundation Website Launch

Session II: Data centric approach and role of stakeholders in the urban governance ecosystem

Session III: Open data-experiences; trends, challenges and opportunities, relationship between governance and data

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/praja-enhancing-democracy-through-access-to-open-data-what-are-the-roles-of-government-and-civil-society-delhi-sep-08

Portal augurs well for transparency

praskrishna — 2011-07-26T15:16:47Z

Data.gov.in will have meta-data, which will facilitate discovery of data and access from portals of ministries, says T Ramachandra. The article was published in the Hindu on 25 July 2011.

The unveiling of an official data access and sharing policy and the commissioning of a data portal (data.gov.in), which is on the anvil, will pave the way for digitally opening up the Central government data to the public.

"The data portal will be having meta-data [data about data], which will facilitate the discovery of the data and access from the portals of respective government departments/ministries. At present, the data policy is likely to cover the Central government and all activities funded by the Government of India," said R. Siva Kumar, CEO of National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and head of Natural Resources Data Management System, Department of Science and Technology.

Governmental data-holding organisations will prepare a negative list of non-shareable sensitive data, weighing the need to restrict public access given such considerations as security and privacy, against the obligation to share it with civil society and the scientific community. Apart from this, access to certain categories of data will be restricted.

The broad guidelines spelt out in the Right to Information Act will be followed and the list will be periodically reviewed. "All data outside the negative list will be proactively disseminated, and an oversight committee will facilitate policy implementation," said Dr. Kumar.

But does this mean that the public have to make specific requests for the unlocking of data-sets? “Data will be available through the data portal, and there will be no specific unlocking required. However, access to certain data may be through registration/authorisation,” he responded.

The sharing of such data might be tied to a pricing policy. "Pricing will be decided by the respective department/ministry. However, standardised parameters will be made available as guidelines for fixing the price," he said.

The draft of the proposed National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy the government published some time ago indicates that the departments themselves can decide whether the data belongs to the ‘open access', ‘registered access,' or ‘restricted access' categories, with the policy neither mandating nor coming up with guidelines on how to do so, said Pranesh Prakash, programme manager, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO.

The CIS has recommended that the policy have the same scope as the RTI Act, and that all ‘public authorities,' as defined under the Act, be covered by it. Only the restricted categories (laid down in Sections 8 and 9 of the RTI Act) should be allowable for ‘restricted access.'

In a study on open government data in the Indian context, the CIS suggested that any policy be oriented towards meeting the requirements of a broad spectrum of citizenry. Specifically, sections that do not get to immediately benefit from advances in information technology. “Data mashing and private sector information products are important goals,” but the government itself should be proactive in creating the applications that show potential uses for the data.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the global body that sets web standards, has said governments, by putting their data on the Internet, facilitate greater transparency, deliver more efficient public services and encourage greater public and commercial use and re-use of government information.

Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator of the Association for Democratic Reforms, which is involved in disseminating election-related data through its website Electionwatch, says there is “huge public interest” in data, and that accessibility was of prime importance. For instance, election-related data was made available by the authorities in the PDF/image file formats. “This forces us to do a manual interpretation of every affidavit, which consumes a lot of time and energy. It would be helpful if this data was available in a portable open format via an online tool.”

Other countries have already made strides in furthering open data. Prominent examples are the U.K. government website, data.gov.uk, and the U.S. government's www.data.gov website, which is key to President Barack Obama's Open Government Initiative.

Read the original article published in the Hindu here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/portal-augurs-well-for-transparency

Porn: Law, Video, Technology

praskrishna — 2011-09-27T11:25:57Z

Namita’s legal inquiry into the relationship between technologies and the law finds a new point of entry into existing debates by looking at the legal construction of pleasure through different technologies of mass consumption in order to revisit the arguments around pornography and obscenity effect in recent times. She produces a comprehensive overview of different debates, both in the West and in India, to concentrate on how the visual aesthetics of pornography, the new circuits of pornographic consumption and the privilege of affect over regulation lead to possibilities of interaction and negotiation with heteronormative power structures in the country.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video

Porn: Law, Video, Technology

praskrishna — 2011-09-28T09:30:40Z

Namita Malhotra focuses on pornography, pleasure and law, where she finds a new point of entry into existing debates by looking at legal construction of pleasure through different technologies of mass consumption. She revisits the arguments around pornography, obscenity and affect in recent times. Malhotra produces a comprehensive over-view of different debates, both in the West and in India, to concentrate on how the visual aesthetics of pornography, the new circuits of pornographic consumption, the privilege of affect over regulation lead to possibilities of interaction and negotiation with heternormative power structures in the country. The monograph demonstrates how the grey zones of pornography and the law’s inability to deal with it, offer new conceptual tools of understanding the spaces of digital interaction and identity.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law.pdf

Poor Guarantee of Online Freedom in India

praskrishna — 2012-06-17T04:18:26Z

The debate over the "Intermediaries Guidelines" as part of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in Parliament brought focus to the issue of censorship and lack of accountability of governing bodies vis-à-vis the internet in the country. This cannot be divorced from the larger questions related to the threats to freedom of expression from both the state and various societal actors today.

This article by Geeta Seshu was published in the Economic & Political Weekly, Vol XLVII No. 24, June 2012.

An annulment motion against the Information Technology (Inter-mediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 moved by Member of Parliament (MP) P Rajeev of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the Rajya Sabha, was the first serious attempt by internet freedom activists to get the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 discussed and reviewed by the country’s lawmakers.

Not unexpectedly, the motion, specifically against the rules governing intermediaries – clause (zg) of subsection (2) of Section 87 read with subsection (2) of Section 79 of the >IT Act, 2000 – was not carried. However, the discussion that preceded it at least demonstrated the concerns of parliamentarians about what internet freedom activists have termed the “draconian” provisions of the IT Act.

It is about time, really, that parliamentarians sit down to review what they very quickly acquiesced to in December 2009. It is also about time that the debate over the provisions of the IT Act be conducted in the public domain, instead of in closed-door meetings with expert groups and committees comprising a narrow set of stakeholders favoured by the government or its various wings.

The discussion in the Rajya Sabha largely centred around the vague and sweeping terminology of the range of content that anyone could take objection to. P Rajeev said that while he supported the regulation of the internet, he was not in favour of its control. The rules were ultra vires the IT Act, he said. Echoing his concern, leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley of the Bharatiya Janata Party, D Raja of the Communist Party of India and N K Singh of the Janata Dal (United) – to name just a few – also said that the internet was different from other media and censoring it was untenable.

Finally, union minister for information technology, Kapil Sibal, was forced to give an assurance to the house that he would call a meeting of MPs, industry and all stakeholders and implement whatever consensus emerges after a discussion on the specific words members had objections to.

There was no mention from the minister on a host of other problem areas in the rules as they are currently framed, including the very sweeping definition of an “intermediary” itself (any entity which on behalf of another receives, stores or transmits any electronic record – which means internet service providers, web hosting providers, search engines, online payment sites, cybercafes and bloggers too). No mention either of the rules for intermediaries to takedown notices within 36 hours of receiving a complaint, irrespective of whether these are fair and reasonable. No mention of whether the rules need to provide procedures for hearing and adjudicating complaints before any content is taken down.

The IT Guidelines

In several ways, the rules have gone way beyond what was laid down in the IT Act, but they also add considerably to the original reasonable restrictions laid down under Article 19 (2) of the Constitution of India. Some of the terms that can invite objections under the guidelines are:

(a) Belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right to; (b) grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophiliac, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever; (c) harm minors in any way; (d) infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights; (e) violates any law for the time being in force; (f) deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of such messages or communicates any information which is grossly offensive or menacing in nature; (g) impersonate another person; (h) contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programmes designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource; (i) threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation.

With this wide-ranging and entirely arbitrary set of potential violations, the possibility of misuse is also immense. In its comments submitted in response to the draft rules, Privacy India and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) pointed out that Sections 79(1) and (2) of the amended IT Act itself did provide for exemptions for third party liabilities of intermediaries, something that the rules have now virtually set aside.[1]

Other comments submitted by these organisations about security and privacy of cybercafe users deal with minors and with the general architecture of cybercafes. In the first instance, the organisations expressed concern that undue restrictions on the use of the internet by minors (photo identity cards, accompanied by adults, etc) would hamper their access to the internet and would actually discourage poorer children from using the internet.

In the second instance, the detailed restrictions on the layout of the cybercafés – the height of cabins and the directions of the screens, etc, would, they felt, be intrusive and violate the privacy of internet users in cybercafes. Besides, vulnerable sections like sexual minorities or HIV positive patients may even be open to identity theft, they feared.

The discussion on the rules unfortunately did not come close to addressing these fears. While the lawmakers generally accepted the importance of regulation of the internet and electronic communication, there is still very little clarity on exactly how this must be done, the extent to which regulation must take place and the agency that will be entrusted with this task.

The IT Act, 2000 was first passed in an era when the country was transitioning to an electronic age. E-commerce was uppermost in the minds of policymakers, their eyes firmly fixed on the new economy. But soon enough, it was clear that technology was developing rapidly and an expert committee was constituted to revise the act and suggest amendments that would incorporate technological changes.

Lack of Accountability

In the wake of the 26 November 2008 attack in Mumbai, national security and intelligence were powerful emotional catchwords and few questioned some of the sweeping provisions laid down by the rules under the IT Act. While the annulment motion focuses on the pernicious nature of the guidelines for intermediaries, this is only one amongst a series of rules that seek to change the very manner in which Indians can access and use the internet. Other rules relate to decrypting, monitoring and blocking of communication, data security and privacy (Section 69: interception, monitoring and decryption of information, Section 69 A: blocking, Section 69 B: monitoring of traffic data or information) and of course, the complete absence of checks and balances for the powers given to authorities like Computer Emergency Response Team India (CERT-In).

In fact, there has been little or no review of the responsibility vested in an agency like CERT-In, which describes itself as the nodal agency to oversee the security of the nation. Conflating security concerns with content that may be objectionable to some is one thing but also providing this agency with the powers to block sites without even the creators of these sites getting to know about it is another.

Most of our attention today is on the censorship rampant on the internet in India. Most recently, there have been several instances of internet sites being blocked and takedown notices sent to bloggers. In the last few months, we have had the arbitrary blocking of the website cartoonsagainstcorruption.com which was run by Kanpur-based cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, the arrest of Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mohapatra and the controversial move last year by the Indian government to get internet service providers to remove so-called objectionable content on Facebook, Orkut and Youtube, apart from other sites. A complaint against these sites by journalist Vinay Rai followed soon after, though it strangely did not invoke provisions of the IT Act, preferring to cite alleged violations under the Indian Penal Code.

Trivedi did not even know that his site was blocked till some friends called him to tell him that they could not access his site. After an exchange of emails with his webhost, the portal “Big Rock”, he was informed that the site was suspended because it contained cartoons that showed disrespect to national emblems. A complaint had been received by Mumbai’s cybercrime cell by a Mumbai-based advocate, R P Pandey. The Kanpur resident also learnt later from newspaper reports that another case, this time under charges of sedition, were lodged against him in Beed district of Maharashtra.

While this method of embroiling someone in cases in far-flung geographical areas is not new (the complaint by the Indian Institute of Planning and Management against New Delhi-based Caravan magazine in Silchar, Assam is a good case in point), Trivedi quickly moved the content on his site onto another blogging platform, also got together friends and supporters to launch “Saveyourvoice”, an online and offline campaign, with a cheeky celebration of All Fool’s Day on 1 April 2012 with a greeting to the minister Kapil Sibal “for his foolish attempts to try censoring internet” and another campaign – “Freedom in a cage” – at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, in April 2012.

Other internet freedom activists have got together to secure information on censorship. Last year, a right-to-information (RTI) application by the CIS revealed that 11 websites were blocked on orders from the department of information technology. A writ petition against the IT Act has been filed in the Kerala High Court and the Software Freedom Law Centre, which was instrumental in campaigning for the annulment motion in the Rajya Sabha, has launched an online petition against the IT Act rules that refers to government authority to censor facebook posts, monitor emails and skype conversations, access private information and mine sensitive personal data.[2]

Governments the world over are exercised about the need to impose restrictions on online freedom and a good indication is the bi-annual Google Transparency Report that monitors the number and categories of requests sent by different governments to take down content. In the last report for the period January to June 2011, the report recorded requests to remove 358 items and 68 content removal requests, 58% of which were fully or partially complied with. In addition, there were government requests to remove Youtube videos that were protests against local leaders or used offensive language against religious leaders, besides 236 communities and profiles from Orkut which were critical of a local politician.

Interestingly, while content removal requests for the Orkut profiles remained as Google maintained it did not fit its own community standards or local law, Google chose to “locally” restrict the videos that may incite enmity between communities. With minor variations, this is a stance adopted by other online companies, like Facebook and Twitter, with the latter coming out with a policy earlier this year that it would remove content that appeared to violate local laws.

In the struggle to keep the internet free and protect communication from surveillance and blocking by governments, it would be naive to expect commercially-driven internet companies to put up much of a stand. Most of these stakeholders have agreed with lawmakers that the internet does need regulation. On their part, the Indian government, which has flexed its desire to regulate the internet, has also been sensitive to criticism of its role in censoring online freedom. Other stakeholders – the vast community of users of the internet, bloggers, website hosts, creators and producers of online videos, file-sharers, software developers, etc, are only engaged in a race to protect their content and shift it to more amenable sites every time they run into trouble.

Threats to Freedom of Expression

However, it must be noted that the censorship of online media is but a reflection of the curbs on freedom of expression in general. The attacks on freedom of expression in “offline” media, the attacks on journalists and the deaths of eight journalists since 2010,[3] the alarming regularity with which we are witnessing a ban on books and cinema, art or theatre, the increasing intolerance of dissenting or differing opinions in society, the abject fear of free and independent debate and discussion and the role of the government in actively furthering this intolerance are suggestive of a dangerous trend.

Almost all these instances are marked by the clear absence of any due procedure in addressing the content that becomes objectionable to someone or some sections of society, instead arbitrarily and speedily removing this content from the public domain. Whether it is the withdrawal of Rohinton Mistry’s book Such a Long Journey, a prescribed textbook by Bombay University, midway through the academic year, or that of recent issue of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook on the Constitution of India, institutional redressal mechanisms were simply not given a chance.

The woeful absence of similar redressal mechanisms for so-called objectionable content under the rules of the amended IT Act only exacerbates this situation further.

Notes

[1].http://privacyindia.org/2011/03/10/comments-on-the-information-technology-guidelines-for-cyber-cafe-rules-2011/
[2].www.softwarefreedom.org
[3].The Free Speech Hub, which has been tracking violations of freedom of expression as part of a project from the media-watch site, The Hoot (www.thehoot.org), has this list: Hemchandra Pandey (July 2010), Bimala Prasad Talukdar (September 2010), Sushil Pathak (December 2010), Umesh Rajput (January 2011), J Dey (June 2011), Ramesh Singhla (October 2011), Chandrioka (February 2012) and Rajesh Mishra (March 2012).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/poor-guarantee-of-online-freedom-in-india

Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness

praskrishna — 2013-11-08T09:50:03Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/pondering-copyright-and-recasting-openness