Centre for Internet and Society

Open Source India 2015

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T07:46:46Z

The twelfth Open Source India event organized by EFY Group was held at NIMHANS Convention Centre in Bangalore on November 19 and 20, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi attended the event for the first day.

Open Source India (OSI) is the premierconference in Asia targeted at nurturing and promoting the Open Source ecosystem in the subcontinent. Started as LinuxAsia in 2004, OSI has been at the helm of bringing together the Open Source industry and the community in the last 11 years. The 12th edition of OSI this year aimed to take this event a notch higher by focusing on the Open Source ecosystem in Asia, and more specifically, in India.

For more information see the brochure of the event. Schedule of the event on Day 1 here and Schedule of the event on Day 2 here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-source-india-2015

November 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T12:42:42Z

Our newsletter for the month of November 2015 is below:

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to share the eleventh issue of CIS newsletter (November 2015). Previous editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

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Highlights
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The Internet Governance Forum was held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme for IGF 2015 was Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Jyoti Panday participated. Overall CIS spoke in 10 panels. Jyoti Panday has summarized the developments.
Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released on 4 November 2015. Comments were sought on the Draft Outcome Document from diverse stakeholders. CIS responded to the call .
The first draft of the National IPR Policy was released last December. Comments and suggestions were submitted to the DIPP on this. Akshath Mithal in his blog post analysed the comments available online and the trends that he was able to find.
Ramya Chandrasekhar wrote a blog post that has deconstructed and explained some aspects of the various proposals to enhance ICANN's accountability.
Mangalore based cultural centre Maand Sobhaann recently relicensed 3 of their publications under a free license so that the books could be digitised on Konkani Wikisource and enrich Konkani Wikipedia. Rahmanuddin Shaik and Tanveer Hasan have captured the development in a blog post.
Japreet Grewal in a blog post has attempted to understand the domain in which censorship laws are penetrating today giving the example of the role of group admin in Whatsapp.
Elonnai Hickok in a policy brief has reviewed different oversight mechanisms from the US, UK, and Canada and provides recommendations for ways in which India can strengthen its present oversight mechanisms for state surveillance and the intelligence community.
Rohan George has reviewed the literature surrounding big data and predictive policing and has provided an analysis of the legal implications of using predictive policing techniques in the Indian context.
Large blocks of underused spectrum lie tantalizingly out of reach, waiting for enabling regulation, administration, and to some extent technology, to accelerate our move towards Digital India, according to Shyam Ponappa's column published in the Business Standard.
CIS in collaboration with T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects and or-bits.com developed Silicon Plateau Vol-1. This book marks the beginning of an interdisciplinary artistic project, Silicon Plateau, the scope of which is to observe how the arts, technology and society intersect in the city of Bangalore.
P.P. Sneha has outlined a few questions/conflicts that the digital practitioners in arts and humanities disciplines are grappling with in the first among seven sections that has been published.
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and CIS has set up the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The objective is to encourage, host, and provide seed funding for the development of digital tools and infrastructure for arts, humanities, and social science research in India. The fund will be administered by the RAW programme at CIS.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

November 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; November 30, 2015).

►Other

International Day of People with Disability (Organized by Capgemini; Bangalore; November 30, 2015). Nirmita Narasimhan was a panelist.

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Pervasive Technologies

# Blog Entries

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT Roorkee (Karan Tripathi and Nehaa Chaudhari; November 17, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs, analysed, reviewed and edited this blog post.
A Study of J. Sai Deepak's Comments on Competition Law in India (Aarushi Bansal; November 19, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari gave inputs and edited the blog entry.
The Procedure of CCI in cases of Anti-Competitive Agreements and Abuse of Dominant Position: A Flow-Chart (Sarthak Sood; November 24, 2015).

►Copyright and Patent

# Blog Entries

Ministry Clearances for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Swaraj Barooah; November 18, 2015).
National IPR Policy: Mapping the Stakeholders' Response (Akshath Mithal; November 24, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs and feedback and also edited this post.

# Participation in Events

Second Meeting of the Expert Committee on WIPO (Organized by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India; New Delhi; November 2, 2015).
International Conference on Evolving Regime in Intellectual Property Protection (Organized by Jawaharlal Nehru University; New Delhi; November 2 - 4, 2015).
India - Europe Conference on Building a Sustainable IPR - ICT Ecosystem for Promoting Innovation (Organized by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing; Bangalore; November 20, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended this event.

►Wikipedia

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

# Blog Entries

Konkani-language books from Konkani-language culture center Mannd Sobhaann to enrich Konkani Wikipedia (Rahmanuddin Shaik and Tanveer Hasan; November 1, 2015).
Guerrilla GLAMː An alternate way of doing GLAM in indie-way (Subhashish Panigrahi; Wikimedia Blog; November 25, 2015). This was published in the GLAM-wiki newsletter for November.

# Participation in Events

Making Tulu Wikipedia 'Live' (Organized by Tulu Sahitya Akademy; Mangalore; October 28 - 29 and November 5 - 6, 2015). Rahmanuddin interacted with Tulu Wikipedians. Rahmanuddin was also invited to be a part of the World Konkani Literature festival where he spoke briefly about Konkani Wikipedia to the gathering.
Open Source India 2015 (by EFY Group; NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore; November 19 - 20, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi attended the event.
Tulu Wikipedia Tutorial (Organized by Wikipedia community; Mangalore; November 2015). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja trained the people involved in the creation of the Tutorial video.
FUEL GILT Conference 2015 (Organized by Mozilla Corporation, Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), Pune and Red Hat; Tamil Virtual Academy, Anna University Campus, Gandhi Mandapam Road, Kottur, Chennai; November 20 - 22, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi spoke at the event.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

शंभर वर्षांपूर्वीच्या पुस्तकांचे होणार डिजिटायझेशन (Lokmat; November 11, 2015).
Dr. Pavanaja featured in Kannada Daily (Vijayavani; November 16, 2015).
तेसर फ्यूल कॉन्फरेंस आओर मोज़िला हैकाथन संपन्न (esamaad; November 19, 2015).
ଅନ୍‌ଲାଇନରେ ପଢ଼ିହେବ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ପ୍ରସାଦ ଦାସଙ୍କ ୩୦ଟି ବହି (Sambad; November 19, 2015).
तीसरा फ्यूल कॉन्फ्रेंस और मोज़िला हैकाथन संपन्न (Surkhiyan; November 23, 2015).
तीसरा फ्यूल जिल्ट कॉन्फ्रेंस और मोज़िला हैकाथन चेन्नई में संपन्न (Aaj Tak; November 24, 2015).
भाषाई कंप्यूटिंग के मानक बनाने के लिए चेन्नई में हुआ तीसरा फ्यूल जिल्‍ट (Outlook; November 26, 2015).

The following were published in October but mirrored on the CIS website recently:

मराठी पुस्तके 'विकिस्रोत' ला, सकाळ (Sakaal; October 28, 2015).
'महाराष्ट्र ग्रंथोत्तेजक' होणार लोकाभिमुख, महाराष्ट्र टाईम्स (Maharashtra Times; October 28, 2015).
महाराष्ट्र ग्रंथोत्तेजक संस्थेमधील एक हजार ग्रंथ ऑनलाईन (Saamna; October 30, 2015).

►Openness

Design Public Conclave, 6th Edition (Organized by by Civic Labs, an initiative of the Center for Knowledge Studies, and part of the Vihara Innovation Network, in partnership with Social Innovation Exchange, Okapi, Business World, Business World for Smart Cities, and the Delhi Jal Board; New Delhi; November 3, 2015). Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha participated in the event.

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

►Internet Governance Forum

IGF 2015 was held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme for IGF 2015 was Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Jyoti Panday participated. Overall CIS spoke in 10 panels.

The Social Role of the Communications and the Strengthening of the Freedom of Expression Panel - "Cultural Diversity and Freedom of Expression" (Organized by Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Communications of Brazil; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 9, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Thirty-three participants took part in this pre-event.
Open Forum - DINL, Digital Infrastructure Association (Organized by Digital Infrastructure Netherlands Foundation; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 10, 2015). Jyoti Panday was a speaker at this workshop. CIS participated in the open forum to discuss the increase in government engagement with "the internet" to protect their citizens against crime and abuse and to protect economic interests and critical infrastructures. Thirteen participants attended the open forum.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Internet Economy (Organized by Multistakeholder Advisory Group; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 11, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Fifty five delegates attended the event. CIS participated in the discussions focusing on internet economy and internet role in sustainable development goals.
Cases on the right to be forgotten, what have we learned? (Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 11, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event. CIS took part in the event to understand arguments, scope, discussions and current situation of the Right to be Forgotten outside the EU and around the world in rulings and legislations. Fifty four participants attended the event.
The Benefits and Challenges of the "Free Flow" of Data (Organized by Public Knowledge; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 12, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Twenty-four delegates attended the event. CIS was part of the panel which discusssed the many benefits and challenges of the free flow of data. The workshop fostered a discussion of the ways in which stakeholders could address the underlying reasons for data flow restrictions.
Encryption and Anonymity: Rights and Risks (Organized by ARTICLE 19 and Privacy International; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 12, 2015). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker. CIS participated in the roundtable that discussed recommendations and the latest challenges to the protection of anonymity and encryption. Sixty three delegates attended.
A Dialogue on "Zero Rating" and Network Neutrality (Organized by Chalmers & Associates; Jao Pessoa; Brazil; November 12, 2015). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker. CIS took part in the discussion to promote access to expert insight and multi-stakeholder community discussion. Eighty five delegates attended the session.
Empowering the next billion by improving accessibility (Organized by Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability and Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussions. CIS took part in the discussions that examined the technological and programmatic solutions available today for an effective removal of such barriers, potentially bringing a considerable number of new users to the Internet.
FOSS & a Free, Open Internet: Synergies for Development (Organized by Civil Society; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash spoke at the event. CIS took part in the discussions that explored links between the Free and Open nature of the Internet and the Free and Open Source Software through a series of experience sharing among the speakers as well as audiences.
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation (Organized by Internet & Jurisdiction Project; Jao Pessoa; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. The tension between the cross-border nature of the Internet and diverse national jurisdictions is a prime concern. The round-table described the method employed to develop this framework, challenges encountered and solutions found as well as the potential distribution of roles among the respective stakeholders in the operation of the diverse framework components. Twelve delegates attended this workshop.

►Big Data

# Article

Connected Trouble (Sunil Abraham; November 1, 2015).

# Blog Entry

Predictive Policing: What is it, How it works, and its Legal Implications (Rohan George; November 24, 2015).

# Event Organized

Big Data in the Global South International Workshop (Organized by Institute for Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro; Hotel Windsor Florida, Rua Ferreira Viana, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; November 16 - 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Vipul Kharbanda were speakers at this event.

# Participation in Event

Leveraging Mobile Network Big Data for Development Policy: Opportunities & Challenges (Organized by LIRNEasia; IDRC, New Delhi; November 27, 2015).

►Privacy

# Blog Entries

Policy Brief: Oversight Mechanisms for Surveillance (Elonnai Hickok; November 24, 2015).
The Short-lived Adventure of India's Encryption Policy (Bhairav Acharya; November 27, 2015). This was originally written for the Berkeley Information Privacy Law Association.

# Participation in Event

ISO/IEC/ JTC 1/SC 27 Working Groups Meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards and Data Security Council of India; Jaipur; October 26 – 30, 2015). Vanya Rakesh attended the meeting.

►Free Speech, Expression and Censorship

# Submission

Comments on the Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10) (Geetha Hariharan; November 18, 2015).

# Article

The Humpty-Dumpty Censorship of Television in India (Bhairav Acharya; The Wire; September 23, 2015). The article was mirrored on CIS website recently.

# Blog Entries

Breaking Down ICANN Accountability: What It Is and What the Internet Community Wants (Ramya Chandrasekhar; November 5, 2015).
Summary Report Internet Governance Forum 2015 (Jyoti Panday; November 23, 2015).
The Case of Whatsapp Group Admins (Japreet Grewal; November 26, 2015).

►Cyber Security

# Participation in Events

Technology, Innovation and Societal Change (Organized by Indian Institute of Management; Bangalore; November 4, 2015). Vanya Rakesh attended the event.
Ground Zero Summit (Organized by Infosec Consortium; November 5 - 8, 2015; New Delhi). Amber Sinha attended the event.
Cyber Security Summit 2015 (Organized by Government of Karnataka in association with Biz Wingz Production House; JW Marriot, Bangalore; November 27, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

►Miscellaneous

# Article

WhatsApps with fireworks, apps with diyas: Why Diwali needs to go beyond digital (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 23, 2015).

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

# Op-ed

The Buzz Around TV White Space (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 4, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; November 5, 2015).

# Blog Entry

Gauging Users' Reactions Towards Zero Rating (Aadya Misra; November 25, 2015). The author likes to thank Amba Kak, on whose research the survey was conducted.

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

# Book

Silicon Plateau Vol-1 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 28, 2015).

# Blog Entries

Digital Humanities in India? (P.P. Sneha; November 12, 2015).
A Question of Digital Humanities (P.P. Sneha; November 16, 2015).
CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 16, 2015).

# Event Organized

Launch of Silicon Plateau Vol-1 (Organized by Or-bits.com and CIS; T.A.J. Residency, Wheeler Road Extension, Cooke Town, Bangalore; November 27, 2015).

# Upcoming Event

First Edition of Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India: Call for Sessions (Organized by CIS; New Delhi; February 25 - 27, 2016).

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Come, be my guest (Hindu; November 14, 2015)
Shopping on apps raise privacy and security concerns (Vivek Ananth; Softcopy, an IIJNM Web Publication; November 23, 2015).

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with 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. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of
social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration

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

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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2015-bulletin

Guerrilla GLAMː An alternate way of doing GLAM in indie-way

subha — 2015-12-16T03:09:47Z

I have been working on a concept called the Guerrilla GLAM. Here is a very quick summary about the concept that was published in the GLAM-wiki newsletter for November.

GLAM stands for cultural institutions like Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. It is a globally acclaimed free knowledge movement for opening up cultural data using various free software platforms as a tool. GLAM activities include collaboration with cultural institutions, data mining, meta data and other documentation of institutional collections, digitization of published works, records and artifacts, and publishing the collected information in both human and machine readable forms with open standards. Building partnership with GLAM institutions is a great way of funneling the cultural content acquisition and bringing open access to such valuable data. But it is not that easy given the complications each country have in terms of formal agreement, organizational framework, and dissemination of information. "Guerrilla GLAM" techniques are based on the learning curve of institutional partnership building for large scale GLAM projects and leveraging personal contacts in small scale GLAM projects. It bring in several frugal strategies for cutting cost implication and operating in flexible modes. Guerrilla GLAM's range of work aims to accommodate people of different core expertise and it targets small to large orgaizations.

Guerrilla GLAM appeared first as a public presentation during Wikimania which I presented this year. It later interested many GLAM practitioners of New Zealand who organized a webinar which provided a great platform to add many interesting ideas to my existing set of ideas. Guerrilla GLAM is still a budding concept that aims for being implemented by many cultural enthusiasts especially those who would like to document much about the artifacts, digitize old text from archives and manuscripts, and create meta data for institutional collections. Guerrilla GLAM operates with zero or with some informal institutional partnership with the institution and carried on the shoulders of the Wikimedians. The Wikimedians seek out for support from local communities, leverage the permissible access to institutional property and to some extent the personal relations with the institutions keeping the legal restrictions in mind, and do their best to acquire as much data as possible. Often times, near to zero cost Guerrilla GLAM projects with detailed planning with right kind of people on-board could yield more or less the same like any conventional GLAM project.

Click to read the original published on Wikimedia Blog on November 25, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guerrilla-glam-an-alternate-way-of-doing-glam-in-indie-way

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

National IPR Policy: Mapping the Stakeholders’ Response

Akshath Mithal — 2015-11-24T15:02:17Z

The first draft of the National IPR Policy was released last December. Following that, a plethora of comments and suggestions was submitted to the DIPP on the same. In this post, I will focus on the comments that were available online and analyse the trends that I was able to find in the same and also highlight the many suggestions put forth by the stakeholders.

Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs and feedback and also edited this post.

I. Introduction

On 24^th December 2014, the IPR Think Tank constituted by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) officially released the first draft of the National IPR Policy. Following this, in a press release dated 30^th December, 2014, the DIPP called for comments and suggestions on the draft from all stakeholders. CIS, through an RTI, asked the DIPP to disclose all the comments received by it. However, the DIPP’s reply, rather vague, stated that it is not in the position to provide the same. (Further details here).

II. Research Methodology

In this post, I have compiled and compared the various submissions that I was able to find online in a SpicyIP post and will provide an analysis of the same.

The spreadsheet that I have created contains a compilation of the many issues that were raised by 15 stakeholders of various affiliations (organisations/scholars/unions). This spreadsheet was put together after reading each submission carefully, and summarizing the same. After dividing the contents of the submissions into the various issues, they were put under certain heads in this sheet. Though there were a few ideas covered by certain submissions that have not been tabulated, all the major and important ones have been covered, in my opinion.

On the basis of this spreadsheet, the following observations have been made on the feedback of the many stakeholders on the various aspects of the draft.

III. Stakeholders - A Statistical Analyis

A total of 15 submissions were taken into consideration for the purpose of this post, and all of them applauded the government for recognizing of the need for a comprehensive policy on IP and the DIPP’s efforts to give the public a chance to play a role in the process of formation of a policy that would affect the country and its economy significantly. However, each submission had its own set of criticisms and suggestions to the various aspects dealt with by the policy. In my analysis there are three broad categories that the stakeholders can be divided into:

Research organisations/NGOs.
Industrial representative bodies/Political organisations.
Scholars/Academia.

A representation of the stakeholders and the categories that they belong to has been produced below.

Categories	Stakeholders
Research organisations/NGOs	Centre for Internet and Society (CIS); Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS); Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC); Centre for Law & Policy Research (CLPR).
Industrial representative bodies/Political organisations	Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO); National Association of Manufacturers (NAM); International Trademark Association (INTA); IP Federation – UK; ICC’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP); Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM); American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham – India).
Scholars/Academia	Centre for Intellectual Property and Technology Law – O.P. Jindal Global University (CIPTEL); S. Ragavan, B. Baker, S. Flynn; Adv. Ravindra Chingale – NLU Delhi; Prof. N.S. Gopalakrishnan & Dr T.G. Agitha – CUSAT.

Out of the comments studied, the largest chunk of stakeholders (46.67%) belonged to the industrial/manufacturing sector, with the other two categories comprising only 26.67% each. This could be attributed to the fact that a country’s IPR policy has a very vital role to play in influencing an industrial firm’s strategy and an unsatisfactory policy could have a serious and adverse effect on the profit-making abilities of an industry.

IV. IP - Innovation / Growth Nexus

There are a total of 13 themes that have been identified in the spreadsheet, and out of these 13, the one that the largest number of stakeholders has commented on is the question of there being nexus between intellectual property, innovation and growth. Eleven out of the fifteen stakeholders have given their opinion on this issue.

The opinion on this theme is not very uniform. Some organisations are of the opinion that there is a strong correlation between robust IPR protection mechanisms and innovation in a country, and thus there is a resultant benefit to the economy of the country. For example, the IP Federation of UK claimed that with a strong IPR regime, there is a greater inflow of FDI and R&D expenditure in countries, thus benefitting the country’s economy. On the other hand, there are some stakeholders who believe that there is no nexus and that the underlying assumption made by the draft policy is not backed by any research or evidence. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), for example, even cites evidence in its submission to oppose this assumption. The smallest chunk of stakeholders suggests to the Think Tank that in the current draft, there is not enough authority cited by them, and thus, there should be some research that must be done in order to give this assumption some backing. CIPTEL, a research centre based in OP Jindal Global University, stated that there should be a transparent survey conducted on this issue by a neutral agency.

The figure below would give the reader a comparative analysis of the responses from the stakeholders on this particular theme.

All the research organisations/NGOs that presented their views on this assumption are in opposition to the same and have proposed to the Think Tank that it should amend the contents of the policy after taking this incorrectly-made assumption out of the mix.

A majority of the industrial bodies have supported the existence of a nexus and have stated that by enforcing stronger IPR protection laws, the innovative/inventive environment of a country develops and this in turn encourages investors, which culminates into a rise in the growth of the economy.

Scholars and academia have a difference of opinion amongst themselves and there is no uniform pattern that can be seen in their responses to this issue.

The only political organisation in this analysis, the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch opposes the assumption and states that the policy has turned a blind eye to the development of the country and that there is no analysis on whether there is any effect of the proposed strengthening of IP protection on the various sectors of the economy.

V. International Treaties

The policy, in its introduction states the following stance on negotiation of international treaties and agreements – “In future negotiations in international forums and with other countries, India shall continue to give precedence to its national development priorities whilst adhering to its international commitments and avoiding TRIPS plus provisions.”

On this general theme, 9 out of 15 stakeholders have submitted their comments to the Think Tank. Out of these 9, the category-wise division of the stakeholders is represented by the diagram below.

The opinion of the stakeholders on this issue varied and there were broadly 3 kinds of responses that were found in the analysis. More than half of these responses (56%) suggested that all negotiations of treaties must be done transparently, with proper consultation of all stakeholders. CUTS, for example, recommended that to increase the confidence of the people in the country’s IP regime, the negotiations must be done with the opinion of all stakeholders being taken into consideration. They also cautioned the government to make sure that any future agreements do not contain any TRIPS-plus provisions. The second category applauded the policy’s pro-global stance towards IPR developments, and has recommended certain treaties that India must sign in order to strengthen its regime (details in spreadsheet). Only one stakeholder, the National Association of Manufacturers of the USA suggested that India’s stance of avoiding TRIPS-plus agreements is in contravention to its objective of keeping up with global IP developments. This point of view is clearly in favour of the USA as TRIPS-plus provisions have always been more beneficial to developed countries than developing countries like India.

Thus, it can be said that almost 90% of stakeholders, from across categories, are satisfied with India’s pro-international stance, and only want the government to be cautious and consult the public before signing treaties on IPR.

VI. Utility Models

A provision to legalise utility model protection was also a part of the draft policy. Utility models or petty patents are suggested by the policy in order to protect parties like MSMEs and their many innovations which may not satisfy the requirements of regular patent protection and thus losing out from IPR protection, leading to benefits not being reaped properly from these inventions.

This provision was commented on by eight of the 15 stakeholders, making it a little above half of the total. A category-wise division can be found below.

The opinion on utility models was majorly negative across categories, with 75% of the stakeholders believing that utility model protection must be given a second thought and many drawbacks were pointed out such as frivolous litigation, uncertainty in the market, and a drop in the quality of innovation registered in the country. A review of how effective utility model laws are in other countries was suggested before making any final decision. Only 2 out of the 8 stakeholders supported the provision for petty patents and stated that this would give a good means of protection to ‘jugaad’ innovations that are very popular in India and thus believed that such laws would help increase the innovation levels in the country.

VII. Public Funded Research Labs and Universities

Only four stakeholders had a say on the issue of grants to Government labs and universities, these organisations being Indian research organisations and academia. The opinion varied from party to party and the Centre for Internet and Society argued that if there was a rise in IP protection for government funded research, it would be against the vision of free and open access to research funded by taxpayers’ money.

The other three stakeholders, namely CIPTEL, CUTS and Adv. Ravindra Chingale emphasised on the importance of merit-based funding instead of funding on the basis of whether an organisation is Government-owned or not. Two of these also suggested that there must be a system of contact between industry and academia to incentivise and utilize innovation properly.

VIII. Limitations and Flexibilities

A very important aspect of any IPR regime is the presence of limitations, exceptions and flexibilities on the rights protected by IP laws, as it allows for the appropriate amount of information being shared for free or at reasonable costs, for furtherance of public interest.

On this vital issue, most stakeholders had a say and the trends of the feedback on the limitations and flexibilities on IP protection were as expected. There were two broad sets of opinions that could be gathered from the analysis, and while there was a majority (62.5%) of organisations and people who believed that the government must keep up its efforts of providing a good framework for exceptions to IPR protection with measures like compulsory licensing being put in place in order to protect broader interests of the country such as access to reasonably priced medicines and other necessities. The only recommendation that they had was that these measures should be decided after a careful analysis of what the economy really needed in order to develop further.

The opposition, quite understandably came from international industrial bodies representing manufacturers and intellectual property owners who argued that the policy of limitations to IPR protection is discouraging those who want to invest in the country and that it hurts the business of foreign-based companies that operate in India or want to do so in the near future as their intellectual property may not be protected adequately with such a policy in place.

The figure above clearly points out that none of those against limitations being placed on IP protection had an Indian background and all those in favour of the same were primarily Indian-based organisations and academics, with the exception of the American scholars – S. Ragavan, B. Baker, and S. Flynn.

IX. Trademarks

Only a single stakeholder, the International Trademark Association, was interested in the issue of trademarks. This can be attributed to the fact that this is the only association out of all the stakeholders having a direct interest in trademark law and policy. The organisation suggested that there should be a greater amount of clarity in the trademark examination process and also suggested that there should be an increase in the number of examiners to make the process of trademark registration quicker.

X. Trade Secrets

In objective 3 of the draft policy, the Think Tank suggests that to strengthen the IP framework of the country, trade secret protection must be introduced as a formal law. India, today, does not have a law to protect sensitive trading information and there needs to be a formalised contract for there to be any relief for leaking of such information.

The stakeholders supporting the enactment of trade secret legislation were interestingly all industrial bodies representing international companies and firms. Only 2 parties expressed their worries about such a law, and argued that there must be more backing to make this recommendation more convincing. A graphical representation of the stakeholders is given below to provide a clearer picture of the responses.

This chart portrays clearly that international bodies are insistent on the enactment of a trade secret law as this would help incentivise knowledge sharing in the country. In many countries, trade secret protection is formalised legally and these stakeholders argue that for foreign multinationals to feel confident while sharing sensitive information with others in India, the government must follow in the footsteps of such countries and legislate on this matter soon.

XI. On Specialised Courts

A common suggestion found across 5 of the 15 stakeholder responses was for the creation of a specialised IP judiciary that would be formed by widening the patent bench that was proposed in the draft policy. Such a court would deal only with issues of intellectual property and would consist of judges having special knowledge in the various branches of IP law.

XII. Conclusion

The draft policy was released almost a year ago, and since then, much discussion has taken place on the same, with many contradictory opinions and suggestions on the various aspects of the policy. It can be observed from this compilation that industrial bodies have been insistent on stronger IP protection and more incentives to multinationals to invest in India in the form of trade secret legislations, keeping limitations such as compulsory licensing to a minimum, et al.

On the other hand, a trend could be seen of research organisations and academia having a view that was more in the interest of the public and with the Indian scenario taken into consideration, with the criticism of utility models, TRIPS-plus agreements, and by raising the question of whether the assumption underlying the draft of there being a link between IP protection and a rise in innovation had any basis whatsoever. This post, however, is only a glimpse of the stakeholders’ responses owing to the fact that the DIPP has not officially released the submissions made to it and only the ones that were available online have been taken into consideration.

It is only a matter of time that the Think Tank releases the final policy and one shall hope that this tedious process of seeking comments and suggestions will bear any fruit with the policy being a balanced one and being aimed ultimately towards the benefit of the country as a whole.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-mapping-the-stakeholders2019-response

Policy Brief: Oversight Mechanisms for Surveillance

elonnai — 2015-11-24T06:09:01Z

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Introduction

Across jurisdictions, the need for effective and relevant oversight mechanisms (coupled with legislative safeguards) for state surveillance has been highlighted by civil society, academia, citizens and other key stakeholders.[1] A key part of oversight of state surveillance is accountability of intelligence agencies. This has been recognized at the international level. Indeed, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, The United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union have all recognized that intelligence agencies need to be subject to democratic accountability.[2] Since 2013, the need for oversight has received particular attention in light of the information disclosed through the 'Snowden Revelations'. [3] Some countries such as the US, Canada, and the UK have regulatory mechanisms for the oversight of state surveillance and the intelligence community, while many other countries – India included - have piecemeal oversight mechanisms in place. The existence of regulatory mechanisms for state surveillance does not necessarily equate to effective oversight – and piecemeal mechanisms – depending on how they are implemented, could be more effective than comprehensive mechanisms. This policy brief seeks to explore the purpose of oversight mechanisms for state surveillance, different forms of mechanisms, and what makes a mechanism effective and comprehensive. The brief also reviews different oversight mechanisms from the US, UK, and Canada and provides recommendations for ways in which India can strengthen its present oversight mechanisms for state surveillance and the intelligence community.

What is the purpose and what are the different components of an oversight mechanism for State Surveillance?

The International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communication Surveillance, developed through a global consultation with civil society groups, industry, and international experts recommends that public oversight mechanisms for state surveillance should be established to ensure transparency and accountability of Communications Surveillance. To achieve this, mechanisms should have the authority to:

Access all potentially relevant information about State actions, including, where appropriate, access to secret or classified information;
Assess whether the State is making legitimate use of its lawful capabilities;
Evaluate whether the State has been comprehensively and accurately publishing information about the use and scope of Communications Surveillance techniques and powers in accordance with its Transparency obligations publish periodic reports and other information relevant to Communications Surveillance;
Make public determinations as to the lawfulness of those actions, including the extent to which they comply with these Principles[4]

What can inform oversight mechanisms for state surveillance?

The development of effective oversight mechanisms for state surveillance can be informed by a number of factors including:

Rapidly changing technology – how can mechanisms adapt, account for, and evaluate perpetually changing intelligence capabilities?
Expanding surveillance powers – how can mechanisms evaluate and rationalize the use of expanding agency powers?
Tensions around secrecy, national interest, and individual rights – how can mechanisms respect, recognize, and uphold multiple competing interests and needs including an agency's need for secrecy, the government's need to protect national security, and the citizens need to have their constitutional and fundamental rights upheld?
The structure, purpose, and goals of specific intelligence agencies and circumstances– how can mechanisms be sensitive and attuned to the structure, purpose, and functions of differing intelligence agencies and circumstances?

These factors lead to further questions around:

The purpose of an oversight mechanism: Is an oversight mechanism meant to ensure effectiveness of an agency? Perform general reviews of agency performance? Supervise the actions of an agency? Hold an agency accountable for misconduct?
The structure of an oversight mechanism: Is it internal? External? A combination of both? How many oversight mechanisms that agencies should be held accountable to?
The functions of an oversight mechanism: Is an oversight mechanism meant to inspect? Evaluate? Investigate? Report?
The powers of an oversight mechanism: The extent of access that an oversight mechanism needs and should have to the internal workings of security agencies and law enforcement to carry out due diligence? The extent of legal backing that an oversight mechanism should have to hold agencies legally accountable.

What oversight mechanisms for State Surveillance exist in India?

In India the oversight 'ecosystem' for state surveillance is comprised of:

Review committee: Under the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and the Rules issued thereunder (Rule 419A), a Central Review Committee that consists of the Cabinet Secretary, Secretary of Legal Affairs to the Government of India, Secretary of Department of Telecommunications to the Government of India is responsible for meeting on a bi-monthly basis and reviewing the legality of interception directions. The review committee has the power to revoke the directions and order the destruction of intercepted material.[5] This review committee is also responsible for evaluating interception, monitoring, and decryption orders issued under section 69 of the Information Technology Act 2000.[6] and orders for the monitoring and collection of traffic data under section 69B of the Information Technology Act 2000.[7]
Authorizing Authorities: The Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Central Government is responsible for authorizing requests for the interception, monitoring, and decryption of communications issued by central agencies.[8] The Secretary in charge of the Home Department is responsible for authorizing requests for the interception, monitoring, and decryption of communications from state level agencies and law enforcement.[9] The Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is responsible for authorizing requests for the monitoring and collection of traffic data.[10] Any officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India, who has been authorised by the Union Home Secretary or the State Home Secretary in this behalf, may authorize the interception of communications in case of an emergency.[11] A Commissioner of Police, District Superintendent of Police or Magistrate may issue requests for stored data to any postal or telegraph authority.[12]
Administrative authorities: India does not have an oversight mechanism for intelligence agencies, but agencies do report to different authorities. For example: The Intelligence Bureau reports to the Home Minister, the Research and Anaylsis Wing is under the Cabinet Secretariat and reports to the Prime Minister, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and Aviation Research Centre (ARC) report to the National Security Adviser; and the National Security Council Secretariat under the NSA which serves the National Security Council.[13]

It is important to note that though India has a Right to Information Act, but most of the security agencies are exempt from the purview of the Act[14] as is disclosure of any information that falls under the purview of the Official Secrets Act 1923.[15] [Note: There is no point in listing out all the exceptions given in section 8 and other sections as well. I think the point is sufficiently made when we say that security agencies are exempt from the purview of the Act.] The Official Secrets Act does not provide a definition of an 'official secret' and instead protects information: pertaining to national Security, defence of the country, affecting friendly relations with foreign states, etc.[16] Information in India is designated as classified in accordance to the Manual of Departmental Security Instruction which is circulated by the Ministry of Home Affairs. According to the Public Records Rules 1997, “classified records" means the files relating to the public records classified as top-secret, confidential and restricted in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Manual of Departmental Security Instruction circulated by the Ministry of Home affairs from time to time;”[17] Bi-annually officers evaluate and de-classify classified information and share the same with the national archives.[18] In response to questions raised in the Lok Sabha on the 5th of May 2015 regarding if the Official Secrets Act, 1923 will be reviewed, the number of classified files stored with the Government under the Act, and if the Government has any plans to declassify some of the files – the Ministry of Home Affairs clarified that a committee consisting of Secretaries of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Department of Personnel and Training, and the Department of Legal Affairs has been established to examine the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 particularly in light of the Right to Information Act, 2005. The Ministry of Home Affairs also clarified that the classification and declassification of files is done by each Government Department as per the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions, 1994 and thus there is no 'central database of the total number of classified files'.[19]

How can India's oversight mechanism for state surveillance be clarified?

Though these mechanisms establish a basic framework for an oversight mechanism for state surveillance in India, there are aspects of this framework that could be clarified and there are ways in which the framework could be strengthened.

Aspects of the present review committee that could be clarified:

Powers of the review committee: Beyond having the authority to declare that orders for interception, monitoring, decryption, and collection of traffic data are not within the scope of the law and order for destruction of any collected information – what powers does the review committee have? Does the committee have the power to compel agencies to produce additional or supporting evidence? Does the committee have the power to compel information from the authorizing authority?
Obligations of the review committee: The review committee is required to 'record its findings' as to whether the interception orders issued are in accordance with the law. Is there a standard set of questions/information that must be addressed by the committee when reviewing an order? Does the committee only review the content of the order or do they also review the implementation of the order? Beyond recording its findings, are there any additional reporting obligations that the review committee must fulfill?
Accountability of the review committee: Does the review committee answer to a higher authority? Do they have to submit their findings to other branches of the government – such as Parliament? Is there a mechanism to ensure that the review committee does indeed meet every two months and review all orders issued under the relevant sections of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and the Information Technology Act 2008?

Proposed oversight mechanisms in India

Oversight mechanisms can help with avoiding breaches of national security by ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in the functioning of security agencies. The need for the oversight of state surveillance is not new in India. In 1999 the Union Government constituted a Committee with the mandate of reviewing the events leading up to Pakistani aggression in Kargil and to recommend measures towards ensuring national security. Though the Kargil Committee was addressing surveillance from the perspective of gathering information on external forces, there are parellels in the lessons learned for state surveillance. Among other findings, in their Report the Committee found a number of limitations in the system for collection, reporting, collation, and assessment of intelligence. The Committee also found that there was a lack of oversight for the intelligence community in India – resulting in no mechanisms for tasking the agencies, monitoring their performance and overall functioning, and evaluating the quality of the work.

The Committee also noted that such a mechanism is a standard feature in jurisdictions across the world. The Committee emphasized this need from an economic perspective – that without oversight – the Government and the nation has no way of evaluating whether or not they are receiving value for their money. The Committee recommended a review of the intelligence system with the objective of solving such deficiencies.[20]

In 2000 a Group of Ministers was established to review the security and intelligence apparatus of the country. In their report issued to the Prime Minister, the Group of Ministers recommended the establishment of an Intelligence Coordination Group for the purpose of providing oversight of intelligence agencies at the Central level. Specifically the Intelligence Coordination Group would be responsible for:

Allocation of resources to the intelligence agencies
Consideration of annual reviews on the quality of inputs
Approve the annual tasking for intelligence collection
Oversee the functions of intelligence agencies
Examine national estimates and forecasts[21]

Past critiques of the Indian surveillance regime have included the fact that intelligence agencies do not come under the purview of any overseeing mechanism including Parliament, the Right to Information Act 2005, or the General Comptroller of India.

In 2011, Manish Tewari, who at the time was a Member of Parliament from Ludhiana, introduced the Private Member's Bill - “The Intelligence Services (Powers and Regulation) Bill” proposed stand alone statutory regulation of intelligence agencies. In doing so it sought to establish an oversight mechanism for intelligence agencies within and outside of India. The Bill was never introduced into Parliament.[22] Broadly, the Bill sought to establish: a National Intelligence and Security Oversight Committee which would oversee the functionings of intelligence agencies and would submit an annual report to the Prime Minister, a National Intelligence Tribunal for the purpose of investigating complaints against intelligence agencies, an Intelligence Ombudsman for overseeing and ensuring the efficient functioning of agencies, and a legislative framework regulating intelligence agencies.[23]

Proposed policy in India has also explored the possibility of coupling surveillance regulation and oversight with private regulation and oversight. In 2011 the Right to Privacy Bill was drafted by the Department of Personnel and Training. The Bill proposed to establish a “Central Communication Interception Review Committee” for the purposes of reviewing orders for interception issued under the Telegraph Act. The Bill also sought to establish an authorization process for surveillance undertaken by following a person, through CCTV's, or other electronic means.[24] In contrast, the 2012 Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy, which provided recommendations for a privacy framework for India, recommended that the Privacy Commissioner should exercise broad oversight functions with respect to interception/access, audio & video recordings, the use of personal identifiers, and the use of bodily or genetic material.[25]

A 2012 report by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses titled “A Case for Intelligence Reforms in India” highlights at least four 'gaps' in intelligence that have resulted in breaches of national security including: zero intelligence, inadequate intelligence, inaccurate intelligence, and excessive intelligence – particularly in light of additional technical inputs and open source inputs.[26] In some cases, an oversight mechanism could help in remediating some of these gaps. Returning to the 2012 IDSA Report, the Report recommends the following steps towards an oversight mechanism for Indian intelligence:

Establishing an Intelligence Coordination Group (ICG) that will exercise oversight functions for the intelligence community at the Central level. This could include overseeing functions of the agencies, quality of work, and finances.
Enacting legislation defining the mandates, functions, and duties of intelligence agencies.
Holding intelligence agencies accountable to the Comptroller & Auditor General to ensure financial accountability.
Establishing a Minister for National Security & Intelligence for exercising administrative authority over intelligence agencies.
Establishing a Parliamentary Accountability Committee for oversight of intelligence agencies through parliament.
Defining the extent to which intelligence agencies can be held accountable to reply to requests pertaining to violations of privacy and other human rights issued under the Right to Information Act.

Highlighting the importance of accountable surveillance frameworks, in 2015 the external affairs ministry director general of India Santosh Jha stated at the UN General Assembly that the global community needs to "to create frameworks so that Internet surveillance practices motivated by security concerns are conducted within a truly transparent and accountable framework.”[27]

In what ways can India's mechanisms for state surveillance be strengthened?

Building upon the recommendations from the Kargil Committee, the Report from the Group of Ministers, the Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy, the Draft Privacy Bill 2011, and the IDSA report, ways in which the framework for oversight of state surveillance in India could be strengthened include:

Oversight to enhance public understanding, debate, accountability, and democratic governance: State surveillance is unique in that it is enabled with the objective of protecting a nations security. Yet, to do so it requires citizens of a nation to trust the actions taken by intelligence agencies and to allow for possible access into their personal lives and possible activities that might infringe on their constitutional rights (such as freedom of expression) for a larger outcome of security. Because of this, oversight mechanisms for state surveillance must balance securing national security while submitting itself to some form of accountability to the public.
Independence of oversight mechanisms: Given the Indian context, it is particularly important that an oversight mechanism for surveillance powers and the intelligence community is capable of addressing and being independent from political interference. Indeed, the majority of cases regarding illegal interceptions that have reached the public sphere pertain to the surveillance of political figures and political turf wars.[28] Furthermore, though the current Review Committee established in the Indian Telegraph Act does not have a member from the Ministry of Home Affairs (the Ministry responsible for authorizing interception requests), it is unclear how independent this committee is from the authorizing Ministry. To ensure non-biased oversight, it is important that oversight mechanisms are independent.
Legislative regulation of intelligence agencies: Currently, intelligence agencies are provided surveillance powers through the Information Technology Act and the Telegraph Act, but beyond the National Intelligence Agency Act which establishes the National Intelligence Agency, there is no legal mechanism creating, regulating and overseeing intelligence agencies using these powers. In the 'surveillance ecosystem' this creates a policy vacuum, where an agency is enabled through law with a surveillance power and provided a procedure to follow, but is not held legally accountable for the effective, ethical, and legal use of the power. To ensure legal accountability of the use of surveillance techniques, it is important that intelligence are created through legislation that includes oversight provisions.
Comprehensive oversight of all intrusive measures: Currently the Review Committee established under the Telegraph Act is responsible for the evaluation of orders for the interception, monitoring, decryption, and collection of traffic data. The Review Committee is not responsible for reviewing the implementation or effectiveness of such orders and is not responsible for reviewing orders for access to stored information or other forms of electronic surveillance. This situation is a result of 1. Present oversight mechanisms not having comprehensive mandates 2. Different laws in India enabling different levels of access and not providing a harmonized oversight mechanism and 3.Indian law not formally addressing and regulating emerging surveillance technologies and techniques. To ensure effectiveness, it is important for oversight mechanisms to be comprehensive in mandate and scope.
Establishment of a tribunal or redress mechanism: India currently does not have a specified means for individuals to seek redress for unlawful surveillance or surveillance that they feel has violated their rights. Thus, individuals must take any complaint to the courts. The downsides of such a system include the fact that the judiciary might not be able to make determinations regarding the violation, the court system in India is overwhelmed and thus due process is slow, and given the sensitive nature of the topic – courts might not have the ability to immediately access relevant documentation. To ensure redress, it is important that a tribunal or a redress mechanism with appropriate powers is established to address complaints or violations pertaining to surveillance.
Annual reporting by security agencies, law enforcement, and service providers: Information regarding orders for surveillance and the implementation of the same is not disclosed by the government or by service providers in India.[29] Indeed, service providers by law are required to maintain the confidentiality of orders for the interception, monitoring, or decryption of communications and monitoring or collection of traffic data. At the minimum, an oversight mechanism should receive annual reports from security agencies, law enforcement, and service providers with respect to the surveillance undertaken. Edited versions of these Reports could be shared with Parliament and the public.
Consistent and mandatory reviews of relevant legislation: Though committees have been established to review various legislation and policy pertaining to state surveillance, the time frame for these reviews is not clearly defined by law. These reviews should take place on a consistent and publicly stated time frame. Furthermore, legislation enabling surveillance in India do not require review and assessment for relevance, adequacy, necessity, and proportionality after a certain period of time. Mandating that legislation regulating surveillance is subject to review on a consistent is important in ensuring that the provisions are relevant, proportionate, adequate, and necessary.
Transparency of classification and declassification process and centralization of de-classified records: Currently, the Ministry of Home Affairs establishes the process that government departments must follow for classifying and de-classifying information. This process is not publicly available and de-classified information is stored only with the respective department. For transparency purposes, it is important that the process for classification of records be made public and the practice of classification of information take place in exceptional cases. Furthermore, de-classified records should be stored centrally and made easily accessible to the public.
Executive and administrative orders regarding establishing of agencies and surveillance projects should be in the public domain: Intelligence agencies and surveillance projects in India are typically enabled through executive orders. For example, NATGRID was established via an executive order, but this order is not publicly available. As a form of transparency and accountability to the public, it is important that if executive orders establish an agency or a surveillance project, these are made available to the public to the extent possible.
Oversight of surveillance should incorporate privacy and cyber/national security: Increasingly issues of surveillance, privacy, and cyber security are interlinked. Any move to establish an oversight mechanism for surveillance and the intelligence committee must incorporate and take into consideration privacy and cyber security. This could mean that an oversight mechanism for surveillance in India works closely with CERT-IN and a potential privacy commissioner or that the oversight mechanism contains internal expertise in these areas to ensure that they are adequately considered.
Oversight by design: Just like the concept of privacy by design promotes the ideal that principles of privacy are built into devices, processes, services, organizations, and regulation from the outset – oversight mechanisms for state surveillance should also be built in from the outset of surveillance projects and enabling legislation. In the past, this has not been the practice in India– the National Intelligence Grid was an intelligence system that sought to link twenty one databases together – making such information easily and readily accessible to security agencies – but the oversight of such a system was never defined.[30] Similarly, the Centralized Monitoring System was conceptualized to automate and internalize the process of intercepting communications by allowing security agencies to intercept communications directly and bypass the service provider.[31] Despite amending the Telecom Licenses to provide for the technical components of this project, oversight of the project or of security agencies directly accessing information has yet to be defined.[32]

Examples of oversight mechanisms for State Surveillance: US, UK, Canada and United States

United States

In the United States the oversight 'ecosystem' for state surveillance is made up of:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

The U.S Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) is the predominant oversight mechanism for state surveillance and oversees and authorizes the actions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.[33] The court was established by the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 1978 and is governed by Rules of Procedure, the current Rules being formulated in 2010.[34] The Court is empowered to ensure compliance with the orders that it issues and the government is obligated to inform the Court if orders are breached.[35] FISA allows for individuals who receive an order from the Court to challenge the same,[36] and public filings are available on the Court's website.[37] Additionally, organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union[38] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have filed motions with the Court for release of records. [39] Similarly, Google has approached the Court for the ability to publish aggregate information regarding FISA orders that the company recieves.[40]

Government Accountability Office

The U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent office that works for Congress and conducts audits, investigates, provides recommendations, and issues legal decisions and opinions with regard to federal government spending of taxpayer's money by the government and associated agencies including the Defence Department, the FBI, and Homeland Security.[41] The head of the GAO is the Comptroller General of the United States and is appointed by the President. The GAO will initiate an investigation if requested by congressional committees or subcommittees or if required under public law or committee reports. The GOA has reviewed topics relating to Homeland Security, Information Security, Justice and Law Enforcement, National Defense, and Telecommunications.[42] For example, in June 2015 the GOA completed an investigation and report on 'Foreign Terrorist Organization Process and U.S Agency Enforcement Actions” [43] and an investigation on “Cyber Security: Recent Data Breaches Illustrate Need for Strong Controls across Federal Agencies”.[44]

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a standing committee of the U.S Senate with the mandate to review intelligence activities and programs and ensure that these are inline with the Constitution and other relevant laws. The Committee is also responsible for submitting to Senate appropriate proposals for legislation, and for reporting to Senate on intelligence activities and programs.[45] The House Permanent Select Committee holds similar jurisdiction. The House Permanent Select Committee is committed to secrecy and cannot disclose classified information excepted authorized to do so. Such an obligation does not exist for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the committee can disclose classified information publicly on its own.[46]

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB)

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was established by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 and is located within the executive branch.[47] The objective of the PCLOB is to ensure that the Federal Government's actions to combat terrorism are balanced against privacy and civil liberties. Towards this, the Board has the mandate to review and analyse ant-terrorism measures the executive takes and ensure that such actions are balanced with privacy and civil liberties, and to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are liberties are adequately considered in the development and implementation of anti-terrorism laws, regulations and policies.[48] The Board is responsible for developing principles to guide why, whether, when, and how the United States conducts surveillance for authorized purposes. Additionally, officers of eight federal agencies must submit reports to the PCLOB regarding the reviews that they have undertaken, the number and content of the complaints, and a summary of how each complaint was handled. In order to fulfill its mandate, the Board is authorized to access all relevant records, reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, and classified information. The Board may also interview and take statements from necessary personnel. The Board may request the Attorney General to subpoena on the Board's behalf individuals outside of the executive branch.[49]

To the extent possible, the Reports of the Board are made public. Examples of recommendations that the Board has made in the 2015 Report include: End the NSA”s bulk telephone records program, add additional privacy safeguards to the bulk telephone records program, enable the FISC to hear independent views on novel and significant matters, expand opportunities for appellate review of FISC decisions, take advantage of existing opportunities for outside legal and technical input in FISC matters, publicly release new and past FISC and DISCR decisions that involve novel legal, technical, or compliance questions, publicly report on the operation of the FISC Special Advocate Program, Permit Companies to Disclose Information about their receipt of FISA production orders and disclose more detailed statistics on surveillance, inform the PCLOB of FISA activities and provide relevant congressional reports and FISC decisions, begin to develop principles for transparency, disclose the scope of surveillance authorities affecting US Citizens.[50]

The Wiretap Report

The Wiretap Report is an annual compilation of information provided by federal and state officials regarding applications for interception orders of wire, oral, or electronic communications, data address offenses under investigation, types and locations of interception devices, and costs and duration of authorized intercepts.[51] When submitting information for the report a judge will include the name and jurisdiction of the prosecuting official who applied for the order, the criminal offense under investigation, the type of intercept device used, the physical location of the device, and the duration of the intercept. Prosecutors provide information related to the cost of the intercept, the number of days the intercept device was in operation, the number of persons whose communications were intercepted, the number of intercepts, and the number of incriminating intercepts recorded. Results of the interception orders such as arrest, trials, convictions, and the number of motions to suppress evidence are also noted in the prosecutor reports. The Report is submitted to Congress and is legally required under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The report is issued by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.[52]

United Kingdom

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of Parliament

The Intelligence Security Committee was established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994. Members are appointed by the Prime Minster and the Committee reports directly to the same. Additionally, the Committee submits annual reports to Parliament. Towards this, the Committee can take evidence from cabinet ministers, senior officials, and from the public.[53] The most recent report of the Committee is the 2015 “Report on Privacy and Security”.[54] Members of the Committee are subject to the Official Secrets Act 1989 and have access to classified material when carrying out investigations.[55]

Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)

This Joint Intelligence Committee is located in the Cabinet office and is broadly responsible for overseeing national intelligence organizations and providing advice to the Cabinet on issues related to security, defense, and foreign affairs. The JIC is overseen by the Intelligence and Security Committee.[56]

The Interception of Communications Commissioner

The Interception of Communications Commissioner is appointed by the Prime Minster under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 for the purpose of reviewing surveillance conducted by intelligence agencies, police forces, and other public authorities. Specifically, the Commissioner inspects the interception of communications, the acquisition and disclosure of communications data, the interception of communications in prisons, and the unintentional electronic interception.[57] The Commissioner submits an annual report to the Prime Minister. The Reports of the Commissioner are publicly available.[58]

The Intelligence Services Commissioner

The Intelligence Services Commissioner is an independent body appointed by the Prime Minister that is legally empowered through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000. The Commissioner provides independent oversight on the use of surveillance by UK intelligence services.[59] Specifically, the Commissioner is responsible for reviewing authorized interception orders and the actions and performance of the intelligence services.[60] The Commissioner is also responsible for providing assistance to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, submitting annual reports to the Prime Minister on the discharge of its functions, and advising the Home Office on the need of extending the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures regime.[61] Towards these the Commissioner conducts in-depth audits on the orders for interception to ensure that the surveillance is within the scope of the law, that the surveillance was necessary for a legally established reason, that the surveillance was proportionate, that the information accessed was justified by the privacy invaded, and that the surveillance authorized by the appropriate official. The Commissioner also conducts 'site visits' to ensure that orders are being implemented as per the law.[62] As a note, the Intelligence Services Commissioner does not undertake any subject that is related to the Interception of Communications Commissioner. The Commissioner has access to any information that he feels is necessary to carry out his investigations. The Reports of the Intelligence Service Commissioner are publicly available.[63]

Investigatory Powers Tribunal

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal is a court which investigates complaints of unlawful surveillance by public authorities or intelligence/law enforcement agencies.[64] The Tribunal was established under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and has a range of oversight functions to ensure that public authorities act and agencies are in compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998.[65] The Tribunal specifically is an avenue of redress for anyone who believes that they have been a victim of unlawful surveillance under RIPA or wider human rights infringements under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Tribunal can provide seven possible outcomes for any application including 'found in favor of complainant, no determination in favour of complainant, frivolous or vexatious, out of time, out of jurisdiction, withdrawn, or no valid complaint.[66] The Tribunal has the authority to receive and consider evidence in any form, even if inadmissible in an ordinary court.[67] Where possible, cases are available on the Tribunal's website. Decisions by the Tribunal cannot be appealed, but can be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.[68]

Canada

In Canada the oversight 'ecosystem' for state surveillance includes:

Security Intelligence Review Committee

The Security Intelligence Review Committee is an independent body that is accountable to the Parliament of Canada and reports on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.[69] Members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee are appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada. The committee conducts reviews on a pro-active basis and investigates complaints. Committee members have access to classified information to conduct reviews. The Committee submits an annual report to Parliament and an edited version is publicly available. The 2014 Report was titled “Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy”[70] and includes reviews of the CSIS's activities, reports on complaints and subsequent investigations, and provides recommendations.

Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner

The Communications Security Commissioner conducts independent reviews of Communications Security Establishment (CSE) activities to evaluate if they are within the scope of Canadian law.[71] The Commissioner submits a report to Parliament on an annual basis and has a number of powers including the power to subpoena documents and personnel.[72] If the Commissioner believes that the CSE has not complied with the law – it must report this to the Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of National Defence. The Commissioner may also receive information from persons bound to secrecy if they deem it to be in the public interest to disclose such information.[73] The Commissioner is also responsible for verifying that the CSE does not surveil Canadians and for promoting measures to protect the privacy of Canadians.[74] When conducting a review, the Commissioner has the ability to examine records, receive briefings, interview relevant personnel, assess the veracity of information, listen to intercepted voice recordings, observe CSE operators and analysts to verify their work, examine CSI electronic tools, systems and databases to ensure compliance with the law.[75]

Office of the Privacy Commissioner

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) oversees the implementation of and compliance with the Privacy Act and the Personal information and Electronic Documents Act.[76]

The OPC is an independent body that has the authority to investigate complaints regarding the handling of personal information by government and private companies, but can only comment on the activities of security and intelligence agencies. For example, in 2014 the OPC issued the report “Checks and Controls: Reinforcing Privacy Protection and Oversight for the Canadian Intelligence Community in an Era of Cyber Surveillance”[77] The OPC can also provide testimony to Parliament and other government bodies.[78] For example, the OPC has made appearances before the Senate Standing Committee of National Security and Defense on Bill C-51.[79] The OPC cannot conduct joint audits or investigations with other bodies.[80]

Annual Interception Reports

Under the Criminal Code of Canada, regional governments must issue annual interception reports. The reports must include number of individuals affected by interceptions, average duration of the interception, type of crimes investigated, numbers of cases brought to court, and number of individuals notified that interception had taken place.[81]

Conclusion

The presence of multiple and robust oversight mechanisms for state surveillance does not necessarily correlate to effective oversight. The oversight mechanisms in the UK, Canada, and the U.S have been criticised. For example, Canada . For example, the Canadian regime has been characterized as becoming weaker it has removed one of its key over sight mechanisms – the Inspector General of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which was responsible for certifying that the Service was in compliance with law.[82]

Other weaknesses in the Canadian regime that have been highlighted include the fact that different oversight bodies do not have the authority to share information with each other, and transparency reports do not include many new forms of surveillance.[83] Oversight mechanisms in the U.S on the other hand have been criticized as being opaque[84] or as lacking the needed political support to be effective.[85] The UK oversight mechanism has been criticized for not having judicial authorization of surveillance requests, have opaque laws, and for not having a strong right of redress for affected individuals.[86] These critiques demonstrate that there are a number of factors that must come together for an oversight mechanism to be effective. Public transparency and accountability to decision making bodies such as Parliament or Congress can ensure effectiveness of oversight mechanisms, and are steps towards providing the public with means to debate in an informed manner issues related to state surveillance and allows different bodies within the government the ability to hold the state accountable for its actions.

.[1]. For example, “Public Oversight” is one of the thirteen Necessary and Proportionate principles on state communications surveillance developed by civil society and academia globally, that should be incorporated by states into communication surveillance regimes. The principles can be accessed here: https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/

[2]. Hans Born and Ian Leigh, “Making Intelligence Accountable. Legal Standards and Best Practice for Oversight of Intelligence Agencies.” Pg. 13. 2005. Available at: http://www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/making-intelligence.pdf. Last accessed: August 6, 2015.

[3]. For example, this point was made in the context of the UK. For more information see: Nick Clegg, 'Edward Snowden's revelations made it clear: security oversight must be fit for the internet age,”. The Guardian. March 3rd 2014. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/nick-clegg-snowden-security-oversight-internet-age. Accessed: July 27, 2015.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-brief-oversight-mechanisms-for-surveillance

IRC16 - Proposed Session - #ManyPublicsOfInternet

sumandro — 2016-01-03T07:06:54Z

This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Sailen Routray and Khetrimayum Monish.

Session

The discussion in this session will focus on the cultures of practices around digital / information networks. The objective would be to open up the understanding around notions of identity and rights in the context of governance on one hand, and the proliferation of various subcultures on the other. The objective is to try and understand the political and cultural imaginations 'of and as the public' enabled by internet and digital technologies. In this, we are trying to connect the whole discussion to the first two questions the conference focuses on:

How do we conceptualise, as an intellectual and political task, the mediation and transformation of social, cultural, political, and economic processes, forces, and sites through internet and digital media technologies in contemporary India?
How do we frame and explore the experiences and usages of internet and digital media technologies in India within its specific historical-material contexts shaped by traditional hierarchies of knowledge, colonial systems of communication, post-independence initiatives in nation-wide technologies of governance, a rapidly growing telecommunication market, and informal circuits of media production and consumption, among others?

Plan

Each discussant will present for 20 minutes after which the session will be thrown open for discussion amongst all the participants of the session.

Abstract I

Internet in India has led to the proliferation of practices and notions of governance and citizenship simulated by information networks and data. On one hand, the internet has captured the imagination of citizens and the reassertion of user agency; on the other, the experiences with the internet reflects the new ways of how the state imagines itself and the citizens. Hence, not only a critical mass replete with the possibilities of user agency, but also one aggregated by the state as part of a political project. Initiatives such as Digital India, the Aadhar project, rural internet and increased emphasis on mobile internet services are some of ways through which the logic of access and participation now operates. The paper will draw perspectives from four case studies in Assam - the Mahanagar Project (internet and mobile services), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update, the Aadhaar Project and rural internet kiosks (Common Service Centers). With these, it focuses on the larger context of the cultures of digital practices; and techno-politics through the various sites and projects through which the internet operates in India.

Abstract II

Those of us who have jumped or meandered across to the wrong (or perhaps the right) side of thirty by now, first came to consume internet in what were called, and are still called, cyber cafes or internet cafes. Their numbers in big Indian cities is dwindling because of the increasing ubiquity of smartphone, and netbooks and data cards. The cyber café seems to be inexorably headed the way of the STD booth in the geography of large Indian cities. The present paper is a preliminary step towards capturing some of the experience of running and using internet cafes. With ethnographic fieldwork with cyber café owners and internet users in these cafes in the Chandrasekharpur area of Bhubaneswar (where the largest section of the computer industry in the state of Odisha is located), this paper tries to capture experiences that lie at the interstices of ‘objects’ and spaces - experiences that are at the same time a history of the internet as well as a personal history of the city. By doing so it tries to ask and answer the question - what kinds of publics does the consumption of the internet in spaces such as cybercafes create?

Readings

Escobar, Arturo, et al. 1994. Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture [and Comments and Reply]. Current Anthropology. 35(3): 211-231.

Nayar, Pramod K. 2008. New Media, Digitextuality and Public Space: Reading "Cybermohalla". Postcolonial Text. 4(1):1-12.

Kurian, Renee and Isha Ray. 2009. Outsourcing the State? Public–Private Partnerships and Information Technologies in India. World Development. 37(10): 1163-1173.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-manypublicsofinternet

IRC16 - Proposed Session - #DisruptingRhetorics

sumandro — 2016-01-03T07:09:30Z

This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Marialaura Ghidini.

Session

In "The Braindead Megaphone" (2007) writer George Saunders discusses the power of 21st century voices of high-tech mass media; the voices with whom one converse mentally all the time and often unaware. Saunders uses the metaphor of "The Megaphone Guy at a party" to describe the effects that such voices have on other people's thoughts, even when they are just passive listeners of what is said. The Megaphone Guy "crowds other voices out" because of "the volume and omnipresence of his narrating voice", and his power does not reside in his intelligence or acuity, but in his "dominance". This guy's rhetoric — read also, the mass media’s rhetoric — becomes central because of its unavoidability", and the web, with its now easy-to-use tools and shiny platforms, along with the seeming global interconnectedness of the Internet have made his dominance more portable and accessible, less unavoidable.

Simultaneously, such easiness and interconnectedness have allowed the reversal to happen, that is the development of strategies aimed at obstructing or diverting the dominant rhetoric. Artistic practices from all over the world have shown us different modes of intervention that disrupt the hegemonic discourses facilitated by the adoption of 'global' platforms of communication, entertainment and commerce. From the duo ubermonger to artists Paolo Cirio and IOCOSE and the labs like F.A.T. Lab, artists have developed strategies to weaken the power and dominance of The Megaphone Guys; they have developed methods of research, analysis and action which effects go beyond the art circuit and being on the internet.

All that said, however, the question of accessibility remains pressing and open to discussion: the bandwidth of common internet access and the way in which the web is entangled with everyday life still differs according to geographical areas. And this factor has often been overlooked in the researches into artistic practices online and their potentials to generate discourses that offer an alternative to the dominant ones. This difference in infrastructure and cultural uses has determined a diversity in artistic interventions aimed at disrupting dominating narratives: India shows a different history and approaches that this session would like to bring to light with the help of the participants.

Both through looking within the art field and outside it, such as in the work of social and community enterprises like the collective BlankNoise, this session aims to look artistic practices as methods of research and intervention that can be used to understand the effects of the Internet and web tools on society and, in turn, to put forward new ways in which web technology can be critically used by many, and non-artists, in their everyday life.

Plan

Led by a curator/researcher, in collaboration with an artist and another curator/researcher, this discussion session will start with a general overview of artistic interventions, i.e. methods, aimed at disrupting the world's views created by mass media. This general overview will include examples of both national and international artists and community-based projects, from artists ubermonger, IOCOSE, Paolo Cirio and labs like F.A.T. Lab outside India, to the work of collectives such as Cybermohalla and BlankNoise, and artist like Archana Hande in India. It will be then followed by a discursive moment during which the participants will be divided in groups, according to specific key words collectively agreed upon, to discuss artists works and non-artistic activities pertaining the subject of the session. What will emerge from the group discussions will be presented to all participants in a short session, and will be followed by an attempt to create a mapping of current methods of intervening and acting online. Prior to the workshop participants will be given suggested readings and a series of questions that will help them for the breakout groups.

With this structure the session will not be based on one-way communication but it will allow to generate collective research into online behaviours—of platforms, corporations, people and communities of interest—through expanding on the views proposed by the proponents of #DisruptingRhetorics.

Readings

Tatiana Bazzichelli, Networked Disruption. Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and the Business of Social Networking. DARC PRESS (Aarhus University), Denmark, 2013 (Excerpts)

George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone. Riverhead Books, US, 2007

F.A.T. Lab, We Lost, http://fffff.at/rip/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptingrhetorics

IRC16 - Proposed Session - #ArchiveAnarchy (Archives, Accessibility, and Social Media)

sumandro — 2016-01-03T07:11:45Z

This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Ranjani M Prasad and Farah Yameen.

Session

In the last decade, the internet has aided a proliferation of information networks - Google Books, archive.org, Hathi Trust, pad.ma and similar archive based knowledge platforms – and cloud based data storage has become a useful and accessible alternative to file based systems.

The session opens up with questions of accessibility, ownership and hegemonies in an active archive. It takes up three archives that are being built at Ambedkar Univeristy and other similar archives to explore the emerging issues of knowledge sharing on the internet.

The Lotika Vardarajan archive is an ethnographic archive putting together an academic’s research on indigenous Maritime and Textile traditions and their indepth documentation.
The Delhi Oralities Archive is an oral history archive of city memories and resident narratives that seeks to be accessible to the city as an open resource.
The Institutional Memory Archive is a living archive continuously reinventing itself according the needs of the university campus that it documents.

The archiving impulses in each case are different as are the dissemination needs of the archive. How do Internet tools like social media, audio and video distribution platforms like Soundcloud and YouTube intervene in the archiving space to enable and catalyze access? Do dissemination strategies provided by Twitter and Facebook affect the use and usability of archives? Does such access threaten questions of ownership and privacy? Who owns a public archive like Delhi Oralities? What hierarchies operate in living archives to decide what is archived and who archives it? What are the limits of such knowledge repositories and the open access movement itself, especially in the light of traditional knowledge structures?

Plan

The discussion session explores questions of archives outside the academic research space. It discusses the possibility of using non-traditional platforms for data sharing to maximize access, sustainability and co-authorship for living archives.

Readings

Basic knowledge about existing social media platforms, open source repository softwares such as DSpace and familiarity with Creative Commons licensing.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-archiveanarchy

IRC16 - Proposed Session - #AFCinema2.0

sumandro — 2016-01-03T07:12:03Z

This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Akriti Rastogi and Ishani Dey.

Session

Amour fou is saturated with its own aesthetic, it fills itself to the borders of itself with the trajectories of its own gestures, it runs on angels' clocks, it is not a fit fate for commissars & shopkeepers. Its ego evaporates in the mutability of desire, its communal spirit withers in the selfishness of obsession. (Bey, 1985)

Confronted with consolidating rhizomatic concerns that inevitably crop their heads in any forum on internet discussions, let alone cinema, AF, or Amour fou encapsulates the very essence of free access cinema – AF is “not the result of freedom but rather its precondition” (Bey, 1985), AF is Cinema in web 2.0.

The proposed session will be an interactive conversation exploring the Indian scenario of internet based independent filmmaking. The key concerns mediating this dialogue are the mobilization of the internet as a space of exhibition and distribution and its implications in moving through extra-legal spaces, garnering cultural capital and articulating desires of its audience. The purpose here is to engage with cinema within “the broader industrial, institutional, and market contexts in which film exists” moving away from film scholarship focusing solely on the “meaning of the text” while disregarding the very circumstances in which those texts or discourses are “produced and circulated” (McDonald, 2013: 147).

Drawing from traditional methods in cinema scholarship, we turn to our own research methods in trying to articulate contextual engagements with amorphous forms of medium, media and archive. We explore the research potentials that the internet provides as an immediate archive of the contemporary while providing provocations to engage with the internet as an alternative space for film exhibition, distribution and funding. While Ishani Dey explores the mobilization of internet’s potential as an alternative space for film exhibition tracing connections that link pirate circuits, film festivals and subversive mainstream aesthetic shifts; Akriti Rastogi provides an overview of entrepreneurial space of internet based independent filmmaking and the surge in DIY filmmaking in web 2.0.

The session concludes with mediations over the poetics of technological access. The internet’s prolific open access archive’s potential to foster cinephilia and the mutations in viewing habits that ensue lead to novel cinematic experiences and their implication for the profilmic aesthetic. In continuum our encounters with the mainstream and anonymous figures etches out the narrative of experiencing cinema and filmmaking in web 2.0.

Plan

This session proposes to conceptualize the implications of open access digital media spaces for cinema in India. Reading cinema as a product of market driven industry factors it interrogates the shifting industrial, institutional, and market contexts which contemporary India cinema negotiates and the implications of contingent media, mode and exhibition on the cinematic experience. The primary concern is to form methods to navigate the expansive archive of the internet and mark the potentials for alternate production and distribution practices that lie within. The session proposes to walk through a number of case studies illustrating the dissolution of dichotomies that is brought about by the interventions of digital and new media technologies. Drawing parallels between earlier shifts in cinema studies discourses with the coming in of videotape and satellite television in India in the 80s and the contemporary debates surrounding digital film practices and direct to home transmissions, the session attempts to historicize cinephilia within the milieu of technophilia in India.

Provocations

Informal distribution networks like peer-to-peer distribution and pirate circles come to the foreground in the discussion on the construct of the cinephile. While the space of the auteur-entrepreneur claims the spotlight in discussions surrounding linkages in film exhibition – navigating through pirate circles to film festivals, bootlegging to the big league.

The figure of the anonymous filmmaker stands precariously on the divide of the legal and extra-legal boundary that the internet thrives in traversing, thus emerging as a vast platform for exhibition that is then mobilized by the DIY filmmaker. The growing popularity of the short film format and the shifts in viewing screens are seen as symptomatic of internet’s effect on cinema’s aesthetic.

The essential provocation here is that while cinema affects the modes of archiving on the internet, the internet in turn affects the cinematic form.

Readings

McDonald, P. (2013). "Introduction: In Focus Media Industries Studies." Cinema Journal, 52(3).

Lobato, R. (2012) Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution.

Zimmerman, R. D.H. (2009). "Cinephillia, Technophilia and Collaborative Remix Zones." Screen, 135-147.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-afcinema2.0

IRC16 - Proposed Session - #SpottingData

sumandro — 2016-01-03T07:11:12Z

This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Dibyajyoti Ghosh and Purbasha Auddy.

Session

The proposed workshop will focus on internet usage in India and the possibilities that the internet offers for representation of data. The workshop will be divided into two parts, the first, of a more general nature, and the second, will focus on one specific aspect of data—representation. While the first part will be more of a documentation exercise, the second part will be a hands-on exercise of some data representation tools that are available on the internet.

Plan

Part I: The Nature of Internet Usage in India

The workshop will engage the participants in trying to map the ways that they use the internet in their daily lives, such as circulating emails, using social networks, downloading software, online commerce, academic research, circulating audio and video, etc. This part of the workshop will try to study ‘the starkly hierarchical and segmented experiences and usages of the [internet] in India’. The study will try to distinguish between those who are consumers of data and systems and those who, in addition to consuming, also produce data and systems. Various types of production of data will also be looked at, such as crowdsourcing data (such as in Wikipedia, or restaurant review or hotel review websites).

The workshop will be conducted in an interactive manner, where the participants will enter their responses in an online collaborative platform (Google Sheets), which will be editable by all the participants. This brief documentation exercise will also be used to prepare a report at the end of the conference.

After completing this exercise of mapping the usage of the internet, the second segment of the workshop will try to explore various ways of representing data. This exercise will be done by using tools available online.

Part II: Representation of Data

This part of the workshop will deal with various kinds of data representation, of various kinds of data that users contribute to the internet through websites, such as social networks, blogs, etc. The workshop will try to look at the various existing ways in visualising and representing such data through the internet, such as chronology timelines, location mapping, network mapping, enhanced text representation such as through display of XML-Text Encoding Initiative (XML-TEI) files, etc. so as to enhance the data and open up other aspects of the data not usually evident in forms such as lists and spreadsheets.

The participants will be led through to the creation of small chronology timelines and location mapping in particular. Therefore participants will be requested to contribute data in the form of simple and small English texts which have either several markers of time, or several markers of location, so as to enable such visualisation. Examples of such texts include biographies, travel narratives, etc. The workshop will discuss how to filter ‘structured data’ from prose text to get desirable result from the softwares.

This part of the workshop will try to answer the question as to ‘how do we begin to use the internet as a space for academic and creative practice and intervention?’ The workshop will use open-access tools and software so as to highlight the low-investment infrastructure that is often sufficient enough to represent and enhance data.

Readings

Participants are requested to look at two visualisation tools in particular (both of which were developed by the Knight Lab in Northwestern University, USA), one for creating a chronology timeline (https://projects.knightlab.com/projects/timelinejs) and the other for creating a location map (https://projects.knightlab.com/projects/storymapjs).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-spottingdata

Summary Report Internet Governance Forum 2015

jyoti — 2015-11-30T10:47:13Z

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India participated in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held at Poeta Ronaldo Cunha Lima Conference Center, Joao Pessoa in Brazil from 10 November 2015 to 13 November 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 was ‘Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development’. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash & Jyoti Panday from CIS actively engaged and made substantive contributions to several key issues affecting internet governance at the IGF 2015. The issue-wise detail of their engagement is set out below.

INTERNET GOVERNANCE

I. The Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group to the IGF organised a discussion on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Internet Economy at the Main Meeting Hall from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm on 11 November, 2015. The discussions at this session focused on the importance of Internet Economy enabling policies and eco-system for the fulfilment of different SDGs. Several concerns relating to internet entrepreneurship, effective ICT capacity building, protection of intellectual property within and across borders were availability of local applications and content were addressed. The panel also discussed the need to identify SDGs where internet based technologies could make the most effective contribution. Sunil Abraham contributed to the panel discussions by addressing the issue of development and promotion of local content and applications. List of speakers included:

Lenni Montiel, Assistant-Secretary-General for Development, United Nations
Helani Galpaya, CEO LIRNEasia
Sergio Quiroga da Cunha, Head of Latin America, Ericsson
Raúl L. Katz, Adjunct Professor, Division of Finance and Economics, Columbia Institute of Tele-information
Jimson Olufuye, Chairman, Africa ICT Alliance (AfICTA)
Lydia Brito, Director of the Office in Montevideo, UNESCO
H.E. Rudiantara, Minister of Communication & Information Technology, Indonesia
Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Coordinator for International and Communications Policy at the U.S. Department of State
Deputy Minister Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services for the republic of South Africa
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India
H.E. Junaid Ahmed Palak, Information and Communication Technology Minister of Bangladesh
Jari Arkko, Chairman, IETF
Silvia Rabello, President, Rio Film Trade Association
Gary Fowlie, Head of Member State Relations & Intergovernmental Organizations, ITU

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /igf 2015-main -sessions

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2327-2015-11-11-internet-economy-and-sustainable-development-main-meeting-room

Video link Internet economy and Sustainable Development here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6obkLehVE8

II. Public Knowledge organised a workshop on The Benefits and Challenges of the Free Flow of Data at Workshop Room 5 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 12 November, 2015. The discussions in the workshop focused on the benefits and challenges of the free flow of data and also the concerns relating to data flow restrictions including ways to address them. Sunil Abraham contributed to the panel discussions by addressing the issue of jurisdiction of data on the internet. The panel for the workshop included the following.

Vint Cerf, Google
Lawrence Strickling, U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIA
Richard Leaning, European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), Europol
Marietje Schaake, European Parliament
Nasser Kettani, Microsoft
Sunil Abraham, CIS India

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /workshops /list -of -published -workshop -proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2467-2015-11-12-ws65-the-benefits-and-challenges-of-the-free-flow-of-data-workshop-room-5

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtjnHkOn7EQ

III. Article 19 and Privacy International organised a workshop on Encryption and Anonymity: Rights and Risks at Workshop Room 1 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm on 12 November, 2015. The workshop fostered a discussion about the latest challenges to protection of anonymity and encryption and ways in which law enforcement demands could be met while ensuring that individuals still enjoyed strong encryption and unfettered access to anonymity tools. Pranesh Prakash contributed to the panel discussions by addressing concerns about existing south Asian regulatory framework on encryption and anonymity and emphasizing the need for pervasive encryption. The panel for this workshop included the following.

David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Juan Diego Castañeda, Fundación Karisma, Colombia
Edison Lanza, Organisation of American States Special Rapporteur
Pranesh Prakash, CIS India
Ted Hardie, Google
Elvana Thaci, Council of Europe
Professor Chris Marsden, Oxford Internet Institute
Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion, Privacy International

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /worksh o ps /list -of -published -workshop -proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2407-2015-11-12-ws-155-encryption-and-anonymity-rights-and-risks-workshop-room-1

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUrBP4PsfJo

IV. Chalmers & Associates organised a session on A Dialogue on Zero Rating and Network Neutrality at the Main Meeting Hall from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on 12 November, 2015. The Dialogue provided access to expert insight on zero-rating and a full spectrum of diverse views on this issue. The Dialogue also explored alternative approaches to zero rating such as use of community networks. Pranesh Prakash provided a detailed explanation of harms and benefits related to different approaches to zero-rating. The panellists for this session were the following.

Jochai Ben-Avie, Senior Global Policy Manager, Mozilla, USA
Igor Vilas Boas de Freitas, Commissioner, ANATEL, Brazil
Dušan Caf, Chairman, Electronic Communications Council, Republic of Slovenia
Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood, Research Fellow, London School of Economics, UK/Peru
Belinda Exelby, Director, Institutional Relations, GSMA, UK
Helani Galpaya, CEO, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka
Anka Kovacs, Director, Internet Democracy Project, India
Kevin Martin, VP, Mobile and Global Access Policy, Facebook, USA
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, CIS India
Steve Song, Founder, Village Telco, South Africa/Canada
Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Manager, Alliance for Affordable Internet, USA/West Indies
Christopher Yoo, Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/igf2015-main-sessions

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2457-2015-11-12-a-dialogue-on-zero-rating-and-network-neutrality-main-meeting-hall-2

V. The Internet & Jurisdiction Project organised a workshop on Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation at Workshop Room 4 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 13 November, 2015. The workshop discussion focused on the challenges in developing an enforcement framework for the internet that guarantees transnational due process and legal interoperability. The discussion also focused on innovative approaches to multi-stakeholder cooperation such as issue-based networks, inter-sessional work methods and transnational policy standards. The panellists for this discussion were the following.

Anne Carblanc Head of Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD
Eileen Donahoe Director Global Affairs, Human Rights Watch
Byron Holland President and CEO, CIRA (Canadian ccTLD)
Christopher Painter Coordinator for Cyber Issues, US Department of State
Sunil Abraham Executive Director, CIS India
Alice Munyua Lead dotAfrica Initiative and GAC representative, African Union Commission
Will Hudsen Senior Advisor for International Policy, Google
Dunja Mijatovic Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE
Thomas Fitschen Director for the United Nations, for International Cooperation against Terrorism and for Cyber Foreign Policy, German Federal Foreign Office
Hartmut Glaser Executive Secretary, Brazilian Internet Steering Committee
Matt Perault, Head of Policy Development Facebook

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2475-2015-11-13-ws-132-transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-ms-cooperation-workshop-room-4

Video link Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9jVovhQhd0

VI. The Internet Governance Project organised a meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Accountability of Internet Governance Venues at Workshop Room 2 from 14:00 – 15:30 on 12 November, 2015. The coalition brought together panelists to highlight the challenges in developing an accountability framework for internet governance venues that include setting up standards and developing a set of concrete criteria. Jyoti Panday provided the perspective of civil society on why acountability is necessary in internet governance processes and organizations. The panelists for this workshop included the following.

Robin Gross, IP Justice
Jeanette Hofmann, Director Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Farzaneh Badiei, Internet Governance Project
Erika Mann, Managing Director Public PolicyPolicy Facebook and Board of Directors ICANN
Paul Wilson, APNIC
Izumi Okutani, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC)
Keith Drazek , Verisign
Jyoti Panday, CIS
Jorge Cancio, GAC representative

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://igf2015.sched.org/event/4c23/dynamic-coalition-on-accountability-of-internet-governance-venues?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIxyGhnch7w

VII. Digital Infrastructure Netherlands Foundation organized an open forum at Workshop Room 3 from 11:00 – 12:00 on 10 November, 2015. The open forum discussed the increase in government engagement with “the internet” to protect their citizens against crime and abuse and to protect economic interests and critical infrastructures. It brought together panelists topresent ideas about an agenda for the international protection of ‘the public core of the internet’ and to collect and discuss ideas for the formulation of norms and principles and for the identification of practical steps towards that goal. Pranesh Prakash participated in the e open forum. Other speakers included

Bastiaan Goslings AMS-IX, NL
Pranesh Prakash CIS, India
Marilia Maciel (FGV, Brasil
Dennis Broeders (NL Scientific Council for Government Policy)

Detailed description of the open forum is available here http://schd.ws/hosted_files/igf2015/3d/DINL_IGF_Open%20Forum_The_public_core_of_the_internet.pdf

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joPQaMQasDQ

VIII. UNESCO, Council of Europe, Oxford University, Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, Google, Internet Society organised a workshop on hate speech and youth radicalisation at Room 9 on Thursday, November 12. UNESCO shared the initial outcome from its commissioned research on online hate speech including practical recommendations on combating against online hate speech through understanding the challenges, mobilizing civil society, lobbying private sectors and intermediaries and educating individuals with media and information literacy. The workshop also discussed how to help empower youth to address online radicalization and extremism, and realize their aspirations to contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable world. Sunil Abraham provided his inputs. Other speakers include

1. Chaired by Ms Lidia Brito, Director for UNESCO Office in Montevideo

2.Frank La Rue, Former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression

3. Lillian Nalwoga, President ISOC Uganda and rep CIPESA, Technical community

4. Bridget O’Loughlin, CoE, IGO

5. Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19

6. Iyad Kallas, Radio Souriali

7. Sunil Abraham executive director of Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India

8. Eve Salomon, global Chairman of the Regulatory Board of RICS

9. Javier Lesaca Esquiroz, University of Navarra

10. Representative GNI

11. Remote Moderator: Xianhong Hu, UNESCO

12. Rapporteur: Guilherme Canela De Souza Godoi, UNESCO

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://igf2015.sched.org/event/4c1X/ws-128-mitigate-online-hate-speech-and-youth-radicalisation?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no

Video link to the panel is available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIO1z4EjRG0

INTERMEDIARY LIABILITY

IX. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Centre for Internet Society India, Open Net Korea and Article 19 collaborated to organize a workshop on the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability at Workshop Room 9 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 13 November 2015. The workshop elaborated on the Manila Principles, a high level principle framework of best practices and safeguards for content restriction practices and addressing liability for intermediaries for third party content. The workshop saw particpants engaged in over lapping projects considering restriction practices coming togetehr to give feedback and highlight recent developments across liability regimes. Jyoti Panday laid down the key details of the Manila Principles framework in this session. The panelists for this workshop included the following.

Kelly Kim Open Net Korea,
Jyoti Panday, CIS India,
Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19,
Rebecca McKinnon on behalf of UNESCO
Giancarlo Frosio, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School
Nicolo Zingales, Tilburg University
Will Hudson, Google

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2423-2015-11-13-ws-242-the-manila-principles-on-intermediary-liability-workshop-room-9

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFLmzxXodjs

ACCESSIBILITY

X. Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability and Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs organised a workshop on Empowering the Next Billion by Improving Accessibility at Workshop Room 6 from 9:00 am to 10:30 am on 13 November, 2015. The discussion focused on the need and ways to remove accessibility barriers which prevent over one billion potential users to benefit from the Internet, including for essential services. Sunil Abraham specifically spoke about the lack of compliance of existing ICT infrastructure with well established accessibility standards specifically relating to accessibility barriers in the disaster management process. He discussed the barriers faced by persons with physical or psychosocial disabilities. The panelists for this discussion were the following.

Francesca Cesa Bianchi, G3ICT
Cid Torquato, Government of Brazil
Carlos Lauria, Microsoft Brazil
Sunil Abraham, CIS India
Derrick L. Cogburn, Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP) for the ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Region
Fernando H. F. Botelho, F123 Consulting
Gunela Astbrink, GSA InfoComm

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2438-2015-11-13-ws-253-empowering-the-next-billion-by-improving-accessibility-workshop-room-3

Video Link Empowering the next billion by improving accessibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RZlWvJAXxs

OPENNESS

XI. A workshop on FOSS & a Free, Open Internet: Synergies for Development was organized at Workshop Room 7 from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm on 13 November, 2015. The discussion was focused on the increasing risk to openness of the internet and the ability of present & future generations to use technology to improve their lives. The panel shred different perspectives about the future co-development of FOSS and a free, open Internet; the threats that are emerging; and ways for communities to surmount these. Sunil Abraham emphasised the importance of free software, open standards, open access and access to knowledge and the lack of this mandate in the draft outcome document for upcoming WSIS+10 review and called for inclusion of the same. Pranesh Prakash further contributed to the discussion by emphasizing the need for free open source software with end‑to‑end encryption and traffic level encryption based on open standards which are decentralized and work through federated networks. The panellists for this discussion were the following.

Satish Babu, Technical Community, Chair, ISOC-TRV, Kerala, India
Judy Okite, Civil Society, FOSS Foundation for Africa
Mishi Choudhary, Private Sector, Software Freedom Law Centre, New York
Fernando Botelho, Private Sector, heads F123 Systems, Brazil
Sunil Abraham, CIS India
Pranesh Prakash, CIS India
Nnenna Nwakanma- WWW.Foundation
Yves MIEZAN EZO, Open Source strategy consultant
Corinto Meffe, Advisor to the President and Directors, SERPRO, Brazil
Frank Coelho de Alcantara, Professor, Universidade Positivo, Brazil
Caroline Burle, Institutional and International Relations, W3C Brazil Office and Center of Studies on Web Technologies

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2468-2015-11-13-ws10-foss-and-a-free-open-internet-synergies-for-development-workshop-room-7

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwUq0LTLnDs

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/summary-report-internet-governance-forum-2015

Global Congress 2015 - Invitation Letter - Visa

sumandro — 2015-11-24T06:14:39Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-2015-invitation-letter-visa

Comments on the Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly’s Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10)

geetha — 2015-11-18T06:33:13Z

Following the comment-period on the Zero Draft, the Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released on 4 November 2015. Comments were sought on the Draft Outcome Document from diverse stakeholders. The Centre for Internet & Society's response to the call for comments is below.

The WSIS+10 Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes, scheduled for December 2015, comes as a review of the WSIS process initiated in 2003-05. At the December summit of the UN General Assembly, the WSIS vision and mandate of the IGF are to be discussed. The Draft Outcome Document, released on 4 November 2015, is towards an outcome document for the summit. Comments were sought on the Draft Outcome Document. Our comments are below.

The Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly’s Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (“the current Draft”) stands considerably altered from the Zero Draft. With references to development-related challenges, the Zero Draft covered areas of growth and challenges of the WSIS. It noted the persisting digital divide, the importance of innovation and investment, and of conducive legal and regulatory environments, and the inadequacy of financial mechanisms. Issues crucial to Internet governance such as net neutrality, privacy and the mandate of the IGF found mention in the Zero Draft.
The current Draft retains these, and adds to them. Some previously-omitted issues such as surveillance, the centrality of human rights and the intricate relationship of ICTs to the Sustainable Development Goals, now stand incorporated in the current Draft. This is most commendable. However, the current Draft still lacks teeth with regard to some of these issues, and fails to address several others.
In our comments to the Zero Draft, CIS had called for these issues to be addressed. We reiterate our call in the following paragraphs.

(1) ICT for Development

In the current Draft, paragraphs 14-36 deal with ICTs for development. While the draft contains rubrics like ‘Bridging the digital divide’, ‘Enabling environment’, and ‘Financial mechanisms’, the following issues are unaddressed:
Equitable development for all;
Accessibility to ICTs for persons with disabilities;
Access to knowledge and open data.

Equitable development

In the Geneva Declaration of Principles (2003), two goals are set forth as the Declaration’s “ambitious goal”: (a) the bridging of the digital divide; and (b) equitable development for all (¶ 17). The current Draft speaks in detail about the bridging of the digital divide, but the goal of equitable development is conspicuously absent. At WSIS+10, when the WSIS vision evolves to the creation of inclusive ‘knowledge societies’, equitable development should be both a key principle and a goal to stand by.
Indeed, inequitable development underscores the persistence of the digital divide. The current Draft itself refers to several instances of inequitable development; for ex., the uneven production capabilities and deployment of ICT infrastructure and technology in developing countries, landlocked countries, small island developing states, countries under occupation or suffering natural disasters, and other vulnerable states; lack of adequate financial mechanisms in vulnerable parts of the world; variably affordable (or in many cases, unaffordable) spread of ICT devices, technology and connectivity, etc.
What underscores these challenges is the inequitable and uneven spread of ICTs across states and communities, including in their production, capacity-building, technology transfers, gender-concentrated adoption of technology, and inclusiveness.
As such, it is essential that the WSIS+10 Draft Outcome Document reaffirm our commitment to equitable development for all peoples, communities and states.
We suggest the following inclusion to paragraph 5 of the current Draft:

“5. We reaffirm our common desire and commitment to the WSIS vision to build an equitable, people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society…”

Accessibility for persons with disabilities

10. Paragraph 13 of the Geneva Declaration of Principles (2003) pledges to “pay particular attention to the special needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups of society” in the forging of an Information Society. Particularly, ¶ 13 recognises the special needs of older persons and persons with disabilities.

11. Moreover, ¶ 31 of the Geneva Declaration of Principles calls for the special needs of persons with disabilities, and also of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, to be taken into account while promoting the use of ICTs for capacity-building. Accessibility for persons with disabilities is thus core to bridging the digital divide – as important as bridging the gender divide in access to ICTs.

12. Not only this, but the WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (June 2014) also reaffirms the commitment to “provide equitable access to information and knowledge for all… including… people with disabilities”, recognizing that it is “crucial to increase the participation of vulnerable people in the building process of Information Society…” (¶8).

13. In our previous submission, CIS had suggested language drawing attention to this. Now, the current Draft only acknowledges that “particular attention should be paid to the specific ICT challenges facing… persons with disabilities…” (paragraph 11). It acknowledges also that now, accessibility for persons with disabilities constitutes one of the core elements of quality (paragraph 22). However, there is a glaring omission of a call to action, or a reaffirmation of our commitment to bridging the divide experienced by persons with disabilities.

14. We suggest, therefore, the addition of the following language the addition of paragraph 24A to the current Draft. Sections of this suggestion are drawn from ¶8, WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes.

"24A. Recalling the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities, the Geneva principles paragraph 11, 13, 14 and 15, Tunis Commitment paras 20, 22 and 24, and reaffirming the commitment to providing equitable access to information and knowledge for all, building ICT capacity for all and confidence in the use of ICTs by all, including youth, older persons, women, indigenous and nomadic peoples, people with disabilities, the unemployed, the poor, migrants, refugees and internally displaced people and remote and rural communities, it is crucial to increase the participation of vulnerable people in the building process of information Society and to make their voice heard by stakeholders and policy-makers at different levels. It can allow the most fragile groups of citizens worldwide to become an integrated part of their economies and also raise awareness of the target actors on the existing ICTs solution (such as tolls as e- participation, e-government, e-learning applications, etc.) designed to make their everyday life better. We recognise need for continued extension of access for people with disabilities and vulnerable people to ICTs, especially in developing countries and among marginalized communities, and reaffirm our commitment to promoting and ensuring accessibility for persons with disabilities. In particular, we call upon all stakeholders to honour and meet the targets set out in Target 2.5.B of the Connect 2020 Agenda that enabling environments ensuring accessible telecommunication/ICT for persons with disabilities should be established in all countries by 2020.”

Access to knowledge and open data

15. The Geneva Declaration of Principles dedicates a section to access to information and knowledge (B.3). It notes, in ¶26, that a “rich public domain” is essential to the growth of Information Society. It urges that public institutions be strengthened to ensure free and equitable access to information (¶26), and also that assistive technologies and universal design can remove barriers to access to information and knowledge (¶25). Particularly, the Geneva Declaration advocates the use of free and open source software, in addition to proprietary software, to meet these ends (¶27).

16. It was also recognized in the WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (‘Challenges-during implementation of Action Lines and new challenges that have emerged’) that there is a need to promote access to all information and knowledge, and to encourage open access to publications and information (C, ¶¶9 and 12).

17. In our previous submission, CIS had highlighted the importance of open access to knowledge thus: “…the implications of open access to data and knowledge (including open government data), and responsible collection and dissemination of data are much larger in light of the importance of ICTs in today’s world. As Para 7 of the Zero Draft indicates, ICTs are now becoming an indicator of development itself, as well as being a key facilitator for achieving other developmental goals. As Para 56 of the Zero Draft recognizes, in order to measure the impact of ICTs on the ground – undoubtedly within the mandate of WSIS – it is necessary that there be an enabling environment to collect and analyse reliable data. Efforts towards the same have already been undertaken by the United Nations in the form of ‘Data Revolution for Sustainable Development’. In this light, the Zero Draft rightly calls for enhancement of regional, national and local capacity to collect and conduct analyses of development and ICT statistics (Para 56). Achieving the central goals of the WSIS process requires that such data is collected and disseminated under open standards and open licenses, leading to creation of global open data on the ICT indicators concerned.”

18. This crucial element is missing from the current Draft of the WSIS+10 Outcome Document. Of course, the current Draft notes the importance of access to information and free flow of data. But it stops short of endorsing and advocating the importance of access to knowledge and free and open source software, which are essential to fostering competition and innovation, diversity of consumer/ user choice and ensuring universal access.

19. We suggest the following addition – of paragraph 23A to the current Draft:

"23A. We recognize the need to promote access for all to information and knowledge, open data, and open, affordable, and reliable technologies and services, while respecting individual privacy, and to encourage open access to publications and information, including scientific information and in the research sector, and particularly in developing and least developed countries.”

(2) Human Rights in Information Society

20. The current Draft recognizes that human rights have been central to the WSIS vision, and reaffirms that rights offline must be protected online as well. However, the current Draft omits to recognise the role played by corporations and intermediaries in facilitating access to and use of the Internet.

21. In our previous submission, CIS had noted that “the Internet is led largely by the private sector in the development and distribution of devices, protocols and content-platforms, corporations play a major role in facilitating – and sometimes, in restricting – human rights online”.

22. We reiterate our suggestion for the inclusion of paragraph 43A to the current Draft:

"43A. We recognize the critical role played by corporations and the private sector in facilitating human rights online. We affirm, in this regard, the responsibilities of the private sector set out in the Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, A/HRC/17/31 (21 March 2011), and encourage policies and commitments towards respect and remedies for human rights.”

(3) Internet Governance

The support for multilateral governance of the Internet

23. While the section on Internet governance is not considerably altered from the zero draft, there is a large substantive change in the current Draft. The current Draft states that the governance of the Internet should be “multilateral, transparent and democratic, with full involvement of all stakeholders” (¶50). Previously, the zero draft recognized the “the general agreement that the governance of the Internet should be open, inclusive, and transparent”.

24. A return to purely ‘multilateral’ Internet governance would be regressive. Governments are, without doubt, crucial in Internet governance. As scholarship and experience have both shown, governments have played a substantial role in shaping the Internet as it is today: whether this concerns the availability of content, spread of infrastructure, licensing and regulation, etc. However, these were and continue to remain contentious spaces.

25. As such, it is essential to recognize that a plurality of governance models serve the Internet, in which the private sector, civil society, the technical community and academia play important roles. We recommend returning to the language of the zero draft in ¶32: “open, inclusive and transparent governance of the Internet”.

Governance of Critical Internet Resources

26. It is curious that the section on Internet governance in both the zero and the current Draft makes no reference to ICANN, and in particular, to the ongoing transition of IANA stewardship and the discussions surrounding the accountability of ICANN and the IANA operator. The stewardship of critical Internet resources, such as the root, is crucial to the evolution and functioning of the Internet. Today, ICANN and a few other institutions have a monopoly over the management and policy-formulation of several critical Internet resources.

27. While the WSIS in 2003-05 considered this a troubling issue, this focus seems to have shifted entirely. Open, inclusive, transparent and global Internet are misnomer-principles when ICANN – and in effect, the United States – continues to have monopoly over critical Internet resources. The allocation and administration of these resources should be decentralized and distributed, and should not be within the disproportionate control of any one jurisdiction.

28. Therefore, we reiterate our suggestion to add paragraph 53A after Para 53:

"53A. We affirm that the allocation, administration and policy involving critical Internet resources must be inclusive and decentralized, and call upon all stakeholders and in particular, states and organizations responsible for essential tasks associated with the Internet, to take immediate measures to create an environment that facilitates this development.”

Inclusiveness and Diversity in Internet Governance

29. The current Draft, in ¶52, recognizes that there is a need to “promote greater participation and engagement in Internet governance of all stakeholders…”, and calls for “stable, transparent and voluntary funding mechanisms to this end.” This is most commendable.

30. The issue of inclusiveness and diversity in Internet governance is crucial: today, Internet governance organisations and platforms suffer from a lack of inclusiveness and diversity, extending across representation, participation and operations of these organisations. As CIS submitted previously, the mention of inclusiveness and diversity becomes tokenism or formal (but not operational) principle in many cases.

31. As we submitted before, the developing world is pitifully represented in standards organisations and in ICANN, and policy discussions in organisations like ISOC occur largely in cities like Geneva and New York. For ex., 307 out of 672 registries listed in ICANN’s registry directory are based in the United States, while 624 of the 1010 ICANN-accredited registrars are US-based.

32. Not only this, but 80% of the responses received by ICANN during the ICG’s call for proposals were male. A truly global and open, inclusive and transparent governance of the Internet must not be so skewed. Representation must include not only those from developing countries, but must also extend across gender and communities.

33. We propose, therefore, the addition of a paragraph 51A after Para 51:

"51A. We draw attention to the challenges surrounding diversity and inclusiveness in organisations involved in Internet governance, including in their representation, participation and operations. We note with concern that the representation of developing countries, of women, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups, is far from equitable and adequate. We call upon organisations involved in Internet governance to take immediate measures to ensure diversity and inclusiveness in a substantive manner.”

Prepared by Geetha Hariharan, with inputs from Sunil Abraham and Japreet Grewal. All comments submitted towards the Draft Outcome Document may be found at this link.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-draft-outcome-document-of-the-un-general-assembly2019s-overall-review-of-the-implementation-of-wsis-outcomes-wsis-10

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT Roorkee

Karan Tripathi and Nehaa Chaudhari — 2015-11-21T07:26:45Z

This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in IIT Roorkee.

Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs, analysed, reviewed and edited this blog post.

The author has analysed all the data received under various heads such as income, grants from MHRD, planned and non planned expenditure, nature and frequency of programmes organised and the allocation of funds for the same. Throughout the course of observation and presentation of the analysed data, the author seeks to trace the presence of unjustified underutilisation of funds by the aforementioned university as provided by the MHRD during the period of 2003-2014.

To collect the information for the given study, an RTI application was filed to the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee on 6/02/2015 by the Centre for Internet and Society. The reply to RTI application was received on 16/02/2015.

These are the documents received by CIS from IIT Roorkee:

For RTI Response click here (IIT Roorkee -Receipt of RTI- 20.4.15)
For complete supporting documents click here (IIT Roorkee – Response and Report)

Hereinafter, in order to receive any information about IIT Roorkee’s RTI reply, kindly refer to the above mentioned links.

Following are the queries mentioned in the RTI application along with their replies.

Reports on the implementation of the IPERPO scheme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the implementation of the MHRD IPR Chair funded under the scheme at IIT Roorkee from 2003-20014
Reply: The University documented the minutes of the Departmental Faculty Committee Meeting where proposals for forming Departmental Administrative Committee, syllabus for new institute electives, duties of Departmental Research Committee, forming Institute Time Table Committee, conversion of existing LR1 computer lab and teaching scheme of autumn semester 2013 were deliberated upon. The University also organised various events such as Training of Trainers programme and International Conclave on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Documents indicating the date on which such an IPR Chair was set up at your institution and a copy of the application made by IIT Roorkee to the MHRD for instituting such an IPR Chair and documents received by IIT Roorkee from the MHRD approving the same
Reply: According to the Office Memorandum (dated 04 May 2012) of IIT Roorkee, Dr P.K. Ghosh had been appointed on the position of Professional Chair on IPERPO with effect from April 27 2012. A suitable financial grant of Rs. 208.02 lakhs was demanded for a period of five years.
Documents detailing the release of grants to the MHRD IPR Chairs under the IPERPO Scheme
Reply: As it appears from the reply filed by IIT Roorkee to the RTI filed by the CIS, Rs. 30,00,000.00 of the Grant in aid was sanctioned to the University by the MHRD during the financial year 2010-2011 and nil amount was utilized for the purpose of it. At the end of the year, the balance sum of Rs. 30,27,041 (including the interest) was surrendered to the Government.
Documents relating to receipts of utilisation certificates and audited expenditure statements and matters related to all financial sanctions with regard to funds granted to the MHRD IPR Chair established under the IPERPO scheme at IIT Roorkee
Reply: IIT Roorkee has replied with a series of Statement of Expenditure ranging from 2010-2014 that explains its rate of expenditure and amount of interest accumulated and surrendered to the Government along with the unutilized amount. In the financial year 2011-2012 the unutilized expenditure was 3,105,159.00 which came down to 11,74, 026.00 in 2012-2013 due to which a grant of Rs. 24,00,000.00 was extended to the University by MHRD for the financial year 2013-2014.
Documents regarding all matters pertaining to finance and budget related the MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPOs scheme established at IIT Roorkee
Reply: CIS did not receive any sort of clarity on matters pertaining to finance and budget related to MHRD IPR Chair under the IPERPO scheme as the response for this question was coupled with the previous question on utilization certificates.
Details of the IPR Chair’s salary under the IPERPO Scheme indicating whether this amount is paid over and above the professional’s usual salary
Reply: According to the RTI reply, the position of Chair Professor is awarded for a period of three years or upto 68 years of age, whichever is earlier. The pay of Chair Professor is fixed as per the rules and guidelines of Professional Chair in the institute.

2.0 Comparative Analysis between University Response and the guidelines of MHRD Scheme Document

The Scheme Document of MHRD is a comprehensive document which consists of guidelines regarding Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach. It talks about a list of objectives, purposes, conditions and eligibility criteria for a University to ensure in order to implement IPERPO in a truest sense. This document provides the procedural as well as qualifying conditions for an Institute to ensure or fulfil before applying for the MHRD grant. Some of these conditions include maintenance of utilization certificates, audit reports, expenditure statements and event information which would be open to access on demand by MDHR or Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

A. Objectives:

As it appears from the reply statement of IIT Roorkee, each and every event organised after the establishment of IPR Chair in 2012, where the funds from the grant have been utilized, is done to promote the scholarly as well as academic interests in the field of Intellectual Property. Even before applying for the MHRD grant, the University has organised many National Seminars and has started various short term courses in order to encourage research and excellence in Intellectual Property. This fact completely resonates with the core objective of MHRD scheme document, i.e. strengthening the academic and research discourses in the field of Intellectual Property.

B. Eligibility:
IIT Roorkee is recognized by the University Grants Commission. Therefore, it fulfils the eligibility criteria mentioned in the scheme document.

C. Conditions for Grant of Assistance
There are several conditions laid down in the scheme document which need to be fulfilled by the concerned University in order to successfully receive the grant. The underlying condition is the dissemination and development in the field of Intellectual Property Rights.

According to the documents available with CIS, IIT Roorkee has organised at least 27 events in the field of IPR ranging from introduction of new electives, National Workshops and Symposiums, Expert Lectures, Infrastructure Development, Online portals for IP Administration and awareness and infrastructure development.

3.0 Financial Analysis of IIT Roorkee’s IPR Grant

According to the RTI reply, the IPR Chair at IIT Roorkee was established in the forenoon of 27th April 2012 with Dr P.K. Ghosh as its Chairman. Dr Ghosh was promised an Honorarium payment of Rs. 30,000 per month and a Contingency payment of Rs. 20,000 per month.

3.1 Financial Year 2010-2011

In this financial year, the IPR Chair was not established at IIT Roorkee. The total grant received by the University was Rs. 30, 00,000.00 out of which Rs.0 was utilized for the purpose of it was sanctioned.

At the end of the financial year, the remaining amount of Rs. 30,00,000, (due to Nil utilisation) along with the interest of Rs. 27041 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year.

3.2 Financial Year 2011-2012

The IPR Chair was still not established at the University. The opening balance was the amount carried forward from the previous year (30,27,041) upon which interest of Rs. 1,17,117 was received making the total receipt to be 31,144,158. Out of this, a total of Rs. 38,999 was utilised for travelling and miscellaneous expenditure. At the end of the year, the remaining of amount of Rs. 3,105,159 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grant-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2012-2013. As per the documents available with CIS, the statement of expenditure for this financial year has not been submitted by the university.

3.3 Financial Year 2012-2013

In this financial year the IPR Chair was established with Dr. P.K. Ghosh as its Chairman. The Opening balance was the amount carried forward from the previous financial year (31,05,159) upon which an interest income of Rs.1,25,376 was received along with a refund of advance amounting to Rs. 42,968. Out of the total receipt of Rs. 32,73,503 the total expenditure of the University on the current financial year was Rs. 20,99,477. The remaining amount of Rs. 11,74,026 was either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2013-2014.

3.4 Financial Year 2013-2014

In this financial year, the University received a grant of Rs. 24,00,000 from the government along with the amount carried forward from the previous financial year (Rs.11,74,026) upon which an interest income of Rs. 55,892 was received. Out of this, a sum of Rs. 24,01,045 was utilised as contingency expenditure. The remaining amount of Rs. 12,28,873 has been either surrendered to the government or adjusted towards the grants-in-aid payable during the next financial year 2014-2015.

In this financial year, the expenditure on library (5,00,979) is the only sum which exceeded the sanctioned amount (5,00,000). Moreover, there has been no expenditure on Outreach Program and Clinics. The honorarium payment to the IPR Chair Professor is similar to the sanctioned amount (3,60,000) but there’s a difference in his contingent payment (1,39,645 instead of 2,40,000). The total amount of expenditure in this financial year is Rs. 24,01,045.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-information-received-from-iit-roorkee