Centre for Internet and Society

Cyber-Security Mapping

pranav — 2018-12-10T10:10:07Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cyber-security-mapping

Workshop on Cyber Security Illustrations

pranav — 2018-12-10T06:08:59Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/workshop-on-cyber-security-illustrations

Report: From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy

Admin — 2018-12-05T02:48:31Z

Eva Blum-Dumontet, Research Officer at Privacy International, published her report on gender and privacy on November 28, 2018. The report, titled 'From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy', traces the history of privacy as a tool of oppressing women across different spheres, eventually calling for a feminist reclamation of privacy. Ambika Tandon was quoted.

Whose privacy are we fighting for when we say we defend the right to privacy? In this report we take a hard look at the right to privacy and its reality for women, trans and gender diverse people. We highlight how historically privacy has been appropriated by patriarchal rule and systems of oppression to keep women, trans and gender diverse people in the private sphere.

For us, this report is also an opportunity to show how surveillance and data exploitation are also uniquely affecting women, trans and gender diverse people. We demonstrate how patriarchy and systems of oppression rely on surveillance to perpetuate themselves and how surveillance and data exploitation need the rigid and gender-normative categories of patriarchy to function. We conclude by presenting how protecting the right to privacy can address some of these challenges.

We hope this report will be read as a call for action: privacy needs to be reclaimed by women, trans and gender diverse people.

Download the report

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/report-from-oppression-to-liberation-reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy

From Opression to Liberation

Admin — 2018-12-05T02:45:04Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/from-opression-to-liberation

International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2018

Admin — 2018-12-04T15:46:02Z

The event was co-organized by Feminist Approaches to Bioethics and Sama - A Resource Centre for Women and Health and was held at St. John's Medical College in Bangalore between December 3 and 5, 2018.

Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event as speakers. Aayush presented a paper 'Sexual Surveillance and Data Regimes: Development in the Data Economy' co-authored by himself and Ambika.

Download the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/international-network-on-feminist-approaches-to-bioethics-2018

FAB Congress

Admin — 2018-12-04T15:45:22Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/fab-congress

Regulating the Internet

gurshabad — 2018-12-20T00:29:06Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/regulating-the-internet

November 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-12-19T02:41:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of November.

Highlights

CIS has published a statement on its website in response to the serious allegations against CIS members and the CIS workplace on social media. CIS has taken note of the concern raised on a social platform, and its Internal Committee (IC), constituted as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, has taken some critical steps. CIS has engaged POSH at Work to review the case and make recommendations to the Executive Director of CIS.
Anubha Sinha attended the 37th meeting of WIPO SCCR held in Geneva in the month of November 2018. During the week she made two statements on behalf of CIS and participated in a panel discussion and a closed door meeting to brief government delegates from the Asia pacific region on the WIPO limitations and exceptions agenda. CIS made statements on limitations and exceptions and the proposed treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations. Transcript of her talk can be accessed here.
A memorandum outlining India's strategy to global cyber norms formulation processes authored by Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu and edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad. The memorandum seeks to summarise the state of the global debate in cyberspace; outline how India can craft it’s global strategic vision and finally, provides a set of recommendations for the Ministry of External Affairs as they craft their cyber diplomacy strategy.
The institution of open standards is as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet while facilitating its growth as a network of networks. As a nation digitising rapidly and facing concerns in cybersecurity and Internet governance, there is a need for the Government of India to meaningfully participate at standards development organisations to represent the interests of the Indian populace and become a voice for the global South. Authors Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham examine this in a policy brief.
The Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Convention”) is the first and one of the most important multilateral treaties addressing the issue of internet and computer crimes. Vipul Kharbanda has analyzed this in his research paper titled Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act.
Amber Sinha was one of the stakeholders who provided inputs to the Danish Expert Group on Data Ethics in June 2018 during their visit to New Delhi. The Expert Group has prepared and submitted its final report.
For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), CIS invited sessions that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*. The list of proposed sessions are finalized and posted on this page.

Articles

Lessons from US response to cyber attacks (Arindrajit Basu; edited by Elonnai Hickok; Hindu Businessline; October 30, 2018). Mirrored on CIS website on November 1.
Digital Native: One Selfie Does a Tragedy Make (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 11, 2018).

CIS in the Media

Open Street Maps help tackle disasters: Experts (Deccan Chronicle; November 21, 2018).
Are connected tech toys too smart for their own good? (Abhijit Ahaskar; Livemint; November 22, 2018).
Girls' schools, women's PGs: The shocking results when you Google 'bitches near me' (News Minute; November 26, 2018).
Amazon launches Machine Learning-based platform for healthcare space (Kul Bhushan; Hindustan Times; November 28, 2018).
Report: From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy (Privacy International; November 28, 2018).
Are Chinese video apps violating the Indian law? (Nilesh Christopher; Economic Times; November 30, 2018).

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

►Copyright and Patent

Blog Entries

37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).
37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Agenda on Limitations and Exceptions (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).
Views on on the proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at side-event organised by Knowledge Ecology International (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).

►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 Entry

Aditya 365 (Pavan Santhosh; November 7, 2018).

►Openness

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

Lecture on Open Access and Open Content Licensing at ICAR (short course) (ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research; Bangalore; November 13 - 22, 2018). Anubha Sinha delivered a lecture.

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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 IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Cyber Security

Research Papers

Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act (Vipul Kharbanda; November 20, 2018).
Cyberspace and External Affairs:A Memorandum for India Summary (Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad; November 30, 2018).
Regulating the Internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF (Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham; November 30, 2018).

Event Co-organized

Workshop on Cybersecurity Illustrations (CIS, Bangalore; November 15, 2018).

Participation in Events

Connections 2018 (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangalore; October 31 - November 1, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.
IETF103 (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangkok; November 3 - 9, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.

►Free Speech and Expression

Research Paper

ICANN Workstream 2 Recommendations on Accountability (Akriti Bopanna; November 23, 2018).

Blog Entry

DIDP #32 On ICANN's Fellowship Program (Akriti Bopanna; November 12, 2018).

Participation in Event

Internet Freedom at Crossroads - Common Paths towards Strengthening Human Rights Online (Organized by Freedom Online; Berlin; November 28 - 30, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Clarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report (Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali; November 5, 2018).

Participation in Events

Building a Community of Practice: Reflections from 2nd All Partners (Organized by Partnership on AI; San Francisco, California; November 14 - 15, 2018). Elonnai Hickok spoke on the panel on the PAI working groups and co-lead the AI Labor and Economy working group meeting as co-chair of the group.
Briefing on BBC News pan-India research on how 'fake news' / digital misinformation spreads (Organized by BBC; New Delhi; November 16, 2018).
DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet (Organized by Data Security Council of India; 10K NASSCOM Startup Warehouse; Bangalore; November 22, 2018). Gurshabad Grover and Karan Saini attended the DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet.
Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse (Organized by Centre for Policy Research and supported by Omidyar Network; New Delhi; November 29, 2018). Amber Sinha was a speaker on the first panel on privacy and its tradeoffs.
Facebook Privacy Design Sprint (Organized by Facebook and Quicksand; WeWork, Bangalore; November 30, 2018). Pranav Bidare and Saumyaa Naidu participated in the event.

►Miscellaneous

Event Co-organized

SOTM Asia 2018 (Co-organized by CIS and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; November 17-18, 2018). Saumyaa Naidu, Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event.

Participation in Events

Speculative Futures Lab on Artificial Intelligence in Media, Entertainment, and Gaming (Organized by Quicksand; Bangalore; November 16 - 18, 2018). Pranav Bidare was a panelist.
Future Tech and Future Law (Organized by Dept. of IT & BT, Government of Karnataka as part of Bengaluru Tech Summit; November 29 - December 1, 2018). Aayush Rathi was a speaker.

►Gender

Statement

Statement on Serious Allegations against CIS Members and the CIS Workplace on Social Media (Sunil Abraham; November 24, 2018).

Participation in Events

Roundtable on Intermediary Liability and Gender Based Violence at the Digital Citizen Summit, 2018 (Organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation; India International Centre, New Delhi; November 1, 2018).
International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2018 (Co-organized by Feminist Approaches to Bioethics and Sama - A Resource Centre for Women and Health; St. John's Medical College; Bangalore; December 3 - 5, 2018). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event as speakers. Aayush presented a paper 'Sexual Surveillance and Data Regimes: Development in the Data Economy' co-authored by himself and Ambika.

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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:

Article

A great start on Wi-Fi reforms (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 1, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; November 1, 2018).

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

IRC19

List of proposed sessions:

#AyushmanBhavah - Arya Lakshmi and Adrij Chakraborty
#ButItIsNotFunny - Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo
#CallingOutAndIn - Usha Raman, Radhika Gajjala, Riddhima Sharma, Tarishi Varma, Pallavi Guha, Sai Amulya Komarraju, and Sugandha Sehgal
#DigitalPlatformAttributes - Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar
#EnlistingPrivacy - Pawan Singh and Pranjal Jain
#FOMO - Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti
#LegitLists - Form follows function: List by design - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha
#ListInterface - Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince
#ListsAsDatabase - Ria De and Samata Biswas
#LoSHAandWhatFollowed - Anannya Chatterjee, Arunima Singh, Bhanu Priya Gupta, Renu Singh, and Rhea Bose
#PowerListing - Dr. Shubhda Arora, Dr. Smitana Saikia, Prof. Nidhi Kalra, and Prof. Ravikant Kisana
#SocialMediationAsGenderedJustice - Esther Anne Victoria Moraes and Manasa Priya Vasudevan
#StoriesRecordsLegendsRituals - Priyanka, Aditya, Bhanu Prakash GS, Aishwarya, and Dinesh

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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 disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration

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

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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2018-newsletter

Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse

Admin — 2018-12-01T05:40:31Z

Centre for Policy Research supported by Omidyar Network organized this event in New Delhi on November 29, 2018. Amber Sinha was a speaker on the first panel on privacy and its tradeoffs.

Concept Note

The last few years have seen a formalisation of the right to informational privacy within India’s constitutional framework. While the context to this – the challenge to the validity of the Aadhaar project – has entailed broader issues on delivery of public goods and services, the response to whether an individual can assert control over key informational aspects of her life has become a critical part of our rights jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court verdict in Justice Puttaswamy’s case (2017) unequivocally affirmed this right despite leaving open several important aspects including the permissibility of restrictions on this right, and the level of scrutiny which the judiciary could exercise to safeguard them. What was particularly striking was the judicial reliance on considerable scholarship emerging from India and Indian scholars on important themes pertaining to this right: the differing conceptions of privacy and the role for each of them within India’s constitutional framework; the impact of privacy erosion on citizen-State relationship and private transactions in the commercial realm; surveillance tools and technologies in India; the need for an indigenous data protection law, and much more. The court has picked up on this thread in the second Puttaswamy verdict upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhaar with some important caveats and exceptions.

Recently, the Expert Committee headed by retired Justice Srikrishna also convened to come out with a draft personal data protection bill. The centrality of data to both commercial activity and governance purposes has found recognition in this bill. While the present legal regime to regulate data in India can be considered chequered at best with divergent regulations across finance, healthcare, telecom, mobility etc., the new bill aims to create a “big data-ready” framework. It impacts any private enterprise handling personal data by stipulating new internal procedures and strong penalties. The major themes in the bill are new user rights for data principals (individuals) who share their data with data fiduciaries (technology companies); data localisation and crossborder data flows; data protection authority (DPA) and its powers; data fiduciaries and new compliance requirements; and exceptions including law enforcement. Each of these carries major implications for data-driven solutions.

During the deliberations of the Committee too, substantial Indian scholarship on the themes listed above have been referenced and relied upon. This is truly a breakout moment for privacy and data protection in India. It is changing the terrain of institutional responses to personal data, technology architectures, and digital trade.

Discussion Objectives and Format

With the above background, the Centre for Policy Research conducted a closed-door, invite only discussion on November 29, 2018 on the theme Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse. This discussion sought to engage with representatives from embassies, chambers of commerce and research funding organisations located in India. It took place from 10.00 to 13.00 hours at the Taj Vivanta Ambassador, Sujan Singh Park off Subramaniam Bharti Marg, New Delhi 110003.

The core objectives driving this workshop were to:

Highlight informational privacy debates in India;
Locate informational privacy within India’s constitutional setting, closely re-examining the Supreme Court verdicts in this regard;
Explore themes such as the notice-and-consent framework, regulatory interventions and structural changes, and other key themes on privacy and data protection in India;
Demystify concepts introduced to strengthen personal data protection, including actor and data categories, and new user rights, and their potential impact on technology design;
Highlight the ramifications of data localization and cross-border data transfer restrictions, on digital trade and e-commerce;
Decode the new structural mechanisms proposed to mitigate risks in collection, storage, and processing of personal data;
Identify the impact of these mechanisms on the functioning of data-driven businesses and the future of data innovation in India.

Click to view the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/informational-privacy-in-india-an-emerging-discourse

Regulating the Internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF

Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham — 2019-01-22T07:29:39Z

The institution of open standards has been described as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet. Given the regulatory and domestic policy implications that technical standards can have, there is a need for Indian governmental agencies to focus adequate resources geared towards achieving favourable outcomes at standards development fora.

This brief was authored by Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham. Click here to download the policy brief.

Executive Summary

The institution of open standards has been described as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet. As the Internet has moved to facilitate commerce and communication, governments and corporations find greater incentives to participate and influence the decisions of independent standards development organisations.

While most such bodies have attempted to systematise fair and transparent processes, this brief highlights how they may still be susceptible to compromise. Documented instances of large private companies like Microsoft, and governmental instrumentalities like the US National Security Agency (NSA) exerting disproportionate influence over certain technical standards further the case for increased Indian participation.

The debate around Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) forms an important case for studying how a standards body responded to political developments, and how the Government of India participated in the ensuing discussions. Lasting four years, the debate ended in favour of greater communications security. One of the security improvements in TLS 1.3 over its predecessor is that is makes less information available to networking middleboxes. Considering that Indian intelligence agencies and government departments have expressed fears of foreign-manufactured networking equipment being used by foreign intelligence to eavesdrop on Indian networks, the development is potentially favourable for the security of Indian communication in general, and the security of military and intelligence systems in particular. India has historically procured most networking equipment from foreign manufacturers. While there have been calls for indigenised production of such equipment, achieving these objectives will necessarily be a gradual process. Participating in technical standards can, then, be an effective interim method for intelligence agencies, defence wings and law enforcement for establishing trust in critical networking infrastructure sourced from foreign enterprises.

Outlining some of the existing measures the Indian government has put in place to build capacity for and participate in standard setting, this brief highlights that while these are useful starting points, they need to be harmonised and strengthened to be more fruitful. Given the regulatory and domestic policy implications that technical standards can have, there is a need for Indian governmental agencies to focus adequate resources geared towards achieving favourable outcomes at standards development fora.

Click here to download the policy brief.

Note: The recommendations in the brief were updated on 17 December 2018 to reflect the relevance of technical standard-setting in the recent discussions around Indian intelligence concerns about foreign-manufactured networking equipment.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulating-the-internet-the-government-of-india-standards-development-at-the-ietf

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #ListsAsDatabase

sumandro — 2018-11-26T13:20:14Z

Details of a session proposed by Ria De and Samata Biswas for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

The internet-based List of Sexual Harassers in Academia (LoSHA), initiated by Dalit feminist and lawyer activist Raya Sarkar in 2017 anonymously crowd-sourced names of academics and activists who were accused of harassing women colleagues and students. While a large number of women in the academia rallied in support of the list and its motivations, it also unleashed anxieties about how the list was put together, and the kind of impact it was feared to have. Variously, it has been equated to Khap Panchayats, vigilantism, mob lynchings etc. Last month, the government of India launched an online National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO), which will contain the details—names, photographs, residential address, fingerprints, DNA samples, PAN and Aadhar numbers—of individuals convicted on charges of sexual offences against women and children. An associated portal, the Cyber Crime Prevention Against Women and Children (CCPWC) was also launched where citizens can enter complaints against child pornography and other sexually explicit material. Both are modes of digital enlisting through the use of new media technologies, one that is open access and therefore available for modification, co-option and critique, while the other is to be accessible only to law personnel. This two-member panel locates the list in the context of ongoing debates about the conversion of social justice and rights issues in to data repositories. We take in to account the debates on the Right to be Forgotten or the right to delist from the internet, as a specific concern raised in the Personal Data Protection Bill 2018 submitted by the Justice B.N. Krishna Committee. The Bill recognises data principals (or the individuals to whom personal data belongs) as a central component of the legal framework, and subjects data fiduciaries (or agencies seeking to collect, use and process personal data) to the free, informed and explicit consent of the data principals. Right to be Forgotten has clearly emerged as a logical extension of the demands for one’s Right to Privacy. Given that a number of logics, that of ‘naming and shaming’ of offenders, a digital list (database) as a means of communication, dissemination of information and surveillance etc. underscore both the #LoSHA and the NDSO, how do we navigate the messy terrain of human rights concerns about the freedom of speech and expression on the one hand, and the rights to privacy on the other hand? We also think about this vis-a-vis the larger issues related to the data economy and those of data ownership. We refer to studies on state-generated data on crime in India and elsewhere to understand how such data artefacts can be monopolised and processed by private and non-governmental agencies, and how they co-opt contemporary feminist politics and articulations?

We, Samata Biswas and Ria De, will present a collaborative study, organised across two 30 minute long papers, plus a 15 minute discussion time for each totalling to the mandated 90 minute session. The first paper will study the form and scope of the list as a digital artefact through a detailed analysis of the #LoSHA and the NDSO. The second paper will configure the two lists in terms of their status within the data economy.

Session Team

Ria De is pursuing her PhD in Film Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Her doctoral research was about stardom and intermediality. She is interested in popular culture, network and media studies and gender. Currently, she is interested in the women’s movements in the Indian film industries.

Samata Biswas teaches English Literature at Bethune College, Kolkata, India. Her doctoral research was about body cultures in contemporary India, analysing fitness, weight loss, and diet discourses as present in popular media as well as through narratives of participants. She is interested in visual culture, gender studies, and literature and migration. At present, she is trying to map Kolkata as a sanitary city, focusing on access to clean sanitation or the lack thereof. She runs the blog ‘Refugee Watch Online’. Her latest publication is on “Haldia: Logistics and Its Other(s)” in Brett Neilson, Ned Rossiter, Ranabir Samaddar (Edited) Logistical Asia: The Labour of Making a World Region. (Palgrave Mcmillan, 2018)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listsasdatabase

Workshop on Cybersecurity Illustrations

Admin — 2018-11-13T14:34:17Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/workshop-on-cybersecurity-illustrations.pdf

October 2018 Newsletter

Admin — 2018-11-15T02:44:58Z

Highlights

Published an article titled "Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study" in International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities. The authors of the article were Hindi faculty members of Christ University. Ananth Subray from Centre for Internet & Society provided research assistance.
Ananth Subray wrote an article "History of Wikipedia Education programme at Christ University" which has given an insight of Christ Wikipedia Education Program, how students are involved in different capacities in the program and shares the best practices of the Education Program.
CIS-A2K has collaborated with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI) to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation. These contents will become a part of "Van Bodh Knowledge repository".
Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu co-authored a research paper that was published as part of the Briefings from the Research and Advisory Group (RAG) of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) for the Full Commission Meeting held at Bratislava in 2018.
Arindrajit Basu in an article published by Oxford Human Rights Hub has argued that artificial Intelligence offers the potential to augment many existing bureaucratic processes and improve human capacity, if implemented in accordance with principles of the rule of law and international human rights norms.
Agnidipto Tarafder and Arindrajit Basu in an article published in Socio-Legal Review has traced the journey of the recent 377 (Navtej Johar v Union of India) and assessed its societal implications.
CIS invites applications for *three Research Fellow positions* to undertake field studies of platform-work in two cities, including Bangalore and another city (to be decided). The project seeks to produce a comparative understanding of at least two different kinds of platform-work as unfolding across Indian cities. Each fellow will be responsible for one field study (one form of work in one city) based on their language fluency and research experience.

Articles

377 Bites the Dust: Unpacking the long and winding road to the judicial decriminalization of homosexuality in India (Agnidipto Tarafder and Arindrajit Basu; Socio Legal Review; October 11, 2018).
Digital Native: Time to Walk the Talk (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; October 14, 2018).
Why Data Localisation Might Lead To Unchecked Surveillance (Pranesh Prakash; Bloomberg Quint; October 15, 2018).
Discrimination in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Arindrajit Basu; Oxford Human Rights Hub; October 23, 2018).
Digital Native: Hashtag Fatigue (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; October 28, 2018).
Lessons from US response to cyber attacks (Arindrajit Basu; Hindu Businessline; October 30, 2018). The article was edited by Elonnai Hickok.

Media Coverage

Gmail users beware while giving access (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; October 4, 2018).
Are online shows obscene? (Anila Kurian; Deccan Herald; October 10, 2018).
Internet services not to be affected as DNS servers undergo update (Hindustan Times; October 12, 2018).
Spending too much time on social media? Tech abuse may lead to mental health issues (Divya Shekhar; Economic Times; October 13, 2018).
Sales of surveillance cameras are soaring, raising questions about privacy (Rahul Sachitanand; Economic Times; October 14, 2018).
Not Surprised by Indian govt's data localisation directives: Michael Dell (Anand J.; VC Circle; October 17, 2018).
Factcheck: No, phones of users who provided only Aadhaar as proof of identity won’t be disconnected (Kanishk Karan; Scroll.in; October 18, 2018).
Rural Indians don’t trust messages on WhatsApp blindly: Survey (Vidhi Choudhary; Hindustan Times; October 19, 2018).
Brazil’s experience a red flag for WhatsApp in Indian polls, say experts (Vidhi Choudhary; Hindustan Times; October 21, 2018).
Reliance-Jio Users Complain Of Porn Websites Being Blocked; Company Yet To Issue Official Statement (Logical Indian; October 27, 2018).

►Wikipedia

Peer Reviewed Article

Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study (Dr. George Joseph,Dr. Sebastian K.A, and Kavitha A with research assistance from Ananth Subray; International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, Volume 6, Issue 8, August 2018).
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Blog Entries

History of Wikipedia Education programme at Christ (Deemed to be University) (Ananth Subray; Wikimedia Blog; October 29, 2018).

Event Organized

Van Bodh Workshop for content development on Forest Resources at Gadchiroli (Co-organized by TRTI and CIS-A2K; Gadchiroli; October 2 - 5, 2018).

Participation in Event

Community Toolkit for Greater Diversity (Organized by Wikipedia Community; Mandrem, Goa; October 5 - 7, 2018). P.P. Sneha participated in the event.

►Copyright and Patent

Media Coverage

5th Global Congress On IP And The Public Interest: Successes, Strategies Highlighted (David Branigan; Intellectual Property Watch; October 3, 2018).

Participation in Events

KEI Seminar on "Appraising the WIPO Broadcast Treaty and its Implications on Access to Culture" (Organized by KEI; Geneva; October 3 - 4, 2018). Anubha Sinha spoke on the panel titled "Rationale, Beneficiaries and Scope (of the Treaty)".
Stakeholders Consultation on draft WIPO Treaty to Protect Broadcasting Organization (Organized by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India; Copyright Office, New Delhi; October 23, 2018). Anubha Sinha participated in the meeting.

►Openness

Participation in Event

Panel Discussion on Equitable Access to Knowledge (Organized by DST Centre for Policy Research (IISc); Bangalore; October 23, 2018). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist and moderator at the event.

Media Coverage

Sting job by Hyderabad scientist exposes fake journals (Business Standard; October 11, 2018).

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Internet Governance
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►Privacy

Participation in Events

Confidentiality of Communications and Privacy of Data in the Digital Age (Organized by INCLO and Privacy International; Human Rights Council 39th ordinary session; September 25, 2018). Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.
Meetings of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 'IT Security techniques' (Organized by Standards Norway with support from NTNU, Microsoft, Telenor, et.al.; Gjøvik, Norway; September 30 - October 4, 2018). Gurshabad Grover participated in the meetings.
State of Work in India (Organized by Bangalore International Centre, TERI and Azim Premji University; Bangalore; October 3, 2018).
Technology Foresight Group Tandem Research's AI policy lab on the theme AI and Environment (Organized by Tandem Research; Goa; October 5, 2018). Shweta Mohandas attended a roundtable discussion on artificial intelligence and environment.
Indian Feminist Judgment Project Workshop (Organized by Jindal Industries; New Delhi; October 6 - 7, 2018). Swaraj Paul Barooah participated in the discussions.
Community Standards Roundtable Conversations (Organized by Facebook, School of Media & Cultural Studies, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Bangalore; October 7, 2018). Ambika Tandon participated in the roundtable discussions.
Surveillance Stories: Optimizing rights and governance (Organized by National Centre for Biological Sciences; Bangalore; October 16, 2018). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.
Debating Ethics: Dignity and Respect in Data Driven Life (Organized by International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners; Brussels; October 24 - 25, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker in the panel "Move Slower and Fix Things".

►Cyber Security

Research Paper

Conceptualizing an International Security Regime for Cyberspace (Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu; October 26, 2018).

Event Organized

Roundtable on Cyber-security and the Private Sector (Omidyar Network Office; Bangalore; October 17, 2018).

Participation in Event

CyFy 2018 (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; New Delhi; October 3 - 5, 2018).

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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:

Article

Policies & the Public Interest (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; October 4, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; October 4, 2018).

Job

Call for Research Fellows - Field Studies of Platform-Work: The Research Fellows will be associated with CIS from December 2018 to June 2019, undertake fieldwork, participate in two research workshops, and prepare an Ethnographic Report based on the fieldwork.

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Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
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E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2018-newsletter

Surveillance Stories: Optimizing rights and governance

Admin — 2018-10-31T01:39:56Z

Sunil Abraham gave a talk at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore on October 16, 2018. Sunil used a series of stories to explain how surveillance works and fails in the context of theft, murder, insider trading, terrorism, demonetization and encounter killings.

These stories were used to explore multiple technical solutions for solving the “surveillance optimization problem”. Policy makers have to simultaneously maximize various rights — the right to privacy, the right to transparency, the right to free speech — and uphold the imperatives of the nation state: national security, law enforcement and effective governance.

Two decades ago, Lawrence Lessig introduced a socioeconomic theory of regulation called the ‘pathetic dot theory’, which discusses how individuals in a society are regulated by four forces — law, code or technical infrastructure, market and social norms. The talk will explore how these four regulatory options contribute to solving the surveillance optimization problem.

This was published on the website of National Centre for Biological Sciences

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/surveillance-stories-optimizing-rights-and-governance

Discrimination in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Arindrajit Basu — 2018-10-26T14:47:57Z

The dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been celebrated by both government and industry across the globe. AI offers the potential to augment many existing bureaucratic processes and improve human capacity, if implemented in accordance with principles of the rule of law and international human rights norms. Unfortunately, AI-powered solutions have often been implemented in ways that have resulted in the automation, rather than mitigation, of existing societal inequalities.

This was originally published by Oxford Human Rights Hub on October 23, 2018

Image Credit: Sarla Catt via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

In the international human rights law context, AI solutions pose a threat to norms which prohibit discrimination. International Human Rights Law recognizes that discrimination may take place in two possible ways, directly or indirectly. Direct discrimination occurs when an individual is treated less favourably than someone else similarly situated on one of the grounds prohibited in international law, which, as per the Human Rights Committee, includes race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Indirect discrimination occurs when a policy, rule or requirement is ‘outwardly neutral’ but has a disproportionate impact on certain groups that are meant to be protected by one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. A clear example of indirect discrimination recognized by the European Court of Human Rights arose in the case of DH&Ors v Czech Republic. The ECtHR struck down an apparently neutral set of statutory rules, which implemented a set of tests designed to evaluate the intellectual capability of children but which resulted in an excessively high proportion of minority Roma children scoring poorly and consequently being sent to special schools, possibly because the tests were blind to cultural and linguistic differences. This case acts as a useful analogy for the potential disparate impacts of AI and should serve as useful precedent for future litigation against AI-driven solutions.

Indirect discrimination by AI may occur at two stages. First is the usage of incomplete or inaccurate training data that results in the algorithm processing data that may not accurately reflect reality. Cathy O’Neil explains this using a simple example. There are two types of crimes-those that are ‘reported’ and others that are only ‘found’ if a policeman is patrolling the area. The first category includes serious crimes such as murder or rape while the second includes petty crimes such as vandalism or possession of illicit drugs in small quantities. Increased police surveillance in areas in US cities where Black or Hispanic people reside lead to more crimes being ‘found’ there. Thus, data is likely to suggest that these communities commit a higher proportion of crimes than they actually do – indirect discrimination that has been empirically been shown through research published by Pro Publica.

Discrimination may also occur at the stage of data processing, which is done through a metaphorical ‘black-box’ that accepts inputs and generates outputs without revealing to the human developer how the data was processed. This conundrum is compounded by the fact that the algorithms are often utilised to solve an amorphous problem-which attempts to break down a complex question into a simple answer. An example is the development of ‘risk profiles’ of individuals for the determination of insurance premiums. Data might show that an accident is more likely to take place in inner cities due to more densely packed populations in these areas. Racial and ethnic minorities tend to reside more in these areas, which means that algorithms could learn that minorities are more likely to get into accidents, thereby generating an outcome (‘risk profile’) that indirectly discriminates on grounds of race or ethnicity.

It would be wrong to ignore discrimination, both direct and indirect, that occurs as a result of human prejudice. The key difference between that and discrimination by AI lies in the ability of other individuals to compel the decision-maker to explain the factors that lead to the outcome in question and testing its validity against principles of human rights. The increasing amounts of discretion and, consequently, power being delegated to autonomous systems mean that principles of accountability which audit and check indirect discrimination need to be built into the design of these systems. In the absence of these principles, we risk surrendering core tenets of human rights law to the whims of an algorithmically crafted reality.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/oxford-human-rights-hub-arindrajit-basu-october-23-2018-discrimination-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence