Centre for Internet and Society

Eight Key Privacy Events in India in the Year 2015

Amber Sinha — 2016-01-03T05:43:42Z

As the year draws to a close, we are enumerating some of the key privacy related events in India that transpired in 2015. Much like the last few years, this year, too, was an eventful one in the context of privacy.

While we did not witness, as one had hoped, any progress in the passage of a privacy law, the year saw significant developments with respect to the ongoing Aadhaar case. The statement by the Attorney General, India's foremost law officer, that there is a lack of clarity over whether the right to privacy is a fundamental right, and the fact the the matter is yet unresolved was a huge setback to the jurisprudence on privacy. [1] However, the court has recognised a purpose limitation as applicable into the Aadhaar scheme, limiting the sharing of any information collected during the enrollment of residents in UID. A draft Encryption Policy was released and almost immediately withdrawn in the face of severe public backlash, and an updated Human DNA Profiling Bill was made available for comments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much publicised project "Digital India" was in news throughout the year, and it also attracted its' fair share of criticism in light of the lack of privacy safeguards it offered. Internationally, a lawsuit brought by Maximilian Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, dealt a body blow to the fifteen year old Safe Harbour Framework in place for data transfers between EU and USA. Below, we look at what were, according to us, the eight most important privacy events in India, in 2015.

1. August 11, 2015 order on Aadhaar not being compulsory

In 2012, a writ petition was filed by Judge K S Puttaswamy challenging the government's policy in its attempt to enroll all residents of India in the UID project and linking the Aadhaar card with various government services. A number of other petitioners who filed cases against the Aadhaar scheme have also been linked with this petition and the court has been hearing them together. On September 11, 2015, the Supreme Court reiterated its position in earlier orders made on September 23, 2013 and March 24, 2014 stating that the Aadhaar card shall not be made compulsory for any government services. [2] Building on its earlier position, the court passed the following orders:

a) The government must give wide publicity in the media that it was not mandatory for a resident to obtain an Aadhaar card,

b) The production of an Aadhaar card would not be a condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen,

c) Aadhaar card would not be used for any purpose other than the PDS Scheme, for distribution of foodgrains and cooking fuel such as kerosene and for the LPG distribution scheme.

d) The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a Court for the purpose of criminal investigation.[3]

Despite this being the fifth court order given by the Supreme Court[4] stating that the Aadhaar card cannot be a mandatory requirement for access to government services or subsidies, repeated violations continue. One of the violations which has been widely reported is the continued requirement of an Aadhaar number to set up a Digital Locker account which also led to activist, Sudhir Yadav filing a petition in the Supreme Court.[5]

2. No Right to Privacy - Attorney General to SC

The Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi argued before the Supreme Court in the Aadhaar case that the Constitution of India did not provide for a fundamental Right to Privacy.[6] He referred to the body of case in the Supreme Court dealing with this issue and made a reference to the 1954 case, MP Sharma v. Satish Chandra[7] stating that there was "clear divergence of opinion" on the Right to Privacy and termed it as "a classic case of unclear position of law." He also referred to the discussion on this matter in the Constitutional Assembly Debates and pointed to the fact the framers of the Constitution did not intend for this to be a fundamental right. He said the matter needed to be referred to a nine judge Constitution bench.[8] This raises serious questions over the jurisprudence developed by the Supreme Court on the right to privacy over the last five decades. The matter is currently pending resolution by a larger bench which needs to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India.

3. Shreya Singhal judgment and Section 69A, IT Act

In the much celebrated judgment, Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, in March 2015, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 as unconstitutional and laid down guidelines for online takedowns under the Internet intermediary rules. However, significantly, the court also upheld Section 69A and the blocking rules under this provision. It was held to be a narrowly-drawn provision with adequate safeguards. The rules prescribe a procedure for blocking which involves receipt of a blocking request, examination of the request by the Committee and a review committee which performs oversight functions. However, commentators have pointed to the opacity of the process in the rules under this provisions. While the rules mandate that a hearing is given to the originator of the content, this safeguard is widely disregarded. The judgment did not discuss Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which deal with decrypting of electronic communication, however, the Department of Electronic and Information Technology brought up this issue subsequently, through a Draft Encryption Policy, discussed below.

4. Circulation and recall of Draft Encryption Policy

On October 19, 2015, the Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DeitY) released for public comment a draft National Encryption Policy. The draft received an immediate and severe backlash from commentators, and was withdrawn by September 22, 2015. [9] The government blamed a junior official for the poor drafting of the document and noted that it had been released without a review by the Telecom Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad and other senior officials.[10] The main areas of contention were a requirement that individuals store plain text versions of all encrypted communication for a period of 90 days, to be made available to law enforcement agencies on demand; the government's right to prescribe key-strength, algorithms and ciphers; and only government-notified encryption products and vendors registered with the government being allowed to be used for encryption.[11] The purport of the above was to limit the ways in which citizens could encrypt electronic communication, and to allow adequate access to law enforcement agencies. The requirement to keep all encrypted information in plain text format for a period of 90 days garnered particular criticism as it would allow for creation of a 'honeypot' of unencrypted data, which could attract theft and attacks.[12] The withdrawal of the draft policy is not the final chapter in this story, as the Telecom Minister has promised that the Department will come back with a revised policy. [13] This attempt to put restrictions on use of encryption technologies is not only in line with a host of surveillance initiatives that have mushroomed in India in the last few years,[14] but also finds resonance with a global trend which has seen various governments and law enforcement organisations argue against encryption. [15]

5. Privacy concerns raised about Digital India

The Digital India initiative includes over thirty Mission Mode Projects in various stages of implementation. [16] All of these projects entail collection of vast quantities of personally identifiable information of the citizens. However, most of these initiatives do not have clearly laid down privacy policies.[17] There is also a lack of properly articulated access control mechanisms and doubts over important issues such as data ownership owing to most projects involving public private partnership which involves private organisation collecting, processing and retaining large amounts of data. [18] Ahead of Prime Minister Modi's visit to the US, over 100 hundred prominent US based academics released a statement raising concerns about "lack of safeguards about privacy of information, and thus its potential for abuse" in the Digital India project. [19] It has been pointed out that the initiatives could enable a "cradle-to-grave digital identity that is unique, lifelong, and authenticable, and it plans to widely use the already mired in controversy Aadhaar program as the identification system." [20]

6. Issues with Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015

The Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015 envisions the creation of national and regional DNA databases comprising DNA profiles of the categories of persons specified in the Bill.[21] The categories include offenders, suspects, missing persons, unknown deceased persons, volunteers and such other categories specified by the DNA Profiling Board which has oversight over these banks. The Bill grants wide discretionary powers to the Board to introduce new DNA indices and make DNA profiles available for new purposes it may deem fit. [22] These, and the lack of proper safeguards surrounding issues like consent, retention and collection pose serious privacy risks if the Bill becomes a law. Significantly, there is no element of purpose limitation in the proposed law, which would allow the DNA samples to be re-used for unspecified purposes.[23]

7. Impact of the Schrems ruling on India

In Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner, the Court of Justice in European Union (CJEU) annulled the Commission Decision 2000/520 according to which US data protection rules were deemed sufficient to satisfy EU privacy rules enabling transfers of personal data from EU to US, otherwise known as the 'Safe Harbour' framework. The court ruled that broad formulations of derogations on grounds of national security, public interest and law enforcement in place in the US goes beyond the test of proportionality and necessity under the Data Protection rules.[24] This judgment could also have implications for the data processing industry in India. For a few years now, a framework similar to the Safe Harbour has been under discussion for transfer of data between India and EU. The lack of a privacy legislation has been among the significant hurdles in arriving at a framework.[25] In the absence of a Safe Harbour framework, the companies in India rely on alternate mechanisms such as Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) or Model Contractual Clauses. These contracts impose the obligation on the data exporters and importers to ensure that 'adequate level of data protection' is provided. The Schrems judgement makes it clear that 'adequate level of data protection' entails a regime that is 'essentially equivalent' to that envisioned under Directive 95/46.[26] What this means is that any new framework of protection between EU and other countries like US or India will necessarily have to meet this test of essential equivalence. The PRISM programme in the US and a host of surveillance programmes that have been initiated by the government in India in the last few years could pose problems in satisfying this test of essential equivalence as they do not conform to the proportionality and necessity principles.

8. The definition of "unfair trade practices" in the Consumer Protection Bill, 2015

The Consumer Protection Bill, 2015, tabled in the Parliament towards the end of the monsoon session[27] has introduced an expansive definition of the term "unfair trade practices." The definition as per the Bill includes the disclosure "to any other person any personal information given in confidence by the consumer."[28] This clause exclude from the scope of unfair trade practices, disclosures under provisions of any law in force or in public interest. This provision could have significant impact on the personal data protection law in India. Currently, the only law governing data protection law are the Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information Rules, 2011[29] prescribed under Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Under these rules, sensitive personal data or information is protected in that their disclosure requires prior permission from the data subject. [30] For other kinds of personal information not categorized as sensitive personal data or information, the only recourse of data subjects in case to claim breach of the terms of privacy policy which constitutes a lawful contract. [31] The Consumer Protection Bill, 2015, if enacted as law, could significantly expand the scope of protection available to data subjects. First, unlike the Section 43A rules, the provisions of the Bill would be applicable to physical as well as electronic collection of personal information. Second, disclosure to a third party of personal information other than sensitive personal data or information could also have similar 'prior permission' criteria under the Bill, if it can be shown that the information was shared by the consumer in confidence.

What we see above are events largely built around a few trends that we have been witnessing in the context of privacy in India, in particular and across the world, in general. Lack of privacy safeguards in initiatives like the Aadhaar project and Digital India is symptomatic of policies that are not comprehensive in their scope, and consequently fail to address key concerns. Dr Usha Ramanathan has called these policies "powerpoint based policies" which are implemented based on proposals which are superficial in their scope and do not give due regard to their impact on a host of issues. [32] Second, the privacy concerns posed by the draft Encryption Policy and the Human DNA Profiling Bill point to the motive of surveillance that is in line with other projects introduced with the intent to protect and preserve national security. [33] Third, the incidents that championed the cause of privacy like the Schrems judgment have largely been initiated by activists and civil society actors, and have typically entailed the involvement of the judiciary, often the single recourse of actors in the campaign for the protection of civil rights. It must be noted that jurisprudence on the right to privacy in India has not moved beyond the guidelines set forth by the Supreme Court in PUCL v. Union of India.[34] However, new mass surveillance programmes and massive collection of personal data by both public and private parties through various schemes mandated a re-look at the standards laid down twenty years ago. The privacy issue pending resolution by a larger bench in the Aadhaar case affords an opportunity to revisit those principles in light of how surveillance has changed in the last two decades and strengthen privacy and data protection.

^{^[1]} Right to Privacy not a fundamental right, cannot be invoked to scrap Aadhar: Centre tells Supreme Court, available at http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-07-23/news/64773078_1_fundamental-right-attorney-general-mukul-rohatgi-privacy

^{^[2]} SC allows govt to link Aadhaar card with PDS and LPG subsidies, available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-allows-govt-to-link-Aadhaar-card-with-PDS-and-LPG-subsidies/articleshow/48436223.cms

^{^[3]} http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=42841

^{^[4]} Five SC Orders Later, Aadhaar Requirement Continues to Haunt Many, available at http://thewire.in/2015/09/19/five-sc-orders-later-aadhaar-requirement-continues-to-haunt-many-11065/

[5] Digital Locker scheme challenged in Supreme Court, available at http://www.moneylife.in/article/digital-locker-scheme-challenged-in-supreme-court/42607.html

^{^[6]} Privacy not a fundamental right, argues Mukul Rohatgi for Govt as Govt affidavit says otherwise, available at http://www.legallyindia.com/Constitutional-law/privacy-not-a-fundamental-right-argues-mukul-rohatgi-for-govt-as-govt-affidavit-says-otherwise

^{^[7]} 1954 SCR 1077.

^{^[8]} Supra Note 1.

^{^[9]} Government to withdraw draft encryption policy, available at http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-to-withdraw-draft-encryption-policy/article7677348.ece

^{^[10]} Encryption policy poorly worded by officer: Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, available at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/49068406.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

^{^[11]} Updated: India's draft encryption policy puts user privacy in danger, available at http://www.medianama.com/2015/09/223-india-draft-encryption-policy/

^{^[12]} Bhairav Acharya, The short-lived adventure of India's encryption policy, available at http://notacoda.net/2015/10/10/the-short-lived-adventure-of-indias-encryption-policy/

^{^[13]} Supra Note 9.

^{^[14]} Maria Xynou, Big democracy, big surveillance: India's surveillance state, available at https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/maria-xynou/big-democracy-big-surveillance-indias-surveillance-state

^{^[15]} China passes controversial anti-terrorism law to access encrypted user accounts, available at http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes-law-to-access-encrypted-communications ; Police renew call against encryption technology that can help hide terrorists, available at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/16/paris-terror-attacks-renew-encryption-technology-s/?page=all .

^{^[16]} http://www.mmp.cips.org.in/digital-india/

[17] http://slides.com/cisindia/big-data-in-indian-governance-preliminary-findings#/

^{^[18]} Indira Jaising, Digital India Schemes Must Be Preceded by a Data Protection and Privacy Law, available at http://thewire.in/2015/07/04/digital-india-schemes-must-be-preceded-by-a-data-protection-and-privacy-law-5471/

^{^[19]} US academics raise privacy concerns over 'Digital India' campaign, available at http://yourstory.com/2015/08/us-digital-india-campaign/

^{^[20]} Lisa Hayes, Digital India's Impact on Privacy: Aadhaar numbers, biometrics, and more, available at https://cdt.org/blog/digital-indias-impact-on-privacy-aadhaar-numbers-biometrics-and-more/

^{^[21]} http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media//draft/Draft%20Human%20DNA%20Profiling%20Bill%202015.pdf

^{^[22]} Comments on India's Human DNA Profiling Bill (June 2015 version), available at http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/IndiaDNABill_FGPI_15.pdf

^{^[23]} Elonnai Hickok, Vanya Rakesh and Vipul Kharbanda, CIS Comments and Recommendations to the Human DNA Profiling Bill, June 2015, available at http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-and-recommendations-to-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015

^{^[24]} http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-10/cp150117en.pdf

^{^[25]} Jyoti Pandey, Contestations of Data, ECJ Safe Harbor Ruling and Lessons for India, available at http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/contestations-of-data-ecj-safe-harbor-ruling-and-lessons-for-india

^{^[26]} Simon Cox, Case Watch: Making Sense of the Schrems Ruling on Data Transfer, available at https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/case-watch-making-sense-schrems-ruling-data-transfer

^{^[27]} http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/the-consumer-protection-bill-2015-3965/

^{^[28]} Section 2(41) (I) of the Consumer Protection Bill, 2015.

^{^[29]} http://www.ijlt.in/pdffiles/IT-%28Reasonable%20Security%20Practices%29-Rules-2011.pdf

^{^[30]} Rule 6 of Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information Rules, 2011

^{^[31]} Rule 4 of Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information Rules, 2011

^{^[32]} http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/communication-rights-in-the-age-of-digital-technology

^{^[33]} Supra Note 11.

^{^[34]} Chaitanya Ramachandra, PUCL V. Union of India Revisited: Why India's Sureveillance Law must be redesigned for the Digital Age, available at http://nujslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Chaitanya-Ramachandran.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/eight-key-privacy-events-in-india-in-the-year-2015

Economics of Cyber Security Part I

Admin — 2018-12-31T01:25:46Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/economics-of-cyber-security-part-i

Economic, social and cultural rights in India: Opportunities for advocacy in intellectual property rights

praskrishna — 2017-04-20T16:36:46Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/files/economic-social-and-cultural-rights-in-india-opportunities-for-advocacy-in-intellectual-property-rights

Economic, social and cultural rights in India: FOSS

praskrishna — 2017-04-23T05:14:13Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/files/economic-social-and-cultural-rights-in-india-foss

ออกแบบระบบข้อมูลประชาชนดิจิทัล: คุยกับผู้เชี่ยวชาญหาแนวทางเหมาะสม

Admin — 2019-07-21T14:32:25Z

Talk with Sunil Abraham, an expert on the Internet and good governance in the issue of creating a digital identification system.

What should you think before doing a national database? Transparency should be inversely proportional to the power of the person. The state must provide information as well. Not the only store Database technology and public surveillance are not the same. Otherwise the entire system will crash How important is democracy in making good information systems? Read the interview published by Prachatai on July 18, 2019 below

คุยกับสุนิล อับราฮัม ผู้เชี่ยวชาญเรื่องอินเทอร์เน็ตและธรรมาภิบาลในประเด็นการจัดทำระบบข้อมูลประจำตัวประชาชนแบบดิจิทัล ควรคิดอะไรก่อนทำฐานข้อมูลประชาชนระดับชาติ ความโปร่งใสควรแปรผกผันกับอำนาจของบุคคล รัฐต้องให้ข้อมูลด้วย ไม่ใช่เก็บอย่างเดียว เทคโนโลยีฐานข้อมูลกับการสอดส่องประชาชนไม่ใช่เรื่องเดียวกัน ไม่เช่นนั้นพังทั้งระบบ ประชาธิปไตยสำคัญอย่างไรกับการทำระบบข้อมูลที่ดี

หนึ่งในบทสนทนาที่มีในปัจจุบันคือการนำข้อมูลประชาชนขึ้นสู่ระบบดิจิทัล เทคโนโลยีการบริหารจัดการข้อมูลอย่างระบบฐานข้อมูลดิจิทัลไปจนถึงโครงข่ายออนไลน์แบบบลอกเชนทำให้จินตนาการดังกล่าวเป็นรูปเป็นร่างขึ้น

แต่เมื่อถอยกลับไปมองภาพใหญ่จะพบว่าเรื่องทางเทคนิคเป็นเพียงหนึ่งเม็ดทรายบนชายหาด ยังมีข้อควรคำนึงถึงเยอะแยะหยุมหยิมไปหมดทั้งในเรื่องกฎหมาย ความพร้อมของผู้บังคับใช้กฎหมาย ภาคธุรกิจและประชาชนที่ต้องคำนึงถึงเรื่องพฤติกรรม บรรทัดฐานของสังคม และคำถามสำคัญที่ว่าระบบดังกล่าวจะถูกใช้ในการเฝ้าระวัง สอดแนมประชาชนหรือไม่ เพราะประเทศเผด็จการที่คนไทยหลายคนยกย่องอย่างจีน ก็ใช้ข้อมูลอัตลักษณ์ประชาชนถึงขั้นคุมความประพฤติกันด้วยระบบคะแนนได้แล้ว

แม้ยังไม่เกิดในไทยแต่ก็ไม่ได้แปลว่าเป็นไปไม่ได้ ความกังวลของชาว 14 อำเภอและสามจังหวัดชายแดนใต้เมื่อมีข้อความ SMS จากกองอำนวยการรักษาความมั่นคงภายใน (กอ.รมน.) ให้ไปสแกนใบหน้าเพื่อลงทะเบียนซิมการ์ดตามประกาศของ กสทช. เป็นหนึ่งในภาพสะท้อนจากพื้นที่ที่ความมั่นคงหลอมรวมอยู่ในการใช้ชีวิตประจำวันที่ชัดเจน ปัญหาของการทำระบบนั้นยืนอยู่บนคำถามใหญ่ว่า “ทำอย่างไร” และ “เพื่ออะไร” หากกิจวัตรประจำวันของคนทั้งประความมั่นคงจะกลายเป็นองค์ประกอบในเทศ

สุนิล อับบราฮัม ผู้อำนวย (ผอ.) การบริหารจากศูนย์เพื่ออินเทอร์เน็ตและสังคมจากประเทศอินเดีย ให้สัมภาษณ์ประชาไทในเรื่องรูปร่างหน้าตาของระบบพิสูจน์อัตลักษณ์บุคคลดิจิทัลว่าควรเป็นแบบไหน อะไรที่ต้องคำนึงถึงและถามกันบ่อยๆ เมื่อจะออกแบบระบบ การเฝ้าระวังอาชญากรรมและปัญหาความมั่นคงทำได้แค่ไหน และการเป็นประชาธิปไตยเกี่ยวอะไรกับการมีระบบข้อมูลประชาชนดิจิทัลที่ดี

ประชาไท: ระบบข้อมูลประชาชนดิจิทัลคืออะไร

สุนิล: เดิมทีบัตรประชาชนเป็นวัตถุทางกายภาพ ส่วนมากก็เป็นกระดาษและมันก็มีข้อน่าห่วงมากๆ ในเรื่องความปลอดภัย เพราะว่ารัฐและบริษัทเอกชนต่างใช้บัตรประชาชนเพื่อไปถ่ายสำเนา อันนี้ผมได้ยินว่าในบริบทของไทยก็ถือเป็นเรื่องปกติเช่นกัน สิ่งที่คุณต้องการจริงๆ คือวิธีที่จะทำให้ภาครัฐและเอกชนยืนยันตัวตนโดยไม่ต้องเก็บข้อมูลจากคุณมากจนเกินไป

ในทางอุดมคตินั้นระบบเอกสารประจำตัวที่ดี ควรที่จะทำให้การยืนยันรายละเอียดของคุณอย่างพวกที่อยู่ อายุ สถานะจน-รวย โดยไม่ต้องเก็บข้อมูล (อื่นๆ) ที่ไม่จำเป็นรวมถึงเลขบัตรประชาชนด้วย แม้แต่เลขประจำตัวประชาชนของคุณก็ไม่ควรจะถูกเก็บไปโดยองค์กรอื่นๆ โดยไม่มีความจำเป็น

ปัจจุบันเรามีทางเลือกสองแบบ มีตัวอย่างในแคนาดา สหราชอาณาจักร หรือแม้แต่ในไทยที่กำลังทำ โครงการระบบพิสูจน์ตัวตนอิเลกทรอนิคส์แห่งชาติ หรือ National Digital ID (NDID) คุณคิดถึงวิธีแก้ปัญหาเรื่องระบบเอกสารประจำตัวในฐานะระบบนิเวศที่จะให้ตัวแสดงในระบบนิเวศยืนยันข้อมูลประจำตัวและเก็บข้อมูลของปัจเจกผ่านระบบการจัดการการยินยอมที่ดี (consent management)

(แต่) ก็มีหลายประเทศที่มีหน่วยงานจัดทำระบบฐานข้อมูลประชาชนแห่งชาติแบบรวมศูนย์ แล้วก็กลายเป็นจุดล้มเหลวจุดเดียว (Single Point of Failure - SPOF) ของระบบในประเทศ นี่จึงเป็นตัวเลือกใหญ่ๆ ที่แต่ละประเทศมี คือจะใช้วิธีจัดการแบบระบบนิเวศที่คิดถึงทุกอย่างแบบเป็นองค์รวม หรือมองว่าประเทศหนึ่งประเทศก็เหมือนกับบริษัทหรือมหาวิทยาลัย อะไรที่ใช้ได้กับบริษัทหรือมหาวิทยาลัยก็ใช้แบบนั้นกับประเทศทั้งประเทศ

แต่ละวิธีมีข้อเสียต่างกันอย่างไร

ในทางวิทยาศาสตร์คอมพิวเตอร์และวิศวกรรมคอมพิวเตอร์ ผู้เชี่ยวชาญทุกคนจะบอกว่าไม่มีระบบไหนที่ถูกแฮ็กไม่ได้ แต่ระหว่างสองตัวเลือกนี้มีความแตกต่างอย่างมาก ในโมเดลระบบนิเวศจะไม่มีจุดล้มเหลวจุดเดียวและการเจาะระบบนี้ก็มีต้นทุนสูงกว่าระบบแบบรวมศูนย์ แม้แต่การฟื้นฟูและรักษาข้อมูลที่หายไปก็ทำได้ถูกกว่าด้วย แต่ในระบบแบบรวมศูนย์นั้น ทุกคนจะได้รับผลกระทบเมื่อมีการเจาะเข้าไปได้ และส่วนมากการโจมตีจุดที่ล้มเหลวจุดเดียวก็มีต้นทุนน้อยกว่า

กระแสโลกที่มีต่อการทำข้อมูลประชาชนดิจิทัลคืออะไร

แนวโน้มใหญ่ๆ ของโลกคือมีบางบริษัทที่ขายเทคโนโลยีไบโอเมทริกซ์ (การใช้ข้อมูลทางชีวภาพ เช่น ลักษณะทางกายภาพอย่างม่านตา ลายนิ้วมือ ดีเอ็นเอ ใบหน้าเพื่อตรวจสิทธิหรือแสดงตน) ที่โดยพื้นฐานแล้วเป็นเทคโนโลยีแบบควบคุมจากระยะไกลและไม่ต้องใช้ความยินยอมของเจ้าของข้อมูล เพราะเวลาที่มีการสแกนใบหน้าหรือม่านตาเพื่อยืนยันตัวตนนั้น เจ้าของข้อมูลอาจจะไม่รู้ ผู้ใช้งานอาจจะสแกนจากระยะไกลด้วยกล้องความคมชัดสูง และการเก็บข้อมูลอัตลักษณ์ก็เก็บได้ขณะที่เจ้าของนอนหลับหรือหมดสติ

เทคโนโลยีไบโอเมทริกซ์เป็นเทคโนโลยีการเฝ้าระวังที่ดีมากเมื่อรัฐบาลต้องการต่อกรกับอาชญากรรมหรือบังคับใช้กฎหมาย อย่างไรก็ตาม เทคโนโลยีการเฝ้าระวังไม่ใช่เทคโนโลยีข้อมูลประจำตัวที่ดี โชคร้ายที่บริษัทใหญ่ๆ ที่ขายระบบเฝ้าระวังได้เดินทางไปทั่วโลกและบอกกับรัฐบาลต่างๆ ว่าพวกคุณสามารถแก้ปัญหาเรื่องเอกสารข้อมู,และความมั่นคงได้พร้อมกันด้วยเทคโนโลยีเฝ้าระวังซึ่งมันไม่จริง

ถ้าคุณใช้เทคโนโลยีการเฝ้าระวังมาสร้างระบบข้อมูลประชาชน นั่นหมายความว่าคุณยิ่งไปสร้างความเสี่ยงด้านความมั่นคงเข้าไปอีก เพราะคุณสร้างสิ่งที่เรียกว่า ‘ไหน้ำผึ้ง’ หมายถึงว่ามีจุดๆ หนึ่งที่เก็บข้อมูลลายนิ้วมือ ใบหน้าหรือม่านตาของทุกๆ คน แล้วถ้าระบบนั้นมีจุดที่ล้มเหลวขึ้นมาเพียงจุดเดียว ลองนึกถึงระบบอินเทอร์เน็ตที่เก็บพาสเวิร์ดของทุกคนเอาไว้ในเซิฟเวอร์เดียวกัน มันก็เป็นความเสี่ยงนั้น

เทคโนโลยีไบโอเมทริกซ์นั้นควรใช้ในระบบแบบไม่รวมศูนย์ คุณสามารถเก็บข้อมูลทางชีวภาพจากประชาชนได้ แต่ควรเก็บมันเอาไว้ในชิปสมาร์ทการ์ดของแต่ละคน อย่างระบบสแกนใบหน้าของไอโฟนที่ไม่มีเซิฟเวอร์เก็บข้อมูลใบหน้า แต่อาศัยพื้นที่บนโทรศัพท์มือถือของผู้ใช้งานให้เก็บข้อมูลเหล่านั้นเอง

บางประเทศมีสมาร์ทการ์ดที่มีแม้กระทั่งเครื่องอ่านลายนิ้วมือบนบัตร ที่คุณต้องทำก็คือใส่สมาร์ทการ์ดเข้าไปในเครื่องอ่าน จากนั้นคุณก็วางนิ้วมือลงบนสมาร์ทการ์ดโดยไม่ต้องเอานิ้วไปแปะที่อุปกรณ์อื่นของรัฐหรือเอกชน นั่นเป็นวิธีการใช้งานไบโอเมทริกซ์ที่ถูกต้องเพราะคุณใช้โบโอเมทริกซ์แบบที่ไม่อิงอยู่กับการเฝ้าระวัง

แปลว่าแนวโน้มระบบข้อมูลประชาชนของรัฐส่วนใหญ่อยู่กับฐานคิดการเฝ้าระวังใช่ไหม

ใช่แล้ว ความมั่นคงแห่งชาติและการเฝ้าระวังถูกจัดเป็นความสำคัญอันดับต้นๆ ซึ่งนั่นไม่ใช่แนวทางในการออกแบบระบบฐานข้อมูลประจำตัวประชาชนแบบ e-governance (ธรรมาภิบาลอิเล็คโทรนิกส์) การเฝ้าระวังนั้นสำคัญมากสำหรับสังคม แต่มันก็เหมือนเกลือในอาหาร คุณไม่สามารถกินอาหารได้โดยไม่มีเกลืออยู่ในนั้นนิดหน่อย คุณไม่สามารถมีประเทศที่ปลอดภัยหากไม่มีการเฝ้าระวัง แต่ถ้าคุณตัดสินใจตักเกลือห้าช้อนชาใส่ลงไปในอาหารเมื่อไหร่ อาหารก็เป็นพิษ เรื่องการเฝ้าระวังก็เช่นกัน มันจำเป็นในปริมาณน้อย แต่จะมีผลย้อนกลับหากมีมากเกินไป

แล้วแนวทางที่ดีที่สุดควรเป็นแบบไหน

ควรใช้ระบบและมาตรฐานแบบเปิด (open source and open standard) เพราะคุณจะสามารถพิสูจน์และตรวจสอบระบบได้ ถ้าคุณตรวจสอบหรือพิสูจน์ไม่ได้ นั่นหมายความว่าคุณจะไม่รู้ว่ามันทำงานอย่างไร ส่วนต่อไปคือข้อมูลที่ถูกขอและส่งต่อในระบบนิเวศเมื่อทำธุรกรรมจะต้องมีจำนวนน้อยที่สุด

อีกสิ่งที่จำเป็นคือ คุณต้องมี Human in the Loop (ความสัมพันธ์หรือปฏิสัมพันธ์ของมนุษย์ในระบบนั้น) หมายความว่า คุณควรรู้ว่าในขั้นตอนนั้นๆ มีเจ้าหน้าที่รัฐหรือพนักงานเอกชนคนไหนเป็นคนรับผิดชอบ และถ้ามีอะไรผิดพลาดคุณควรจะหาคนรับผิดรับชอบได้

ความรับผิดรับชอบนั้นแยกได้ว่า หนึ่ง เห็นตัวคนที่รับผิดชอบ สื่อมวลชนสามารถชี้นิ้วไปได้และบอกว่าคนนี้รับผิดชอบกับความผิดพลาดนั้น สอง การเป็นผู้จ่ายค่าปรับ ส่วนนี้สำคัญกับภาคเอกชน และสุดท้ายคือคนที่ต้องติดคุกหากมีเรื่องร้ายแรงเกิดขึ้น เช่นสิทธิมนุษยชนของบางคนได้รับผลกระทบ ดังนั้น เมื่อคุณจะออกแบบระบบฐานข้อมูลประจำตัว คุณต้องถามว่า ‘ใครเป็น Human in the loop’ นั่นเป็นกุญแจหลักของการออกแบบ

หลักการต่อไปของระบบข้อมูลประชาชนที่ดีคือต้องกระจายจากศูนย์กลาง ไม่ควรมีจุดล้มเหลวจุดใหญ่จุดเดียว การจัดการข้อมูลแบบระบบนิเวศนั้นดีกว่าการรวมศูนย์ นอกจากนั้นระบบควรจะรับมือและฟื้นตัวจากเหตุร้ายแรงที่สุดได้ ในระหว่างที่คุณออกแบบระบบก็ควรตั้งคำถามไปพลางว่า ถ้าระบบโดนแฮ็กจะทำอย่างไร หรือถ้าอาชญากรเอาระบบนี้ไปใช้ล่ะ คุณจำเป็นต้องคำนึงถึงความเป็นไปได้ที่ร้ายแรงที่สุดและต้องออกแบบระบบมารับมือมัน

แล้วมองในแง่สังคม คนทั่วไป คุณกังวลเรื่องอะไรบ้าง

ปัญหาหลักตอนนี้คือ แนวคิดที่รายล้อมระบบข้อมูลประชาชนดิจิทัลคือการย้ำให้พลเมืองต้องโปร่งใสกับรัฐ พวกเขา (รัฐ) ต้องการให้พลเมืองส่งข้อมูลทุกอย่างให้กับรัฐ แต่ว่ารัฐไม่ให้ข้อมูลใดๆ กับพลเมือง ในระบบข้อมูลประชาชนที่ดี รัฐควรจะมีความโปร่งใสกับพลเมือง

ผมจะยกตัวอย่างให้ฟัง สมมติว่าผมเป็นพนักงานรัฐที่ทุจริต ผมจะเขียนลงไปในบันทึกว่าคุณมาหาผมที่ออฟฟิศในวันนี้ นี่คือเลขประจำตัวประชาชนของคุณที่ขอกู้เงิน หรือไม่ก็ได้รับเงินอุดหนุนจำนวน 2,000 บาท ผมก็สามารถเอาเงิน 2,000 บาทเข้ากระเป๋าผมแบบไม่มีใครพิสูจน์ได้ และคุณก็ปฏิเสธไม่ได้ด้วย เพราะว่าเลขประจำตัวของคุณอยู่ในบันทึกของรัฐ แต่ถ้าคุณใช้มันให้ดี เราจะมีเครื่องอ่านสมาร์ทการ์ดที่พลเมืองจะใส่บัตรและกดรหัส หลังจากคุณดึงบัตรออกเจ้าหน้าที่ก็จะใส่สมาร์ทการ์ดของเขาเข้าไปและกดรหัส นั่นจะทำให้มีบันทึกในระบบอิเล็กโทรนิกส์และถูกเซ็นโดยเจ้าหน้าที่รัฐและพลเมือง จะไม่มีใครปฏิเสธได้แล้วว่ามีการพบกันจริงๆ ในระบบข้อมูลประจำตัวที่ดีนั้น ทั้งคู่จะต้องแสดงตัวตน แต่ในระบบที่ไม่ดีจะมีแต่เจ้าหน้าที่รัฐที่ถามหาหลักฐานประจำตัวและคุณจะไม่มีการบันทึกว่าเกิดอะไรขึ้นบ้าง

ความเป็นส่วนตัวและการคุ้มครองนั้นควรมีสัดส่วนแปรผันกับอำนาจ ความโปร่งใสและการกำกับควบคุมควรมีสัดส่วนโดยตรงกับอำนาจ คนที่มีอำนาจหรือคนรวยต้องมีความโปร่งใสมากกว่าคนอื่นและมีความเป็นส่วนตัวน้อยกว่าคนอื่น คนที่ไม่มีอำนาจหรือคนเปราะบางควรจะมีความเป็นส่วนตัวมากขึ้น

ถ้าคุณดูนโยบายด้านฐานข้อมูลแบบเปิด (โอเพ่นดาต้า) หรือกฎหมายเสรีภาพด้านข้อมูลข่าวสารจะพบว่าข้อมูลส่วนบุคคลเป็นข้อยกเว้นในกฎหมายเหล่านั้น ข้อมูลรัฐที่ไม่เป็นส่วนตัวเท่านั้นที่สามารถถูกแบ่งปันกันได้ในโอเพ่นดาต้า แต่ถ้าคุณไปดูกฎหมายความเป็นส่วนตัวก็จะพบว่ามีข้อยกเว้นในเรื่องประโยชน์ต่อสาธารณะ นั่นหมายความว่า ถ้าคุณเป็นเจ้าหน้าที่รัฐหรือนักการเมืองคนสำคัญ สิ่งที่คุณคุยในห้องนอนก็อาจสำคัญกับประเทศทั้งประเทศ นั่นหมายความว่าคุณไม่มีความเป็นส่วนตัวในการพูดคุยเรื่องลับ

ความเป็นส่วนตัวนั้นเป็นข้อยกเว้น แต่ผลประโยชน์สาธารณะมันเป็นข้อยกเว้นของข้อยกเว้นอีกที สมมติว่านายกฯ มีปัญหาสุขภาพร้ายแรงที่ทำให้เขาหรือเธอไม่เหมาะที่จะดำรงตำแหน่งอีกต่อไป ข้อมูลส่วนตัวนั้นก็เป็นข้อยกเว้นของข้อยกเว้น ถ้าการได้รู้ว่านายกฯ ป่วยหนักเป็นประโยชน์ต่อสาธารณะมันก็ควรถูกเปิดเผย การลองทำบททดสอบด้านผลประโยชน์สาธารณะน่าจะช่วยเรื่องการจัดการแกนสมมาตรเชิงอำนาจระหว่างกฎหมายสองชุด

ในการช่วยเหลือคนจน คุณควรมีกฎหมายความโปร่งใสและนโยบายโอเพ่นดาต้าที่ดี เพื่อคุ้มครองคนจนและคนเปราะบาง คุณต้องมีกฎหมายความเป็นส่วนตัว และถ้าคุณมีการทดสอบเรื่องผลประโยชน์สาธารณะในกฎหมายทั้งสองชุด กฎหมายเหล่านั้นก็จะไม่ถูกใช้ขูดรีดคนจน

ความมั่นคงจะอยู่ร่วมกับเสรีภาพและความเป็นส่วนตัวได้อย่างไร

กฎหมายข้อมูลประจำตัวดิจิทัลจะต้องมีสอดรับกับกฎหมายความเป็นส่วนตัวและนโยบายโอเพ่นดาต้า แต่ปัญหาก็คือกฎหมายความเป็นส่วนตัวยังเป็นเรื่องใหม่มากๆ ในภูมิภาคนี้ ไทยเพิ่งผ่าน พ.ร.บ. คุ้มครองข้อมูลส่วนบุคคล ที่อินเดียยังไม่มีในระดับชาติ ก็ยังคงมีงานที่ต้องทำอยู่ ศาลต้องทำหน้าที่หาคำนิยาม หน่วยงานกำกับดูแลต้องมีแนวทางกำกับที่จำเพาะมากๆ ภาคอุตสาหกรรมต้องมีแนวทางกำกับตัวเองและแนวปฏิบัติที่ดีที่สุด ภาคประชาสังคมเองก็ต้องช่วยภาคส่วนอื่นๆ ด้วยการถามคำถามหนักๆ

มันต้องใช้เวลา อย่างยุโรปก็มีเส้นทางการมีกฎหมายคุ้มครองข้อมูลยาวนานถึง 35 ปี นั่นเป็นเหตุผลที่ยุโรปมีการคุ้มครองที่ดีกว่า ในภูมิภาคของพวกเราก็จะใช้เวลาต่อสู้ถึง 35 ปีเช่นกัน ดังนั้น ประชาสังคมจะต้องเตรียมตัวในการต่อสู้เป็นเวลา 35 ปี และหลังจากนั้น ลูกหรือลูกของลูกเราจะเห็นระบบนิเวศข้อมูลประชาชนที่ปลอดภัยกว่านี้

รัฐบาลควรทำอะไรบ้าง

การผ่านกฎหมายอย่างเดียวนั้นไม่เพียงพอ ที่ (รัฐบาล) ทำในไทยคือแค่ผ่านกฎหมาย ตอนนี้คุณต้องสร้างคณะกรรมการที่เป็นอิสระ มีงบประมาณมากพอที่จะจ้างวิศวกรและนักกฎมายที่ดีที่สุด คณะกรรมการควรเริ่มบังคับใช้ข้อบังคับอย่างช้าๆ ศาลเองก็ควรพัฒนาองค์ความรู้ ผู้พิพากษาจะต้องเรียนรู้ว่าเกิดอะไรขึ้นบ้างในประเทศอื่นๆ ระบบกฎหมายต้องเตรียมพร้อมกับข้อกังวลใหม่ๆ

เทคโนโลยีช่วยได้แค่ไหน

เทคโนโลยีเป็นแค่ส่วนหนึ่งของการแก้ปัญหา คุณยังต้องกังวลเรื่องกฎหมายและบรรทัดฐานทางสังคม อะไรที่คนธรรมดาเขาทำกัน ถ้าทุกคนยังคงยินดีกับการส่งสำเนาบัตรประชาชน คุณก็ต้องไปเปลี่ยนมัน รัฐบาลมีประสบการณ์มากกับการยกระดับบรรทัดฐานทางสังคม

รัฐบาลต้องใช้อำนาจที่มีในการเปลี่ยนแนวปฏิบัติ เรื่องแนวทางการคุ้มครองความเป็นส่วนตัวก็เหมือนการสูบบุหรี่ พวกนักสูบส่วนมากก็รู้อยู่แล้วว่าการสูบบุหรี่นั้นทำให้เกิดมะเร็งและปัญหาอื่นๆ แต่ก็จะยังสูบต่อไปจนกว่าหมอจะบอกว่าเป็นมะเร็ง รัฐบาลก็ต้องทำให้พลเมืองเกิดความกลัวในสิ่งที่จะเกิดขึ้นเพื่อให้ประชาชนเลิกไม่เอาใจใส่เรื่องข้อมูลส่วนบุคคล

ส่วนสุดท้ายคือตลาด บรรษัทก็ต้องเริ่มสร้างนวัตกรรม เช่น ธนาคารควรออกมาพูดได้ว่าระบบของเราดีกว่าที่อื่น เราไม่ใช้ไบโอเมทริกซ์ เป็นต้น กฎหมายต้องทำให้เกิดการแข่งขันระหว่างบรรษัทในเรื่องความปลอดภัย ความเป็นส่วนตัว เมื่อเราเห็นบรรทัดฐาน กฎหมาย เทคโนโลยี และการแข่งขันทางเทคโนโลยี วันนั้นเราจะเริ่มเห็นทางออก ผมถึงบอกว่ามันจะใช้เวลา 30-40 ปี ไม่ก็นานกว่านั้น

ระบบข้อมูลประจำตัวดิจิทัลที่ดีเกี่ยวอะไรกับประเทศเป็นประชาธิปไตยไหม

ผู้คนถามคำถามยากๆ หลายคำถามในระบอบประชาธิปไตย และนั่นเป็นประโยชน์ แต่สิ่งที่เราต้องการจริงๆ คือประชาธิปไตยที่ปกครองโดยรัฐธรรมนูญ (Constitutional democracy) เพราะคุณไม่สามารถเดินไปถามคนทุกคนเพื่อหามติต่อคำถามทางเทคนิค

คุณต้องมีการอภิปรายสาธารณะที่โปร่งใสเยอะๆ แต่คุณไม่สามารถตัดสินใจกันด้วยการโหวต การไปถามว่า ‘มีกี่คนอยากใช้สแกนลายนิ้วมือ มีกี่คนอยากใช้สแกนใบหน้า’ ไม่ใช่วิธีออกแบบระบบข้อมูลประจำตัวดิจิทัล มันจะต้องวางอยู่บนหลักของรัฐธรรมนูญบางประการเช่นความถูกต้องตามกฎหมาย ความจำเป็น ความได้สัดส่วน หลังจากนั้นคุณจะต้องมีแนวทางที่เสนอโดยวิศวกรและนักกฎหมาย จากนั้นจึงให้มีการถกเถียงและอภิปราย

คุณตัดสินโดยอิงเสียงข้างมากไม่ได้เพียงเพราะคนส่วนมากบอกว่าพวกเขารู้สึกว่าการสแกนใบหน้ามันง่ายมาก คุณก็ไม่สามารถบอกว่าจะนำการสแกนใบหน้าไปใช้กับทุกอย่างเพียงเพราะมันปลดล็อกไอโฟนง่ายดี เพราะในวันพรุ่งนี้เทคโนโลยีเดียวกันอาจถูกนำไปใช้เพื่อสลายการชุมนุมก็ได้ แม้ทุกคนจะรักหลงการสแกนใบหน้าในประชาธิปไตยของคุณ แต่รัฐธรรมนูญยังคงต้องปฏิเสธมันและบอกว่ามันไม่จำเป็น ไม่ได้สัดส่วน มันควรถูกแบน หรือไม่ก็ใช้ในวัตถุประสงค์ที่จำเพาะ

ช่วยอธิบายว่าทำไมการเฝ้าระวังอาจเป็นการทำให้คนหลบเข้าไปอยู่ในมุมมืดมากขึ้น

มันเป็นผลที่เกิดขึ้นโดยไม่ตั้งใจ อย่างถ้าคุณไปบล็อกเนื้อหาที่คนชอบมากๆ คนก็อาจจะหันไปใช้ TOR หรือ VPN (วิธีการเข้าถึงเนื้อหาที่ถูกบล็อก) ซึ่งนั่นไม่ใช่ความตั้งใจของคุณ ถ้าคุณไม่พัฒนาระบบข้อมูลประชาชนที่ดี ประชาชนก็จะเริ่มทำตัวเหมือนอาชญากร แต่พวกเขาไม่ใช่อาชญากร เพียงแค่เขาไม่ชอบการออกแบบระบบเท่านั้น คุณไม่สามารถบังคับให้คนทำพฤติกรรมแบบนั้นหรือแบบนี้ได้ ดังนั้นการเป็นประชาธิปไตยจึงสำคัญ ในระหว่างที่คุณพัฒนาเทคโนโลยีคุณก็ควรถามพวกเขา (ผู้ใช้) ไปด้วยว่ามันใช้ได้หรือไม่ ทำให้เกิดการอภิปรายขึ้น

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/e2de2de01e41e1ae1ae23e30e1ae1ae02e49e2de21e39e25e1be23e30e0ae32e0ae19e14e34e08e34e17e31e25-e04e38e22e01e31e1ae1ce39e49e40e0ae35e48e22e27e0ae32e0de2be32e41e19e27e17e32e07e40e2be21e32e30e2ae21

e - DIRAP Google+ Hangout: Open Government

Christine Apikul — 2013-09-18T10:43:30Z

The e-DIRAP Hangout on Open Government was held on Thursday, 25 July 2013. It brought together nine professionals from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines to discuss the wide spectrum of issues surrounding open government.

See the original published in Digital Review Asia here

The idea of open government has been around for hundreds of years but the contemporary use of the term is influenced by the rapid advancement of ICTs and by the open source movement. "Just as open source software allows users to change and contribute to the source code of their software, open government now means government where citizens not only have access to information, documents and proceedings, but can also become participants in a meaningful way."[1] There is now increasing pressure for governments to be more open with their digital documents and processes, and to interact with citizens.

To assess whether your government is open, a good starting point is the Open Government Partnership minimum eligibility criteria that has four key areas:[2]

Fiscal transparency related to open budget system
Access to information, e.g. an access to information law that guarantees the public’s right to information and access to government data.
Disclosures related to elected or senior public officials, e.g. public disclosure of their income and assets.
Citizen engagement.

The panelists discussed open government initiatives in their respective countries, the challenges they face, and open source tools for open government.

Open Government Initiatives

India
The Government of India has decided to use royalty free open standards for all e-government data. The government has also shortlisted a number of open standards. India’s data portal, data.gov.in was recently launched and the number of datasets has been increasing. In January 2013 there were 89 datasets and in half a year,this has increased to over 3,000 datasets. Forty-five government departments are involved in this initiative and six apps have been created. The Planning Commission recently had a hackathon participated by about 1,900 people.

Indonesia
Indonesia is one of the founding governments of the Open Government Partnership.[3] along with the Philippines and six other countries. The emphasis of open government in Indonesia is not only the "supply side" (i.e. government providing access to data and information). It is also looking at generating demand for open government by empowering citizens to access and analyse data and information, voice their concerns and advocate for openness in government. To empower citizens, the Government of Indonesia has a number of projects such as "Satu Layanan"[4] or "One Service", a web portal where citizens can find government information and services; “One Map”, to promote collaboration between different government ministries and agencies, and also civil society in integrating datasets; and "Lapor"[5] that allow citizens to report wrongdoings in public services using SMS, Twitter or through the website.

According to a research study conducted by the World Wide Web Foundation,[6] the Government of Indonesia is working on making public data available. Public data includes social - economic data, development data and census data held by the National Statistic Bureau, as well as information on how the data is obtained and measured.

The research report also found that that there is a low demand from civil society and citizens for open government and open data. Moreover, cooperation between civil society and government in the implementation of open government is not strong enough. Several donors in Indonesia have provided support to develop the capacity of civil society groups that are part of the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership. Hivos’ Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative[7] is working with both civil society and government in Indonesia and the Philippines to promote transparency and accountability in public institutions.

Japan
In Japan, the major focus is in the creation and launch of the open data portal this year. How much impact it will make and how it can be measured is a concern, and this is a worldwide challenge.

Malaysia
The Sinar Project[8] in Malaysia promotes transparency, governance and citizen involvement, and uses open source technology to make information accessible to Malaysian citizens. The project has learned that for countries with poor democracy like Malaysia, basic information about government is available but not easily accessible to the public. The government is not familiar with interacting with citizens especially online. Unlike places with advanced statistics and open data, open government in Malaysia is at a nascent stage and is about having information about government representatives online and what bills are being passed in parliament.

Philippines
In the Philippines, President Aquino announced that the Freedom of Information Bill will be a priority bill for Congress this year, but citizens are cynical about the passing of this bill because it has been under consideration for three years. The Office of the President has received support from the World Bank last year for an Open Data Project using CKAN and the open data portal will be at http://data.gov.ph. The Philippine Government Interoperability Framework was convened last week.

PhilHealth or the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation[9] attempted to open up data, however even though there was political will to open up data, this was insufficient. A clear policy framework and change management (particularly, removing the fear of openness among employees) was needed.

Moreover, PhilHealth did not have the capacity and competency to ensure that the health data released, that includes diagnosis and treatment procedures, will not be reverse engineered to identify people. Health data is particularly sensitive due to the social stigma of certain health disorders, for example, those with tuberculosis may be assumed to have HIV/AIDS. When data is opened up, there are security and privacy implications. Developing countries need help and it is important to work together to come up with policies, protocols and algorithms to protect the health privacy of citizens.

Melbourne, Australia
In Melbourne, Australia, local government efforts to engage with citizens more fully through online and offline platforms include experimenting with wiki-based policy development, smart cities initiatives and digital strategies. Through conversations with policymakers, some key themes were identified. First, openness is not the same as participation, and encouraging effective participation is a challenge. Public spaces need to be “programmed” to support participation, and opening up data is not sufficient. It is necessary to develop strategies for outreach to a diverse group and encourage substantive participation particularly from those who are not online and not as competent in data management.

Secondly, because many telecommunications platforms that make data available are privately owned, there is a tension between commercial interest for secrecy and public demand to make data open. It is also a challenge for government to engage with citizens over an infrastructure that is privately owned, e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Google that place constraints on how citizens can be engaged.

Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand with high levels of digital broadband penetration and online users are not part of the Open Government Partnership despite the fact that most of the government departments and data are online. This is because these countries do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria for Open Government Partnership. For instance, they do not have freedom of the press and without it media and civil society cannot make use of the data for reporting for fear of prosecution.

There is also a lack of political will to disclose assets of public officials and procurement decisions.

Challenges
Open data is often associated with open government, but opening up data does not make a government open. Making data open has a set of challenges, but open government also has an important civil society component to create demand for open government and make meaningful use of the open data. There is also a private sector component that needs to be considered, particularly related to the mechanisms public participation over privately owned telecommunications infrastructure.

Challenges are faced at both the supply and demand sides. From the government side, many countries do not have the capacity to interact effectively with citizens. From the citizens’ side, many countries face the low demand for open government. Yet, in the case of Malaysia, even if public demand for open government is high, the missing component is a strong and large enough civil society base that can handle and analyse data independently and question policy. Dealing with the demand when data is open is another challenge. The challenges of opening up data If the original data is not digitized, how do we ensure that it becomes part of open data as defined by the Open Knowledge Foundation.[10] For countries such as Iraq that are simultaneously introducing e-government systems and open government, implementation is hampered by the lack of e-government data standards for specific domains such as human resources management or financial management.

Privacy

Privacy is one of the biggest concerns that the open data and open government movements faces.

Lack of exposure to privacy issues: Some open data activists are not aware that privacy should be an exception in disclosure requirement of government open data policies. If no public interest is served through disclosing personal information then there is no need to infringe upon the rights of individuals.

Privacy only for the individual: There is often a western notion of what constitutes privacy in which people worry about privacy infringement only at the level of the individual. But in India, if the open dataset showed HIV/AIDS prevalence at the village level that could result in stigma and discrimination of particular villages. The privacy problem exists not only at the individual level, but also at the level of family, community and geographical unit.

Underestimating re-identification research: Today we deal with the privacy challenge by using techniques like anonymization and obfuscation, but the problem is that re-identification research is getting more sophisticated and the more datasets that people have access to and are able to overlay upon one another, the more likely it is to re-identify anonymous or obfuscated data. This is an issue that the open data movement should take seriously.

Conflict with the transparency movement: The open data movement has not fully adopted principles from the transparency movement. This can be clearly seen in some countries where freedom of information activists are being killed or assaulted, but open data activists are usually safe because they are focused on analyzing the data that the governments have opened up. The provision of large quantities of data by government may be a distraction strategy that takes away what is important for civil society and democracy. Moreover, open data should not be the means to legitimize and increase the levels of surveillance occurring at the bottom of the pyramid. Instead, we need to encourage more eyes to watch the top of the pyramid because single actions there can have dramatic consequences for public interest.

For public participation in local government, FixMyStreet[11] is an open source software first developed by MySociety in the UK that allows the public to report on issues on a map. MySociety has also developed a number of other tools to help with government’s engagement with citizens.

OpenSpending[12] is used to visualize budget data and how tax money is being spent. This is a useful tool for transparency developed by the Open Knowledge Foundation.

CKAN[13] is an open source data portal platform that many countries have used for their open data portal. This is also an Open Knowledge Foundation project.

The Sunlight Foundation[14] and Code for America[15] are organizations that develop a number of open source tools that can be re-used and adapted by countries in Asia and the Pacific.

A free de-identification software for automated location and removal of protected health information in free text from medical records has been developed by PhysioNet.[16]

The Strategic Alliance Against Impoverishment (SAPA) provides poverty data on their website and maps the location of their projects.[17]

Final Words for the Way Forward

Make open government an election issue and elect officials that are open.

Demands for engagement may conflict with political goals of representatives in terms of the election cycle. Perhaps these open government issues need a third space to insulate them from political forces.

For people interested in implementing technical solutions, it is important to also look into non-technical issues raised by the Open Government Partnership and the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.[18]

Make data available based on the needs of citizens and provide a platform for citizens’ feedback to inform the kinds of data to open up.

Open government should be relevant to citizens and result in improving the welfare of citizens.

Improve citizens’ data literacy and use open data in decision-making.

Openness is only a means and in the end we need governments that are accountable, that protect the public interest, that protect the weakest members of society, and they are not automatically guaranteed through open government. We should not fetishize the means and forget the ends.

At the top we need political leadership with strong inclination and will, and on the ground we need close coordination between civil society and government so that government does understand what is needed and sense what impact they can make by opening themselves up to their society or to their own operations. In the long term the key is how much the government can transform itself in terms of its own operations, and how much data they can produce in a reusable format and how much data they can use from other agencies to improve their operations.

The core of open government is about partnership between government, civil society and the private sector, and this is not easy.

Panelists

Danny Butt, Research Fellow in Participatory Public Space, University of Melbourne, Australia
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India
Venkatesh Hariharan, Director, Knowledge Commons, India (previously, Head of Public Policy at Google India)
Maryati Abdullah, National Coordinator, Publish What You Pay, Indonesia (also Steering Committee Member of Open Government Partnership)
Yanuar Nugroho, Director and Expert Adviser to the Head of the President's Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight (UKP4), Indonesia – to be confirmed
Tomoaki Watanabe, Executive Research Fellow, Centre for Global Communications, International University of Japan (also Executive Director of Common Sphere - the host of Creative Commons Japan, and Co-founder of Open Knowledge Foundation Japan)
Shita Laksmi, Program Manager, Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative, Hivos Regional Office Southeast Asia
Alvin B. Marcelo, Co-chair, Asia eHealth Information Network

Moderator: Khairil Yusof, Co-founder, Sinar Project, Malaysia (also e-DIRAP team member)

e-DIRAP Hangout Coordinator: Christine Apikul

[1]. See 20 Basics of Open Government, http://basics.open4m.org/

[2]. http://www.opengovpartnership.org/eligibility

[3]. http://www.opengovpartnership.org

[4]. http://satulayanan.net

[5]. http://lapor.ukp.go.id; See also http://www.techinasia.com/lapor-deeper-indonesias-newest-anticorruption-weapon/

[6]. “Even though the Law on Freedom of Information has been in place for five years and while some ministries and agencies have made data available online, it is often difficult to obtain and make use of the data due to bureaucratic procedures, charging requirements, copyright restrictions or a general reluctance to provide access to government data to external users.” World Wide Web Foundation, Open Government Data: Readiness Assessment Indonesia, 28 June 2013, http://www.webfoundation.org/2013/06/new-research-open-data-in-indonesia/

[7]. http://seatti.org

[8]. http://sinarproject.org

[9]. http://www.philhealth.gov.ph

[10]. http://okfn.org/opendata/

[11]. http://www.fixmystreet.com

[12]. http://openspending.org

[13]. http://ckan.org

[14]. http://sunlightfoundation.com/tools

[15]. http://codeforamerica.org/apps/

[16]. http://www.physionet.org/physiotools/deid/

[17]. http://www.sapa.or.id/

[18]. http://www.openingparliament.org/declaration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/digital-review-asia-pacific-christine-apikul-e-dirap-google-hangout-open-government

Driving in the Surveillance Society: Cameras, RFID tags and Black Boxes...

maria — 2013-07-12T15:26:33Z

In this post, Maria Xynou looks at red light cameras, RFID tags and black boxes used to monitor vehicles in India.

This research was undertaken as part of the 'SAFEGUARDS' project that CIS is undertaking with Privacy International and IDRC.

How many times in your life have you heard of people been involved in car accidents and of pedestrians being hit by red-light-running vehicles? What if there could be a solution for all of this? Well, several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore, have already adopted measures to tackle vehicle accidents and fatalities, some of which include traffic enforcement cameras and other security measures. India is currently joining the league by not only installing red light cameras, but by also including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on vehicles´ number plates, as well as by installing electronic toll collection systems and black boxes in some automobiles. Although such measures could potentially increase our safety, privacy concerns have arisen as it remains unclear how data collected will be used.

Red light cameras

Last week, the Chennai police announced that it plans to install traffic enforcement cameras, otherwise known as red light cameras, at 240 traffic signals over the next months, in order to put an end to car thefts in the city. Red light cameras, which capture images of vehicles entering an intersection against a red traffic light, have been installed in Bangalore since early 2008 and a study indicates that they have reduced the traffic violation rates. A 2003 report by the National Cooperative Highway Research Programme (NCHRP) examined studies from the previous 30 years in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore and concluded that red light cameras ´improve the overall safety of intersections when they are used´.

However, how are traffic violation rates even measured? According to Barbara Langland Orban, an associate professor of health policy and management at the University of South Florida:

“Safety is measured in crashes, in particular injury crashes, and violations are not a proxy for injuries. Also, violations can be whatever number an agency chooses to report, which is called an ‘endogenous variable’ in research and not considered meaningful as the number can be manipulated. In contrast, injuries reflect the number of people who seek medical care, which cannot be manipulated by the reporting methods of jurisdictions.”

Last year, the Bombay state government informed the High Court that the 100 CCTV cameras installed at traffic junctions in 2006-2007 were unsuitable for traffic enforcement because they lacked the capacity of automatic processing. Nonetheless, red light cameras, which are capable of monitoring speed and intersections with stop signals, are currently being proliferated in India. Yet, questions remain: Do red light cameras adequately increase public safety? Do they serve financial interests? Do they violate driver´s due-process rights?

RFID tags and Black Boxes

A communication revolution is upon us, as Maharashtra state transport department is currently including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on each and every number plate of vehicles. This ultimately means that the state will be able to monitor your vehicle´s real-time movement and track your whereabouts. RFID tags are not only supposedly used to increase public safety by tracking down offenders, but to also streamline public transport timetables. Thus, the movement of buses and cars would be precisely monitored and would provide passengers minute-to-minute information at bus stops. Following the 2001 amendment of Rule 50 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, new number plates with RFID tags have been made mandatory for all types of motor vehicles throughout India.

RFID technology has also been launched at Maharashtra´s state border check-posts. Since last year, the state government has been circulating RFID stickers to trucks, trailers and tankers, which would not only result in heavy goods vehicles not having to wait in long queues for clearance at check-posts, but would also supposedly put an end to corruption by RTO officials.

By 31 March 2014, it is estimated that RFID-based electronic toll collection (ETC) systems will be installed on all national highways in India. According to Dr. Joshi, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways:

“The RFID technology shall expedite the clearing of traffic at toll plazas and the need of carrying cash shall also be eliminated when toll plazas shall be duly integrated with each other throughout India.”

Although Dr. Joshi´s mission to create a quality highway network across India and to increase the transparency of the system seems rational, the ETC system raises privacy concerns, as it uniquely identifies each vehicle, collects data and provides general vehicle and traffic monitoring. This could potentially lead to a privacy violation, as India currently lacks adequate statutory provisions which could safeguard the use of our data from potential abuse. All we know is that our vehicles are being monitored, but it remains unclear how the data collected will be used, shared and retained, which raises concerns.

The cattle and pedestrians roaming the streets in India appear to have increased the need for the installation of an Event Data Recorder (EDR), otherwise known as a black box, which is a device capable of recording information related to crashes or accidents. The purpose of a black box is to record the speed of the vehicle at the point of impact in the case of an accident and whether the driver had applied the brakes. This would help insurance companies in deciding whether or not to entertain insurance claims, as well as to determine whether a driver is responsible for an accident.

Black boxes for vehicles are already being designed, tested and installed in some vehicles in India at an affordable cost. In fact, manufacturers in India have recommended that the government make it mandatory for cars to be fitted with the device, rather than it being optional. But can we have privacy when our cars are being monitored? This is essentially a case of proactive monitoring which has not been adequately justified yet, as it remains unclear how information would be used, who would be authorised to use and share such information, and whether its use would be accounted for to the individual.

Are monitored cars safer?

The trade-off is clear: the privacy and anonymity of our movement is being monitored in exchange for the provision of safety. But are we even getting any safety in return? According to a 2005 Federal Highway Administration study, although it shows a decrease in front-into-side crashes at intersections with cameras, an increase in rear-end crashes has also been proven. Other studies of red light cameras in the US have shown that more accidents have occurred since the installation of traffic enforcement cameras at intersections. Although no such research has been undertaken in India yet, the effectiveness, necessity and utility of red light cameras remain ambiguous.

Furthermore, there have been claims that the installation of red light cameras, ETCs, RFID tags, black boxes and other technologies do not primarily serve the purpose of public security, but financial gain. A huge debate has arisen in the United States on whether such monitoring of vehicles actually improves safety, or whether its primary objective is to serve financial interests. Red light cameras have already generated about $1.5 million in fines in the Elmwood village of Ohio, which leads critics to believe that the installation of such cameras has more to do with revenue enhancement than safety. The same type of question applies to India and yet a clear-cut answer has not been reached.

Companies which manufacture vehicle tracking systems are widespread in India, which constitutes the monitoring of our cars a vivid reality. Yet, there is a lack of statutory provisions in India for the privacy of our vehicle´s real-time movement and hence, we are being monitored without any safeguards. Major privacy concerns arise in regards to the monitoring of vehicles in India, as the following questions have not been adequately addressed: What type of data is collected in India through the monitoring of vehicles? Who can legally authorize access to such data? Who can have access to such data and under what conditions? Is data being shared between third parties and if so, under what conditions?How long is such data being retained for?

And more importantly: Why is it important to address the above questions? Does it even matter if the movement of our vehicles is being monitored? How would that affect us personally? Well, the monitoring of our cars implies a huge probability that it´s not our vehicles per se which are under the microscope, but us. And while the tracking of our movement might not end us up arrested, interrogated, tortured or imprisoned tomorrow...it might in the future. As long as we are being monitored, we are all suspects and we may potentially be treated as any other offender who is suspected to have committed a crime. The current statutory omission in India to adequately regulate the use of traffic enforcement cameras, RFID tags, black boxes and other technologies used to track and monitor the movement of our vehicles can potentially violate our due process rights and infringe upon our right to privacy and other human rights. Thus, the collection, access, use, analysis, sharing and retention of data acquired through the monitoring of vehicles in India should be strictly regulated to ensure that we are not exposed to our defenceless control.

Maneuvering our monitoring

Nowadays, surveillance appears to be the quick-fix solution for everything related to public security; but that does not need to be the case.

Instead of installing red light cameras monitoring our cars´ movements and bombarding us with fines, other ´simple´ measures could be enforced in India, such as increasing the duration of the yellow light between the green and the red, re-timing lights so drivers will encounter fewer red ones or increasing the visibility distance of the traffic lights so that it is more likely for a driver to stop. Such measures should be enforced by governments, especially since the monitoring of our vehicles is not adequately justified.

Strict laws regulating the use of all technologies monitoring vehicles in India, whether red light cameras, RFID tags or black boxes, should be enacted now. Such regulations should clearly specify the terms of monitoring vehicles, as well as the conditions under which data can be collected, accessed, shared, used, processed and stored. The enactment of regulations on the monitoring of vehicles in India could minimize the potential for citizens´ due process rights to be breached, as well as to ensure that their right to privacy and other human rights are legally protected. This would just be another step towards preventing ubiquitous surveillance and if governments are interested in protecting their citizens´ human rights as they claim they do, then there is no debate on the necessity of regulating the monitoring of our vehicles. The question though which remains is:

Should we be monitored at all?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/driving-in-the-surveillance-society-cameras-rfid-black-boxes

Draft IT guidelines may gag internet freedom

praskrishna — 2011-03-22T04:16:54Z

The draft rules proposed under the Information Technology Rules 2011 (due diligence observed by intermediaries guidelines) by the Indian government could lead to unprecedented levels of online censorship. This article by Shilpa Phadnis and Pranav Nambiar was published in the Times of India on March 11, 2011.

Intermediaries include telecommunications companies, internet service providers (ISPs) and blogging sites. Under the draft rules, intermediaries will have to notify users of their computer resource not to use, display, upload, publish, share or store a variety of `objectionable' content.

This includes infringement of proprietary information, blasphemy or abuse, information that could harm minors, content that impersonates another person or discloses sensitive personal information etc.

Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said that these moves would have a chilling effect on internet freedom. For example Sec 3 (2)(a) states that any website with social media integrated into it and allows public to add content comes under the blanket surveillance regime. Sec 3 (h), which talks about impersonating another person, will potentially discourage cases like the fake IPL player who revealed rich information while keeping his real identity under wraps.

The draft rules use a standard set of rules across a variety of intermediaries including telecom service providers, blogging sites, online payment sites, e-mail service providers, and Web hosting companies.

Abraham believes that the government is explicitly targeting bloggers as a community and the draft rules are far from being tech neutral. "The government has come out with standard terms of use for due diligence. But you can't treat a small blogger on par with others who have large-scale commercial interests," he said.

According to the draft rules, an intermediary has to inform users that in case of non-compliance of its terms of use of the services and privacy policy, it has the right to immediately terminate the access rights of the users to its site. In case of infringement, the intermediary has to work with the user or owner of the information to remove access to the information.

Apar Gupta, partner in Accendo Law Partners, said intermediaries like blogs and search engines would have censorship powers. "It will not directly impeach the freedom of speech and expression. But intermediaries have to comply with some certain standards such as notify users on compliance issues,"he said.

Click below to find the original article in the Times of India

[1]

[2]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/it-guidelines-gag-internet-freedom

Draft International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights

elonnai — 2013-07-12T15:55:45Z

These principles were developed by Privacy International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and seek to define an international standard for the surveillance of communications. The Centre for Internet and Society has been contributing feedback to the principles.

The principles are still in draft form. The most recent version can be accessed here. This research was undertaken as part of the 'SAFEGUARDS' project that CIS is undertaking with Privacy International and IDRC.

Our goal is that these principles will provide civil society groups, industry, and governments with a framework against which we can evaluate whether current or proposed surveillance laws and practices are consistent with human rights. We are concerned that governments are failing to develop legal frameworks to adhere to international human rights and adequately protect communications privacy, particularly in light of innovations in surveillance laws and techniques.

These principles are the outcome of a consultation with experts from civil society groups and industry across the world. It began with a meeting in Brussels in October 2012 to address shared concerns relating to the global expansion of government access to communications. Since the Brussels meeting we have conducted further consultations with international experts in communications surveillance law, policy and technology.[1]

We are now launching a global consultation on these principles. Please send us comments and suggestions by January 3rd 2013, by emailing rights (at) eff (dot) org.

Preamble
Privacy is a fundamental human right, and is central to the maintenance of democratic societies. It is essential to human dignity and it reinforces other rights, such as freedom of expression and association, and is recognised under international human rights law.[2] Activities that infringe on the right to privacy, including the surveillance of personal communications by public authorities, can only be justified where they are necessary for a legitimate aim, strictly proportionate, and prescribed by law.[3]

Before public adoption of the Internet, well-established legal principles and logistical burdens inherent in monitoring communications generally limited access to personal communications by public authorities. In recent decades, those logistical barriers to mass surveillance have decreased significantly. The explosion of digital communications content and information about communications, or “communications metadata”, the falling cost of storing and mining large sets of data, and the commitment of personal content to third party service providers make surveillance possible at an unprecedented scale.[4]

While it is universally accepted that access to communications content must only occur in exceptional situations, the frequency with which public authorities are seeking access to information about an individual’s communications or use of electronic devices is rising dramatically—without adequate scrutiny. [5] When accessed and analysed, communications metadata may create a profile of an individual's private life, including medical conditions, political and religious viewpoints, interactions and interests, disclosing even greater detail than would be discernible from the content of a communication alone. [6] Despite this, legislative and policy instruments often afford communications metadata a lower level of protection and do not place sufficient restrictions on how they can be subsequently used by agencies, including how they are data-mined, shared, and retained.

It is therefore necessary that governments, international organisations, civil society and private service providers articulate principles establishing the minimum necessary level of protection for digital communications and communications metadata (collectively "information") to match the goals articulated in international instruments on human rights— including a democratic society governed by the rule of law. The purpose of these principles is to:

Provide guidance for legislative changes and advancements related to communications and communications metadata to ensure that pervasive use of modern communications technology does not result in an erosion of privacy.
Establish appropriate safeguards to regulate access by public authorities (government agencies, departments, intelligence services or law enforcement agencies) to communications and communications metadata about an individual’s use of an electronic service or communication media.

We call on governments to establish stronger protections as required by their constitutions and human rights obligations, or as they recognize that technological changes or other factors require increased protection.

These principles focus primarily on rights to be asserted against state surveillance activities. We note that governments are required not only to respect human rights in their own conduct, but to protect and promote the human rights of individuals in general.[7] Companies are required to follow data protection rules and yet are also compelled to respond to lawful requests. Like other initiatives,[8] we hope to provide some clarity by providing the below principles on how state surveillance laws must protect human rights.

The Principles

Legality: Any limitation to the right to privacy must be prescribed by law. Neither the Executive nor the Judiciary may adopt or implement a measure that interferes with the right to privacy without a previous act by the Legislature that results from a comprehensive and participatory process. Given the rate of technological change, laws enabling limitations on the right to privacy should be subject to periodic review by means of a participatory legislative or regulatory process

Legitimate Purpose: Laws should only allow access to communications or communications metadata by authorised public authorities for investigative purposes and in pursuit of a legitimate purpose, consistent with a free and democratic society.

Necessity: Laws allowing access to communications or communications metadata by authorised public authorities should limit such access to that which is strictly and demonstrably necessary, in the sense that an overwhelmingly positive justification exists, and justifiable in a democratic society in order for the authority to pursue its legitimate purposes, and which the authority would otherwise be unable to pursue. The onus of establishing this justification, in judicial as well as in legislative processes, is on the government.

Adequacy: Public authorities should restrain themselves from adopting or implementing any measure of intrusion allowing access to communications or communications metadata that is not appropriate for fulfillment of the legitimate purpose that justified establishing that measure.

Competent Authority: Authorities capable of making determinations relating to communications or communications metadata must be competent and must act with independence and have adequate resources in exercising the functions assigned to them.

Proportionality: Public authorities should only order the preservation and access to specifically identified, targeted communications or communications metadata on a case-by-case basis, under a specified legal basis. Competent authorities must ensure that all formal requirements are fulfilled and must determine the validity of each specific attempt to access or receive communications or communications metadata, and that each attempt is proportionate in relation to the specific purposes of the case at hand. Communications and communications metadata are inherently sensitive and their acquisition should be regarded as highly intrusive. As such, requests should at a minimum establish a) that there is a very high degree of probability that a serious crime has been or will be committed; b) and that evidence of such a crime would be found by accessing the communications or communications metadata sought; c) other less invasive investigative techniques have been exhausted; and d) that a plan to ensure that the information collected will be only that information reasonably related to the crime and that any excess information collected will be promptly destroyed or returned. Neither the scope of information types, the number or type of persons whose information is sought, the amount of data sought, the retention of that data held by the authorities, nor the level of secrecy afforded to the request should go beyond what is demonstrably necessary to achieve a specific investigation.

Due process: Due process requires that governments must respect and guarantee an individual’s human rights, that any interference with such rights must be authorised in law, and that the lawful procedure that governs how the government can interfere with those rights is properly enumerated and available to the general public.[9]While criminal investigations and other considerations of public security and safety may warrant limited access to information by public authorities, the granting of such access must be subject to guarantees of procedural fairness. Every request for access should be subject to prior authorisation by a competent authority, except when there is imminent risk of danger to human life. [10]

User notification: Notwithstanding the notification and transparency requirements that governments should bear, service providers should notify a user that a public authority has requested his or her communications or communications metadata with enough time and information about the request so that a user may challenge the request. In specific cases where the public authority wishes to delay the notification of the affected user or in an emergency situation where sufficient time may not be reasonable, the authority should be obliged to demonstrate that such notification would jeopardize the course of investigation to the competent judicial authority reviewing the request. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the public authority to notify the individual affected and the service provider as soon as the risk is lifted or after the conclusion of the investigation, whichever is sooner.

Transparency about use of government surveillance: The access capabilities of public authorities and the process for access should be prescribed by law and should be transparent to the public. The government and service providers should provide the maximum possible transparency about the access by public authorities without imperiling ongoing investigations, and with enough information so that individuals have sufficient knowledge to fully comprehend the scope and nature of the law, and when relevant, challenge it. Service providers must also publish the procedure they apply to deal with data requests from public authorities.

Oversight: An independent oversight mechanism should be established to ensure transparency of lawful access requests. This mechanism should have the authority to access information about public authorities' actions, including, where appropriate, access to secret or classified information, to assess whether public authorities are making legitimate use of their lawful capabilities, and to publish regular reports and data relevant to lawful access. This is in addition to any oversight already provided through another branch of government such as parliament or a judicial authority. This mechanism must provide – at a minimum – aggregate information on the number of requests, the number of requests that were rejected, and a specification of the number of requests per service provider and per type of crime. [11]

Integrity of communications and systems: It is the responsibility of service providers to transmit and store communications and communications metadata securely and to a degree that is minimally necessary for operation. It is essential that new communications technologies incorporate security and privacy in the design phases. In order, in part, to ensure the integrity of the service providers’ systems, and in recognition of the fact that compromising security for government purposes almost always compromises security more generally, governments shall not compel service providers to build surveillance or monitoring capability into their systems. Nor shall governments require that these systems be designed to collect or retain particular information purely for law enforcement or surveillance purposes. Moreover, a priori data retention or collection should never be required of service providers and orders for communications and communications metadata preservation must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Finally, present capabilities should be subject to audit by an independent public oversight body.

Safeguards for international cooperation: In response to changes in the flows of information and the technologies and services that are now used to communicate, governments may have to work across borders to fight crime. Mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) should ensure that, where the laws of more than one state could apply to communications and communications metadata, the higher/highest of the available standards should be applied to the data. Mutual legal assistance processes and how they are used should also be clearly documented and open to the public. The processes should distinguish between when law enforcement agencies can collaborate for purposes of intelligence as opposed to sharing actual evidence. Moreover, governments cannot use international cooperation as a means to surveil people in ways that would be unlawful under their own laws. States must verify that the data collected or supplied, and the mode of analysis under MLAT, is in fact limited to what is permitted. In the absence of an MLAT, service providers should not respond to requests of the government of a particular country requesting information of users if the requests do not include the same safeguards as providers would require from domestic authorities, and the safeguards do not match these principles.

Safeguards against illegitimate access: To protect individuals against unwarranted attempts to access communications and communications metadata, governments should ensure that those authorities and organisations who initiate, or are complicit in, unnecessary, disproportionate or extra-legal interception or access are subject to sufficient and significant dissuasive penalties, including protection and rewards for whistleblowers, and that individuals affected by such activities are able to access avenues for redress. Any information obtained in a manner that is inconsistent with these principles is inadmissible as evidence in any proceeding, as is any evidence derivative of such information.

Cost of surveillance: The financial cost of providing access to user data should be borne by the public authority undertaking the investigation. Financial constraints place an institutional check on the overuse of orders, but the payments should not exceed the service provider’s actual costs for reviewing and responding to orders, as such would provide a perverse financial incentive in opposition to user’s rights.

Signatories

Organisations

Article 19 (International)
Bits of Freedom (Netherlands)
Center for Internet & Society India (CIS India)
Derechos Digitales (Chile)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (International)
Privacy International (International)
Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (Canada)
Statewatch (UK)

Individuals

Renata Avila, human rights lawyer (Guatemala)

Footnotes

[1]For more information about the background to these principles and the process undertaken, see https://www.privacyinternational.org/blog/towards-international-principles-on-communications-surveillance
[2]Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 12, United Nations Convention on Migrant Workers Article 14, UN Convention of the Protection of the Child Article 16, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 17; regional conventions including Article 10 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Article 11 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Article 4 of the African Union Principles on Freedom of Expression, Article 5 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, Article 21 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, and Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Free Expression and Access to Information, Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality.
[3]Martin Scheinin, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism,” p11, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/rapporteur/docs/A_HRC_13_37_AEV.pdf. See also General Comments No. 27, Adopted by The Human Rights Committee Under Article 40, Paragraph 4, Of The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, November 2, 1999, available at http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/6c76e1b8ee1710e380256824005a10a9?Opendocument.
[4]Communications metadata may include information about our identities (subscriber information, device information), interests, including medical conditions, political and religious viewpoints (websites visited, books and other materials read, watched or listened to, searches conducted, resources used), interactions (origins and destinations of communications, people interacted with, friends, family, acquaintances), location (places and times, proximities to others); in sum, logs of nearly every action in modern life, our mental states, interests, intentions, and our innermost thoughts.
[5]For example, in the United Kingdom alone, there are now approximately 500,000 requests for communications metadata every year, currently under a self-authorising regime for law enforcement agencies, who are able to authorise their own requests for access to information held by service providers. Meanwhile, data provided by Google’s Transparency reports shows that requests for user data from the U.S. alone rose from 8888 in 2010 to 12,271 in 2011.
[6]See as examples, a review of Sandy Petland’s work, ‘Reality Mining’, in MIT’s Technology Review, 2008, available at http://www2.technologyreview.com/article/409598/tr10-reality-mining/ and also see Alberto Escudero-Pascual and Gus Hosein, ‘Questioning lawful access to traffic data’, Communications of the ACM, Volume 47 Issue 3, March 2004, pages 77 - 82.
[7]Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, May 16 2011, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/a.hrc.17.27_en.pdf
[8]The Global Network Initiative establishes standards to help the ICT sector protect the privacy and free expression of their users. See http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/
[9]As defined by international and regional conventions mentioned above.
[10]Where judicial review is waived in such emergency cases, a warrant must be retroactively sought within 24 hours.
[11]One example of such a report is the US Wiretap report, published by the US Court service. Unfortunately this applies only to interception of communications, and not to access to communications metadata. See http://www.uscourts.gov/Statistics/WiretapReports/WiretapReport2011.aspx. The UK Interception of Communications Commissioner publishes a report that includes some aggregate data but it is does not provide sufficient data to scrutinise the types of requests, the extent of each access request, the purpose of the requests, and the scrutiny applied to them. See http://www.intelligencecommissioners.com/sections.asp?sectionID=2&type=top.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/draft-intl-principles-on-communications-surveillance-and-human-rights

Draft Digital Communications Policy

Gurshabad Grover — 2018-06-07T02:02:29Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/draft-digital-communications-policy

Draft bill proposes Rs 1 crore fine, 3 year jail for data privacy violation

Admin — 2018-06-29T16:48:48Z

The move comes at a time when user data of Indians is under threat from social media firms accused of data mining and sharing information with private companies for advertising and marketing purposes. There has also been a growing concern over Aadhaar.

The article by Vidhi Choudhury was published in the Hindustan Times on June 8, 2018. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Even as a 10-member government panel is due to submit its recommendations for a new data privacy bill, a group of lawyers on Friday uploaded a model citizens’ code, which they said could give the panel pointers to what India’s final privacy law should be.

The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) launched its community project, ‘Save our Privacy’, in what it described as a bid to safeguard individuals’ right to privacy. This model code, titled ‘Indian Privacy Code, 2018’, has been drafted by lawyers such Gautam Bhatia, Apar Gupta and Raman Jit Singh Chima, among others.

Many of these lawyers made a joint submission to the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee in the past. On Friday, they sent him an email with the copy of the code with its seven core principles. The core principles follow what IFF calls a “rights-based approach to protect people from harmful use of their personal data”.

“In a world where personal data has power, people need to be put in charge of their own lives,” said New Delhi-based lawyer Apar Gupta.

The draft bill sets a penalty of up to Rs 1 crore for the violation of privacy of citizens and a prison sentence of up to three years. It also provides for a penalty of up to Rs 10 crore to anyone found to be performing surveillance unlawfully, with a prison term of up to five years.

The move comes at a time when user data of Indians is under potential threat from social media companies that have been accused of data mining and sharing user information with private firms for advertising and marketing purposes.

There has also been a growing concern in India over the validity of the Aadhaar law. A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court has finished hearing a slew of petitions against the unique identity number and has reserved its judgment.

On 31 July, the government constituted the panel headed by Justice Srikrishna to study various issues relating to data protection and suggest a draft data protection bill.

IFF said in a statement that it had concerns over the “composition, lack of diversity and transparency” of the committee. It also said it was concerned about the lack of urgency India had shown about making a privacy law, and that its civil society project was important to build awareness on privacy and data protection in India.

“The Indian Privacy Code, 2018 ensures that right to privacy does not undermine the Right to Information Act. All the other existing laws including the Telegraph Act and the Aadhaar Act should be subject to this law,” Chima said.

“We hope the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee considers and adopts the language we propose,” he added.

According to a senior official at the home ministry who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the privacy bill hasn’t come up for discussion yet. “In any case, the said bill will be taken up by the IT ministry first. The IT ministry will be responsible for piloting the proposed bill on privacy and MHA will, in the later stages, give its opinion on security issues related to the proposed bill,” he said.

A government official on condition of anonymity said that its for the Justice Srikirshna Committee to look at the model privacy code launched today and decide what they want to use from it.

When contacted, Ajay Sawhney, secretary for ministry of electronics and technology said: “The Justice Srikrishna Committee will submit its report shortly.”

“The reason civil society is doing this is because the government is not sharing their draft bills,” said Sunil Abraham, founder of think tank Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). In 2013, CIS had also published a citizen’s draft privacy protection bill.

(With inputs from Azaan Javaid)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/hindustan-times-june-8-2018-vidhi-choudhary-draft-bill-proposes-rs-1-crore-fine-3-year-jail-for-data-privacy-violation

Draft Annual Report (2010-11)

praskrishna — 2014-10-21T23:55:55Z

This is the draft of the 2010-11 Annual Report.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/reports/annual-report-2010-2011.pdf

DP Compendium

Admin — 2018-05-31T16:00:24Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/dp-compendium

Does the UID Reflect India?

elonnai — 2012-03-22T05:45:32Z

On December 17th the Campaign for No UID held a press conference and public meeting in Bangalore. Below is a summary and analysis of the events.

Introduction

Scientifically speaking, we are each unique. We have unique bodies and minds, and these give rise to unique understandings, interactions, and perceptions. Despite being unique, we can be put into different categories and classes, one of which is a culture. A culture is defined by its values, which are reflected in its legal system. Consequently legal systems are always changing – bills are constantly being amended, passed, and retracted in order to make the governing legal structure reflect the ethos of that society. Thus, when analyzing a piece of legislation it is important to ask if that bill is meaningful in a way that reflects the ideas, values, attitudes, and expectations that a society has. This is the question that Usha Ramanathan, Mathew Thomas, and others in the Campaign for No UID have been asking about the UID project, and urged the public to ask the same question in the press conference and public meeting held on the 17th of December. According to the Campaign for No UID, the project and Bill fail to reflect and meet the current needs that exist in India. The UID Bill, the proposed legislation for the project, authorizes the creation of a centralized database of unique identification numbers that are to be issued to every resident of India. The numbers will act as identity. Recently, the Bill was sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, and is scheduled to be enacted in early 2011. The UID project is attempting to create a technological solution to the identification problem in India. It is well-known that India faces challenges in identifying its citizens and residents. Individuals either have no identification – restricting their access to society and benefits -- or, in some cases, they have multiple identities, therefore taking advantage of society at the expense of others, or a person does not have any identification – therefore escaping civil duties. The confusing identity system that exists in India has many negative drawbacks including the facilitation of corruption, illegal immigration, and possible security threats. The UID project attempts to provide a system of identity that is based on individuals’ biometrics, and that places the whole of India on a grid through the issuance of 12 digit Aadhaar numbers. The Campaign for NO UID does not deny the need for an efficient identity system, is not against technology, and does not deny that the current identity system has problems. Instead, it believes that the project does not adequately address the issues at hand, while at the same time creating a real prospect of harmful ramifications.

Benefits for the Poor

Though the UID project only gives identity to an individual, it has been envisioned as a means of ensuring the delivery of benefits to the poor. According to the World Bank, within India 41% of the population lives below the poverty line, and targeting the need to ensure benefits for the poor is an appropriate vision. Furthermore, as reflected in the Right to Food Act, there is a cultural understanding and expectation that the State needs to work to bring benefits to the poor. The point that Ms. Ramanathan draws attention to, though, is that the goal of bringing benefits to the poor is just a vision. The project and the Bill are not structured in a way that guarantee benefits to the poor. Instead, by trying to include the perception of this benefit, the language of the Bill has become too broad. The wide-sweeping language allows room for abuse of how information that is collected will be used.

Appropriate Methodology

Ms. Ramanathan also questions the methodology of the UID project. The collection of biometrics is not an absolute insurer of identity, in the way that DNA would be. A person’s biometrics are in fact very public. They are left on anything one touches, and can easily be reproduced for use by others. Identity theft is thus easily accomplished if biometrics are the only safeguard. Realistically, the vast majority of India’s population would not know what to do or how to seek redress if identities were stolen – indeed, many would not even be aware of the fact that their identity had been stolen. Thus, the project establishes a hierarchy of vulnerability. Those who understand and have access to technology and the legal system are better able to protect their identity (or abuse another’s), and the rest of the population is at the mercy of the people who possess that knowledge and those connections.

Legal Questions

Ms. Ramanathan also brought up a few legal issues with the UID Bill. Most importantly she pointed out that the UID project is not legal, yet enrollment of individuals has been taking place. Not only is this action undemocratic, but it is presumptuous of the UIDAI to assume that their project will have legal validity. Another legal issue raised by Ms. Ramanathan was in concern with the compulsory nature of the Aadhaar number. Legally the UID Bill does not make the Aadhaar number compulsory. Instead, the project is structured in such a way that the UID number is socially compulsory. Ms. Ramanathan argues that this is unfair of the UIDAI. If the number were to be truly voluntary, the UID would need to include clauses that prohibit the denial of goods, services, entitlements and benefits for lack of a UID number. An individual would need to be able to access benefits with alternative forms of identification before the Aadhaar number would be truly voluntary.

Does India Comprehend what the UID Could Bring?

Another fear voiced by Mrs. Ramanathan in her presentation was the level of public comprehension. Even though the project will touch the lives of every human being who comes to India, the majority of the Indian population has not thought through why they support or do not support the project, and most do not comprehend the dangerous implications of the UID project. Connections are not being made and clearly publicized about how the project could be used in the future. For example, once everyone has a set of personal data that is uploaded on a centralized database, there is a new concern over that data. What is happening to it, who is using it, what is it being used for, who is seeing it, who is analyzing it, what happens if that data is lost? One of the serious implications of the project is its’ threat to anonymity. Anonymity results when the personal identity, or personally identifiable information of a person is not known. Anonymity already exists today in Indian society by default.. This will change, though, with the UID. One’s body will become a traceable marker that will be readily identifiable to law enforcement and other agencies. By issuing numbers to each person, that will be used for every transaction – it will be possible to create a map of the population and tag information about individuals in a way that changes the relationship between the state and the people. Though it is true India could benefit from a lesser degree of anonymity. For instance corruption might be easier to control. The Bill takes no steps, though, to ensure under what conditions anonymity will be preserved. Thus, the project has the potential to be widely misused for intensive surveillance and the policing of populations – not just for illegal activity but for disfavored or unpopular activity as well.

Conclusion

One way to avoid the misuse of data is through the adherence to privacy standards such as how data should be processed, transferred etc. India does not of yet have such a privacy law, and such principles are not reflected in the text of the Bill itself. The fact that the UID bill and project bring into focus principles that are not yet fully reflected in the social and legal framework of society can be problematic. On one hand this Bill can push India to adopt those principles, in which case a data protection and privacy bill must be enacted, and awareness must be raised. On the other hand, the Bill can simply overshadow the populace, allowing significant violations of privacy and anonymity to take place with no assurance of redress. As Ms. Ramanathan noted, even though the project is not reflective of Indian society, the way in which the project is being marketed is. The project has been tied to the image of Nandan Nilekani, and the message is clear: the project must be good. The Campaign for No UID is asking the public to look beyond the face of the project, and consider whether or not this is the India they imagine.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/uid-reflects-india

Does the Government want to enter our homes?

sunil — 2012-03-21T10:12:40Z

When rogue politicians and bureaucrats are granted unrestricted access to information then the very future of democracy and free media will be in jeopardy. In an article published in the Pune Mirror on 10 August, 2010, Sunil Abraham examines this in light of the BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry messenger service that the Government of India plans to block if its makers do not allow the monitoring of messages. He says that civil society should rather resist and insist on suitable checks and balances like governmental transparency and a fair judicial oversight instead of allowing the government to intrude into the privacy and civil liberties of its citizens.

What? Me worry about the blackberry imbroglio?
If Pierre Trudeau were alive today, he would feel similarly about the Canadian innovation that is making news these days. But, given the Indian media's objective take on the ongoing BlackBerry tussle, one would assume that the media is unaffected.

Many internet observers say that the very future of democracy and free media is at stake. If rogue politicians and bureaucrats are able to eavesdrop on the communications of media houses, wouldn't that sound the death knell for sting operations, anonymous informants and whistle-blowers?

And, consequently, free press and democracy? How can the media keep its calm when one of the last bastions of electronic privacy in India is being stormed?

Isn’t this a lost cause already?
Perhaps, our reporters and editors have remained complacent, because they do not want to swim against the tide. After all, governments across the world have used excuses like cyber-terrorism, organised crime, pornography, piracy etc. to justify censorship and surveillance regimes.

The priveleged access that the governments of India, Saudi Arabia and UAE are demanding has already been provided to the governments of USA, Canada and Russia, for example.

We don't know how much they know about us!
The average reader might not be aware of the access that the Indian government has to his/her personal information.

To be clear, the Indian government, like most other governments, is able to intercept, decrypt, monitor and record sms and voice call traffic by working in partnership with ISP and Telecom operators.

This is legalised through ISP licence agreements, which requires ISPs to provide monitoring equipment that can be used to by various law enforcement and intelligence agencies. There is no clear policy on data-retention policies.

Industry insiders say that SMS messages, telephone call logs, email headers, and web requests are archived from anywhere between three months and a year.

Do these ISPs and telecom operators then delete, anonymise or obfuscate this data? Or do they they retain it for posterity for market research?

In the absence of a privacy law — the Indian citizen can only make intelligent guesses.

Encryption is our friend
As a student, when I passed a love note to my lady-love in class, I would use a symmetric key encryption scheme.

She would use the same key as I did to unencrypt the machine, ie, substituting the alphabet with the next/previous one.

If someone was able to intercept the key, then all communication between us in both directions would be compromised.

Asymmetric key encryption solves this problem by giving both parties two keys — a public key and a private key. I would use my lady-love’s public key to encrypt a message meant for her.

Only she would be able to unencrypt the message by using her private key. The size of the key — 40bit, 128bit, 256bit etc. determines the strength of the encryption.

The more bits you have, the longer it will take for someone to break through using a brute force method. The brute force method or dictionary method is when you try every single combination —just as you would with an old suitcase.

The time taken also depends on computing resources — whether you are a jealous boyfriend, or the FBI, or a corporation like Google. These days, governments depend on corporations for hardware and network muscle.

How does Blackberry encrypt differently?
Other smart phone providers like IPhone and Nokia make email and Internet traffic transparent to the ISP and telecom operator, making it easy for governments are able to keep track of Internet users on mobile phones just as they monitor dial-up or broadband users.

Most mobile services come with a basic encryption. Blackberry is different because it introduces an additional level of encryption, and then routes traffic either through corporate servers or through its own servers in Canada and other parts of the world.

The fact that information is routed thus can pose a threat to the Indian government, if officials are using Blackberries to exchange highly classified information.

Then, GoI could be worried if western intelligence agencies are eavesdropping.

How will this end? Will Blackberry leave?
Blackberry has never exited a country, because in the end it has prioritised consumer privacy over commercial compulsions. For example Blackberry has now ‘resolved’ security probwith Saudi Arabia.

I don’t think we should worry about deals or compromises. However, this is not to say that Blackberry should not be applauded.

They have taken a public stand against unrestricted governmental access to their clients’ information; one should always applaud corporates who fight hard for privacy and civil liberties.

What the Blackberry dilemma is showing us is the social cost of the electronic Big Brother will be steep, as it should be.

To protect citizens’ rights, civil society must resist and insist on suitable checks and balances like governmental transparency and fair judicial oversight.

Read the article in Pune Mirror

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/government-enter-homes