The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 11 to 25.
Amnesty International calls for review of 66A of IT act
https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-november-28-2012-nirmalya-behera-amnesty-international-calls-for-review-of-66a-of-it-act
<b>The review seeks to bring the Act in line with international human rights law standards on freedom of expression.</b>
<hr />
<p>This article by Nirmalya Behera was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/amnesty-international-calls-for-review66ait-act/197621/on">published in the Business Standard</a> on November 28, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>Joining in the row over arrest of two girls in Maharastra for <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/prof_page.php?search=Facebook&select=1" target="_blank">Facebook</a> comments, the human rights group, Amnesty International, has called for review of the Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a letter to Kapil Sibal, Union minister for Communications and Information Technology, the London based human right watchdog has asked for reviewing the section and bringing it in line with international human rights law standards on freedom of expression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>The human rights group and the Centre for Internet and Society believe that Section 66A, which was amended in 2008, is not in line with the constitution of India and internationally accepted standards on freedom of expression. They termed the section as imprecise and over board.<br /><br />Amnesty has also called for laying down clear and comprehensive explanations of the restrictions on free speech either in the IT act or in the rules in order to prevent the abuse of the provision by various state law enforcement officials and frame the explanations after consulting it with the public.<br /><br />“The Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs without fear, or interference. But under Section 66A, even a peaceful posting could lead to a prison sentence of up to three years”, it said in its letter.<br /><br />It may be noted that two girls- Shaheen Dhada and her friend Renu Srinivasan were arrested on November 19, after Dhada had lamented in a Facebook post about the shutdown in Mumbai due to Bal Thackeray's funeral and were later released on bail. </span></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-november-28-2012-nirmalya-behera-amnesty-international-calls-for-review-of-66a-of-it-act'>https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-november-28-2012-nirmalya-behera-amnesty-international-calls-for-review-of-66a-of-it-act</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceInformation Technology2012-11-30T06:19:45ZNews ItemCivil society & industry oppose India’s plans to modify ITRs
https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs
<b>Industry fears ITU control over Internet; excessive content control and surveillance an issue for civil society.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shalini Singh's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/civil-society-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs/article4124046.ece">published in the Hindu</a> on November 23, 2012.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">India’s proposal on International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), submitted last month to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the U.N. agency responsible for information and communication technologies, has drawn opposition from, and fears of content control among, civil society and the industry alike.<br /><br />Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet Society, told The Hindu: “The Indian government’s position on the ITRs can be improved, particularly with regard to the proposed definitions, approach to cyber security, scope of regulation.” However, he said, “we are confident that the Indian position will protect consumer and citizen interest once the government implements changes based on inputs from all… stakeholders.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), which represents the $100-billion IT and BPO industry, has strong views against the Internet governance model of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), but favours self-regulation. Its president Som Mittal says: “NASSCOM does not favour oversight by an existing U.N. organisation like ITU. Internet and infrastructure have to be in the hands of expert organisations with proven experience.” NASSCOM has also expressed discomfort with the inclusion of “ICTs along with processing” in Section 21E of India’s proposal, since this would subject IT and BPO industries to inter-governmental regulation through the ITRs.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents India’s largest mobile operators with nearly 700 million subscribers, has also opposed any role for ITU in the areas of international roaming and Internet governance, fearing a direct impact on domestic network architecture, costs and technology choices. COAI director-general Rajan Mathews said: “We are already regulated by the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Placing the ITU’s jurisdiction over us — where we neither have voice nor recourse — is unacceptable.” The COAI’s position is consistent with the GSM Association (GSMA), the world’s largest association of mobile companies representing 800 operators spanning 220 countries. The COAI further alleges that most of its inputs “have been rejected without reasons assigned or even a meeting.” It has lodged a protest with the DoT.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has similarly protested against ITU’s jurisdiction over issues of Internet governance, architecture and cost.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Subho Ray, president, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), said: “We represent a vast majority of Internet companies but have not been consulted by the DoT. We are completely opposed to ITU’s jurisdiction in any area related to Internet policy.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The FICCI has also given detailed inputs on the dangers of allowing ITU’s jurisdiction, especially in areas of Internet policy and governance. It supports a bottom-up consultative and consensus-led multi-stakeholder approach, similar to the one propounded by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal at the Internet Governance Forum, the world’s largest multi-stakeholder conference, held in Baku.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Several prominent civil society groups and members of academia involved in Internet governance also have apprehensions about expanding the ITU’s reach to Internet regulation through the ITRs. In a November 15, 2012 letter to Telecom Secretary R. Chandrashekhar, Society for Knowledge Commons, Internet Democracy Project, Free Software Movement of India, Delhi Science Forum, Media for Change and Software Freedom Law Center have complained about not having been consulted, while warning that India’s proposal “could have far reaching implications for the Internet.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the issue of cyber security, industry associations and several civil society groups are unanimously against any role for ITU, pointing out that including ill-defined terms such as ‘spam’ and ‘network fraud’ in a binding treaty is a terrible idea. Further, cyber security commitments can force India to cooperate with countries whose military and strategic interests are against it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India, and head of NASSCOM’s security initiatives, said: “Cyber security is sought to be taken over by ITU — an area in which it has little experience. Cyber security includes areas of application security, identity and access management, web security, content filtering, cyber forensics, data security, including issues such as cyber espionage and cyber warfare. The ITU has had no involvement in these matters over the last two decades, and should therefore stay out of them.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similar views have been expressed in varying degrees by the COAI, the IAMAI, the ISPAI and the FICCI. Dr. Ray of the IAMAI says: “cyber security is essentially a state prerogative and should not be part of an external treaty obligation. Any attempt to channel it through the ITU may be counter productive.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>Mr. Sibal, who has already been challenged by opposition to the domestic IT rules, is aware that if left unaddressed, opposition to India’s stance on ITRs will only escalate at a national and global level, and that if corrections have to be made in India’s position, those will have to be done consensually within the governance structure. Mr. Sibal confirmed that while cyber security was an area of discussion with the ITU, “the ITU does not have any role in Internet governance.”</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to him, either he or the Department will hold meetings on these issues with the industry to further evolve India’s position.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Chandrashekhar further confirmed that similar to several global national delegations, the government would include media and industry experts as part of its delegation to Dubai, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) will be held from December 3 to 14. The final decisions on the ITRs and the composition of the delegation would be announced the coming week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A deeply divided house in Dubai is a strong possibility, with countries which favour democracy and free speech taking a stance against those who, due to political compulsions, have proposed inter-governmental control through the ITRs by the ITU, not just on Internet policy, but also its traffic and content, most of which automatically fall under the definitions of the ICTs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 193-countries at THE WCIT may well spend 11 days discussing national proposals to separate issues that can be addressed nationally from those which require inter-governmental cooperation, while further debating which platforms may be best to address global cooperation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is equally clear that the existing Internet governance system is unacceptable to most countries, and therefore a more evolved democratic and internationally equitable system, which is managed through a multi-stakeholder process and yet with a definite role for countries like India, appears the only way forward.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Sibal, at meetings with global Internet governance bodies in Baku, is learnt to have bargained hard for India’s explicit role in the existing Internet governance processes.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomInternet GovernanceICT2012-11-30T09:42:17ZNews ItemHow to Steer Clear of India’s Strict Internet Laws
https://cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-november-20-2012-how-to-steer-clear-of-indias-strict-internet-laws
<b>The arrest of two women in Mumbai for a Facebook post is the latest heavy-handed move by India’s government to curb what Indian citizens say on the Internet.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Sangeeta Rajesh and Heather Timmons was published in the New York Times on November 20, 2012. Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash are quoted.</p>
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<p><span><span>The two women <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/women-arrested-in-mumbai-for-complaining-on-facebook/#postComment">were</a><a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/women-arrested-in-mumbai-for-complaining-on-facebook/#postComment"> arrested</a> Sunday under a section of the <a href="http://eci.nic.in/archive/manuals/part2/acts_1d.htm">Indian Penal Code</a> that outlaws spreading “statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill- will between classes” after one complained about the citywide strike sparked by the death of the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and the second woman “liked” her statement. </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But the incident was just the latest in a string of recent arrests, detentions and account suspensions in India over online comments. If you live in India and have an opinion someone might not like, but you don’t want to become a target of the law, there’s one easy rule you need to follow, experts say: stay off social media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Right now, “there’s nothing one can do but to close up your social media accounts” and stop voicing your opinion on the Internet entirely, if you want to guarantee you won’t be arrested in India, said Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore. (To be sure, that’s not what most free speech advocates recommend that you do. India Ink will soon have more on a social media activist who is fighting India’s strict Internet controls.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Abraham advises extreme caution because India’s free speech rules have been historically weak (read more about India’s long history of censorship <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/newswallah-censorship/">here</a>), a relatively new Internet law is extremely broadly defined and police and <a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/may-review-it-act-to-prevent-misuse-kapil-sibal-on-girls-arrest/306432-3-244.html">lawmakers themselves</a> are sometimes confused about what the actual rules themselves say.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img alt="A screenshot of Ravi Srinivasan's twitter page. Mr. Srinivasan was arrested for a tweet he posted." height="268" id="100000001894388" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/09/world/asia/9-Twitter-arrest-IndiaInk/9-Twitter-arrest-IndiaInk-blog480.jpg" width="480" /></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>A screenshot of Ravi Srinivasan’s twitter page. Mr. Srinivasan was arrested for a tweet he posted.</i></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Late last month, Ravi Srinivasan, a Puducherry businessman and an India Against Corruption volunteer, was arrested for his Twitter post that alleged Karti Chidambaram, the son of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, had amassed a large amount of wealth. Mr. Srinivasan was arrested Oct. 30 but was later released on bail.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier in October, an associate professor of the National Institute for Fashion Technology in Chennai was arrested after what the Tamil Nadu singer Chinmayi said was a <a href="http://www.chinmayisripada.com/2012/10/facing-abuse-and-backlash-of-rumours.html">long period of harassment on the Internet</a>, including negative Twitter messages. In August, the Indian government demanded Internet service providers <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/indian-government-casts-a-wide-puzzling-net-over-internet/">suspend hundreds of Web pages</a> to curb ethnic tension and asked Twitter to <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/outrage-in-india-over-twitter-crackdown-on-twitter-at-least/">suspend accounts</a> parodying government officials. Last year, the central government asked social media companies to <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/india-asks-google-facebook-others-to-screen-user-content/">prescreen content</a> about India for objectionable remarks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The key culprits here are revisions to India’s Information Technology Act made in 2008 and 2011, experts say, that leave nearly everything that is transmitted via the Internet open to interpretation by nearly everyone who reads it on the Internet. Things that are considered “annoying” and “offensive” can, under the law, land their sender in jail for up to three years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While some of India’s nearly 50 million Facebook users and millions of Twitter users are up in arms about the recent arrests in Mumbai and are sharing the woman’s original post, under the theory that the police can’t arrest everyone, conservative advocates don’t recommend that sort of action on the Internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">V. Vijaya Baskar, an advocate with Madras High Court practicing civil, criminal and family law for over 10 years, said that there are basic guidelines of free speech behavior that should be followed, even by Internet users. The most important, he said, is to avoid the use of obscene language and pictures, which are considered a direct threat. He also advised against getting into confrontations with people you don’t know or recognize on social media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“If you have a true and verifiable source or documented evidence, then making a public statement is not defamation, but making passing comments of any person, particularly people in public life, will amount to defaming the person and is punishable,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While India’s government and law officials sometimes come across as not very tech-savvy, Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Center for Internet and Society, said that lawmakers in many countries with a much higher Internet penetration are just as challenged by the Internet. And in India, while the laws are strict, people seldom land in jail for Internet-related offenses, he said.</p>
<p>“The detention law in India, sensibly, defaults to ‘bail, not jail,’ ” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Prakash said he could not offer any global guidelines to avoid being arrested, and concluded that “each forum has its own rules of etiquette, which cannot be codified or enforced by legislation.” Online speech can be disagreed upon and opinions should be made known, since it is only the “natural tendency for people with extreme views to be more vocal online.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Not surprisingly, the authorities in India who have been involved in arrests insist they are just doing their job, and doing it well. The Tamil Nadu police, for example, said they acted appropriately in Mr. Srinivasan’s arrest.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">R. S. Krishna, inspector general for law and order, told the media that the Puducherry police could not be faulted for filing a First Investigation Report, the precursor to filing charges, against Mr. Srinivasan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I am very clear that we have acted purely on the basis of the merit of the complaint, in accordance with the rule of law,” he said. “We are right on our part.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-november-20-2012-how-to-steer-clear-of-indias-strict-internet-laws'>https://cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-november-20-2012-how-to-steer-clear-of-indias-strict-internet-laws</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2012-11-30T10:13:53ZNews ItemSecond International e-Governance Conference
https://cis-india.org/news/second-international-e-governance-conference-at-baghdad
<b>The second international conference on governance and electronics which is held under the motto "Together Toward Digital Inclusion" is organized by the National Committee for Corporate Governance Electronic Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme at Rashid Hotel in Baghdad from December 2-3, 2012. The event aims to review the achievements of the program e-governance Iraqi national, and discuss the challenges of applying e-governance as a tool to achieve public sector reform and digital inclusion.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham is a speaker at this event and is presenting on "Review of the Legal Environment in Iraq for Effective e-Governance", and "Government Interoperability Frameworks: Global Overview and implications for Iraq".</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Conference Agenda</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Sunday, December 2, 2012 </b></p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>09:00 – 10:00</td>
<td>Conference Registration</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10:00 – 11:00</td>
<td>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>Opening Ceremony</p>
<ul>
<li>H.E. Nuri Al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq</li>
<li>Ms. Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator </li>
<li>H.E. Dr. Abdul Kareem Al-Samaraii, Minister of Science and Technology</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:00 – 11:30</td>
<td>Break <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:30 – 12:30</td>
<td>
<p>Plenary session 1: e-Governance and Public Sector Reform<br />Chairman: Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology</p>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Thamir Al Ghadban, Head of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Commission (PMAC) </li>
<li>Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar, UNDP Expert </li>
<li>Q & A</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12:30 – 13:30</td>
<td>
<p>Plenary session 2: Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society</p>
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Mr. Imad Naji, Director General - Ministry of Planning</li>
<li>Dr. Laurence Millar, UNDP Expert</li>
<li>Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning</li>
<li>Q & A </li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13:30 – 13:40</td>
<td>
<p>Plenary Session 3: Challenges of e-Governance Implementation</p>
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Dr. Mahmood Kassim Sharief, Director General – Ministry of Science and Technology</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13:40 – 14:00</td>
<td>Break</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14:00 – 15:30</td>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>Workshop 1: Challenges of implementing an adequate telecommunications infrastructure and Highlighting the role of the private sector and the establishment of the concept of true public-private sector partnership in the field of e-governance</p>
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Mr. Jaber Zwayed Atiyah, Director General – National Security Commission</li>
<li>Dr. Rohan Samarajiva Lirne, UNDP Expert </li>
<li>Dr. Shahani Markus Weerawarana, UNDP Expert </li>
<li>Ms. Raghad Abdulrasoul National Centre for Consultation and Management Development/Ministry of Planning </li>
<li>Q&A </li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13:30 – 14:30</td>
<td>Lunch @ AL-Rashid <br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Monday, December 3, 2012</b></p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>09:00 – 09:15</td>
<td>Closure of the Plenary Session 3<br />Presentation of workshop results</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>09:15 – 10:45</td>
<td>Plenary Session 4: Effective Role of Local Governments in Framework of e-Governance Program<br />
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Manu Srivastava, UNDP Expert </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Dr. Adil Abdullah Shuhaieb, member of e-Governance Committee in Missan Governorate </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Anmar Natik Mohammed, Manager of e-Governance Programme in Ninawa Governorate </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Eng Haider Shaker Yaji , Muthana Governorate </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q&A </li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10:45 – 11:00</td>
<td>Break</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:00 – 12:00</td>
<td>Plenary Session 5: Challenges of Government Interoperability Framework Implementation, Standards and Information<br />
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Mr. Mohammed Raji Mousa, Council of Ministers Secretariat (COMSEC)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Sunil Abraham, UNDP Expert </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Ammar Salih and Dr. Firas Hamadani/ Minister of Foreign Affairs </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q&A</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12:00 – 13:00</td>
<td>
<p>Plenary Session 6: Building e-Services</p>
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Dr. Saad Najem / University of Mustanserieh </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Emilio Bugli Innocenti, UNDP Expert </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mr. Ahmed Saad, Director General – Ministry of Municipality and Public Work </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q&A</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13:00 – 14:30</td>
<td>Conference Closing Session<br />
<ul>
<li>Chairman: Dr. Samir Attar, Deputy Minister – Ministry of Science and Technology </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Looking forward</li>
<li>Adopt conference recommendation</li>
<li>UNDP Closing Speech</li>
<li>Government of Iraq Speech</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14:30 – 15:30</td>
<td>Lunch @ AL-Rashid <br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Papers/Speakers Bio Summary</h2>
<h3>Plenary Session 1: e-Governance and Public Sector Reform</h3>
<p>Chairman: Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology</p>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>e-Governance and public sector reform/ Subhash Bhatnagar</b><br />The paper shares experiences from different countries of implementing e-Governance projects that have significantly contributed to governance reform by enhancing transparency and reducing corruption in delivery of public services. Some lessons are drawn for Iraq. E-Governance should be used as a means of implementing public sector reform agenda. The implementation of projects should be accelerated.</p>
<p><b><i>Subhash Bhatnagar</i></b><i> is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). Currently he is an honorary adjunct professor at the IIMA. He was a </i><i>Chair Professor, member of Board of Governors and the Dean of IIMA in his 30 year tenure at IIMA. </i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p><i>He has been a visiting Professor in universities in the US and Africa. He worked with the World Bank in Washington DC for six years serving as an advisor to to mainstream e-Governance in the operations of the Bank. </i><i>He has been a lead speaker in training workshops for ministers and legislators for 16 states in India. </i><i> </i><i>His research and consulting work has covered E-Governance, ICT for development, National IT Policy, and Corporate IT Strategy. He has hundred research papers and seven books to his credit which include two books on eGovernance. </i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>He is on the editorial boards of seven international journals and has served as Chairman of International Committees in the ICT field. He serves on a number of central and state Government committees in Inda including the steering committee for ICT sector for formulating India’s 12<sup>th</sup> Five Year Plan. He was made a Fellow of the Computer Society of India in 1994. He has served on the boards of a number of educational institutions and private enterprises in India. He has travelled to nearly 60 countries, delivering public lectures and conference key notes</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>Plenary Session 2: Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society</h3>
<p>Chairman: Mr. Imad Naji, Director General - Ministry of Planning</p>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society/ Laurence Millar </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper describes the importance of digital inclusion to achieve the e-governance Vision for Iraq. The paper reports on international experience in digital inclusion and e-governance, using examples from New Zealand, United Kingdom, Bahrain and Taiwan. These experiences illustrate how to develop a plan for increasing digital inclusion in Iraq which is aligned to the wider priorities for social and economic outcomes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Laurence Millar</b> is an independent advisor in the use of ICT by governments, and Editor at Large for FutureGov magazine. He is the lead advisor for the e-government strategy and second action plan for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and has also worked with other GCC countries on their e-government strategies. He provides expert advice to the government on the adoption of digital technology and broadband in schools; he is also Chair of 2020 Communications Trust, which is the leading provider of digital literacy programmes in New Zealand.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During his career of more than 35 years, he has worked in the public and private sector, in the UK, USA, Asia and New Zealand. From 2004, he led the New Zealand e-government programme providing leadership in strategy and policy, establishing a foundation of shared infrastructure, and maintaining oversight of government ICT investment; he finished in the role of NZ Government CIO on 1 May 2009.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He is married with four adult children and lives in Wellington, New Zealand; he has a MA from Cambridge University and an MSc with distinction from London University.</p>
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<p><b>The role of ICTs in promoting public participation/ Dr. Kathim Ibrisim </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participation is a basic feature of good governance, which suggests providing a democratic environment in the community that allows the integration of citizens, institutions of civil society, stakeholders and the poor and marginalized groups into policy-making and follow-up implementation. As much a democratic atmosphere allows for participation good governance can achieve the hopes of community regardless of its different components.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper provides an assessment of the reality of public participation in Iraq which is based on a survey of public participation in four sectors concerned with providing services (Health/Education/Higher Education/Water and Sanitation). It was carried out by the National Centre and the support of the ESCWA in 2011 - in the light of identification the main challenges facing the participation. It will focus on how to use ICT in promoting public participation in setting priorities and policy-making and follow-up implementation.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Dr. Kathim Mohammed Breisem Okabi, </b>Director General of the National Center for Administrative Development and Information Technology since 2008, holds Ph.D. in object-oriented software engineering, M.A. in empirical computer science – 1989, Higher Diploma in systems analysis – 1982, and B.A. of Statistics – 1980.</p>
<p>Dr. Kazem served as a professor at the universities of Jordan (Al al-Bayt University/Philadelphia University) for the period 1996-2008, a professor at the Al-Tahadi University/Libya for the period 1983 – 1992, and a statistician for the period 1980 -1983.</p>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Plenary Session 3: Workshop 1 (Challenges of implementing an adequate telecommunications infrastructure and<i> Highlighting the role of the private sector and the establishment of the concept of true public-private sector partnership in the field of e-governance</i>)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chairman: Dr. Mahmood Kassim Sharief, Director General – Ministry of Science and Technology</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>ICT Infrastructure for e-Government and e-Governance in Iraq / Rohan Samarajiva Lirne</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Governments provisioning e government services have to address two specific policy principles with regard to infrastructure: ensure universal access to their services and assure a higher level of reliability than with comparable private services. Unlike a decade or so ago, governments today do not have to rely solely on common-access centers (telecenters) to provide universal access. In most countries, mobile signals cover almost the entirety of the population; most households have at least one electronic access device; the few that do not, can gain such access. Today’s smartphones have capabilities little different from the early telecenters, except for functionalities such as printing, scanning, etc. and the support of intermediaries. Therefore, delivering voice-based e government services in the short term and mobile-optimized web-based services in the medium term, with common-access centers performing specialized backup functions, is a viable strategy. Conventional web interfaces that adhere to common standards must be maintained but articulated with mobile applications and voice-based services provided through a government call center. In light of difficulties in supplying continuous electricity and security at the present time, special attention has to be paid to reliability. Reliability can be achieved, beginning with a proper understanding of requirements such as the importance of ensuring redundancy of suppliers, paths and media.</p>
<p><b><i> </i></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Samarajiva is founder Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia, a regional think tank focusing on ICT policy and regulation in the emerging Asia Pacific. He most recently completed a diagnostic report on the potential of the ICT Sector for inclusive growth in Bhutan for the Asian Development Bank. He is a member of the team supporting the World Bank to establish the Pacific ICT Regulatory Resource Center, based at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. He served as policy advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh in 2006-07 and 2009. In 2002-2004, Samarajiva served as Team Leader of the Public Interest Program Unit of the Ministry for Economic Reform, Science & Technology of Sri Lanka. He was one of the designers of the USD 53 million plus e Sri Lanka Initiative (that had a major e gov focus) that led the way to rapid growth of fixed and mobile broadband in Sri Lanka. He was one of the founder directors of the ICT Agency. Samarajiva has been active in ICT (including telecom) policy and regulation for over 20 years. From 1998-1999, he served as Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. He taught at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000) and at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-2003). </i></p>
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<p><b>The role of private sector software development services companies in e-Government solution implementation/ Shahani Markus Weerawarana</b></p>
<p>Iraq is a country in transformation and has embarked on a compelling vision for e-Government based on a National e-Governance Strategy and Action Plan. Since the private sector plays an important and pivotal role in any national e-Government program, it is important to develop a comprehensive roadmap towards establishing a true public-private sector partnership in Iraq. As a prerequisite for such an endeavor, we review the current status of the e-Government program implementation in Iraq, the critical challenges that need to be addressed in achieving a robust public-private sector partnership in Iraq and the best practices prevalent globally and regionally with respect to addressing such issues along with the resultant policy and program implications. Based on this critical analysis, we formulate many recommendations that could be included in a public-private sector partnership development roadmap that would create momentum in establishing a competitive and vibrant private-sector role in a knowledge-based economic environment geared towards enabling the vision of e-Iraq.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p><i>Shahani Markus Weerawarana has<b> </b>global experience in the IT industry, government and academia, in a professional career has spanned many different roles, including being an educator, engineer, entrepreneur, manager and researcher.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p><i>Currently, she is a Visiting Scientist at Indiana University, USA and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Previously, she was the CTO at the ICT Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka, which is the country's apex IT policy & planning agency for implementing the e-Sri Lanka program. At ICTA, she played a key role in providing technical guidance for many eGovernment projects, including spearheading the design and implementation of LankaGate, a 'FutureGov' Award winning project. Prior to joining ICTA, Shahani was the Head of Engineering at Virtusa (Sri Lanka), where she directly and indirectly led more than 600 IT professionals. Before joining Virtusa Shahani worked in the USA, at Prescient Markets Inc and at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in New York.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p><i>Her professional activities have included being a member in the Sri Lankan Presidential Task Force in English and IT, an adviser to the Royal Government of Bhutan in their Interoperability Framework and Enterprise Architecture initiative, and a member of the Open eGovernance Forum Advisory Board in the Pan Asia Network for Democratic eGovernance. She is a free & open source software advocate and is a Committer and PMC member in the Apache Software Foundation.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p><i>Shahani has more than 50 academic publications and her academic activities include the formulation of Asia's first MBA in eGovernance program for the University of Moratuwa, and the supervision of more than 30 MBA and MSc research projects. Her research interests include e-governance, software engineering, parallel & distributed systems, e-science, and TLA practices in higher education. </i></p>
<p><i>Shahani has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University, USA. </i></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Assess the reality of the public-private partnership (PPP) and its role in promoting ICT for development/ Raghad Abdulrasoul</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper, a field survey in four service sectors (health, education, higher education, water and sanitation), aims at identifying the reality and types of PPPs and how could such partnerships contribute in the provision of or complement services within the target sectors in addition to understand and recognize the quality of the services provided by the private sector than in the public sector with a focus on the role of PPP in the promotion of ICT to support national development efforts and improve the quality of public services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Raghad Abdulrasoul, an expert at the National Center for Administrative Development and Information Technology, Higher Diploma in Development Planning/specialty in feasibility studies and B.A. of Statistics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">She has functional experience and participated in implementing projects with international organizations (UNICEF/UNDP/ESCWA) in different subjects dealing with the reform and modernization of the Iraqi public sector. She performed many advisory tasks for various institutions in the state in subjects (performance evaluation, organizational structures, job descriptions , mainstreaming of procedures). She provided a variety of lectures at the National Centre and state institutions in the areas of administration, planning and feasibility studies.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Workshop 2 Challenges for creating an enabling legal environment</span><br />Chairman: Mrs Afaf Khairallah Hussein, Prime Minister Office</p>
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<p>Review of the legal environment in Iraq for effective e-Governance/ Sunil Abraham</p>
<p class="Standard" style="text-align: justify; ">This paper examines the legal environment and compares it to international best practices for information society aspects that have direct implication for e-governance. It begins with transparency and openness law where there is an examination of right to information/access to information law and subsidiary policies such as free/open source software policy, open content or access policy, open standards policy, electronic accessibility policy, open government data policy. Then it examines privacy law looking at various options for the horizontal statute and also the vertical statutes necessary to comprehensive protect citizen/consumer rights and also public interest simultaneously. This is followed by an examination of intellectual property rights law overall before a more focussed examination patent law and copyright law. The paper ends with examination of some miscellaneous statutes such as the Cyber Crime Law and Electronic Signature and Electronic Transactions Act.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore. CIS is a 4 year old policy and academic research organisation that focuses on accessibility by the disabled, intellectual property rights policy reform, openness [Free/Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Content, Open Access and Open Educational Resources], internet governance, telecom, digital natives and digital humanities.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>He is also the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Sunil continues to serve on the board of Mahiti. He is an Ashoka fellow and was elected for a Sarai FLOSS fellowship. For three years, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007 - 2008, he managed ENRAP an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific, facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Sunil currently serves on the advisory boards of Open Society Foundations - Information Programme, Mahiti, Tactical Technology Collective, Samvada and International Centre for Free/Open Source Software.</i></p>
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<td><b>Implementation of the e-system in the Iraqi elections/<i>Dr. Tariq Kazim Ajil, University of Thi Qar</i></b>
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<h3>Plenary Session 4: Effective Role of Local Governments in framework of e-Governance Program</h3>
<p>Chairman: Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning</p>
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<p>Municipal e-Governance Platform / Manu Srivastava</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The paper discusses the Municipal eGovernance Platform developed by eGovernments Foundation (eGov). The paper sees this in the back ground of the policies and frameworks that the shaped the Municipal eGovernance sector in India. The paper discusses the basic design approach for developing the platform, the platform itself and then discusses the future direction for the platform.</p>
<p><b><i>Manu Srivastava</i></b><i> Bio: </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Manu Srivastava managed and a founding member of the eGovernments Foundation since 2003, that aims at creating an eGovernance Platform (Municipal ERP) to improve the efficiencies of City Municipalities leading to better delivery of services. </i><i> </i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Between 2000 and 2003, Manu was the project leader of GlobeTrades (Silicon Valley), for creation an Internet platform for medium and large companies to set up industry specific Internet-based solutions to streamline global Procurement and Distribution. </i><i> </i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>He </i><i>Architected and delivered award winning Citizen Services Solutions in area of eGovernance such as </i><i>Nirmala Nagara. </i><i> </i></p>
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<td style="text-align: justify; "><b>Ninawa e-Governance Roadmap/ Anmar Natik Mohammed, Manager of e-Governance Programme in Ninawa Governorate </b><br /></td>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Plenary Session 5: Challenges of Government Interoperability Framework Implementation, Standards and Information</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chairman: Mr. Mohammed Raji Mousa, Council of Ministers Secretariat (COMSEC)</p>
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<p><b>Government Interoperability Frameworks: Global Overview and implications for Iraq/ Sunil Abraham</b></p>
<p class="Standard" style="text-align: justify; ">This paper attempts to identify some next steps for the implementation of the Iraqi Government Interoperability Framework and National Enterprise Architecture[GIF/NEA]. The paper begins with an introduction which provides an historical overview of the GIF/NEA formulation process an the policy document itself. This is followed by a discussion of Open Standards to understand why the GIF/NEA and other open standards policies in the Iraqi government remain critical from a variety of perspectives. The paper then proceeds to look at GIFs across the world and attempts to characterize some of the strategies employed by governments to reach their policy objectives. The paper also features a examination of emerging semantic standards that are most useful from the perspective of storing government data. The paper ends with certain concrete recommendations for taking the open standards agenda forward with Iraqi e-governance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore. CIS is a 4 year old policy and academic research organisation that focuses on accessibility by the disabled, intellectual property rights policy reform, openness [Free/Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Content, Open Access and Open Educational Resources], internet governance, telecom, digital natives and digital humanities.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>He is also the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Sunil continues to serve on the board of Mahiti. He is an Ashoka fellow and was elected for a Sarai FLOSS fellowship. For three years, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007 - 2008, he managed ENRAP an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific, facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Sunil currently serves on the advisory boards of Open Society Foundations - Information Programme, Mahiti, Tactical Technology Collective, Samvada and International Centre for Free/Open Source Software.</i></p>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Plenary Session 6: Building e-services</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chairman: Dr. Saad Najem / University of Mustanserieh</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Breaking information silos: towards an Iraqi e-Service ecosystem supporting the life-event approach/ Emilio Bugli Innocenti</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper analyses the current status of the e-Service implementation within the e-Governance programmes in developing countries with a specific focus on the Life Event approach delivery of-e-Services along with the related Service Oriented Architecture. Then, it discusses the most suited SOA engineering methodology in order to boost e-Service re-use and integration. Finally, a combined SOA and Cloud Computing approach is proposed in order to provide an effective/efficient implementation of Iraqi e-Governance Action Plan along with a possible fast take-up of e-Services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Emilio Bugli Innocenti has 27 year experience in the ICT domain and over 20 in the e-Governance domain. As Senior e-Governance Consultant he has been working with assignments in transition and developing countries in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, South America and South East Asia. He has been Project Manager of large International ICT projects targeting different sectors and e-Governance, in particular dealing with the implementation of e-Services. He is member of the Italian Industry Executive Association, IEEE Computer Society and Association for Computing Machinery. He holds a MSc in Physics and speaks English, Italian and French.</i></p>
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<p><b>E-governance and cloud computing services</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This lecture addresses the historical perspective of cloud computing from a virtual concept to provide computing as a public facility launched in the mid-sixties of the last century as well as the phases of computing services offered by individual computers and then the network to the services provided on line. It also addresses the benefits and types of cloud computing comparing between the benefits and weaknesses of each type. Furthermore, it particularly tackles the economic benefits of balancing security with information, through the architecture and various levels of cloud computing and its impacts on architectures that must be taken into consideration.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the ten risks will be put in cloud computing in particular.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Adil Matloob is one of the advisors to the Ministry of Science & Technology Baghdad, Iraq. He works in the field of knowledge based systems and artificial intelligence for the last 30 plus years. He was the managing director of the SoftDev limited; a British based company, and a technical director for the Washington based multinational company; the United Press International. He is one of the pioneers’ researchers on machine translation software in the beginning of the nineties with the product known as ArabTrans software. He works on Arabic data mining as well as Arabic abstraction and Arabic knowledge based system.</p>
Adil has M.Sc and PhD from Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom in 1977 & 1980 respectively.</td>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/second-international-e-governance-conference-at-baghdad'>https://cis-india.org/news/second-international-e-governance-conference-at-baghdad</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpen StandardsInternet GovernanceICT2012-12-11T10:50:29ZNews ItemTranscripts from WCIT-12
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012
<b>We are archiving copies of the live-transcripts from the World Conference on International Telecommunications, 2012 (WCIT-12) which is being held in Dubai from 3–14 December, 2012.</b>
<p>This is an unedited rough transcript of the discussions/sessions at the WCIT,2012 which is <a href="http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=CFI-WCIT">live-streamed and made available by the ITU</a>. We are hosting the live-streamed text for archival purposes: </p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/transcript-of-the-opening-ceremony-wcit-2012" class="external-link">Day 1 - WCIT-2012: Opening Ceremony (December 3, 2012)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/transcript-of-the-plenary-1-wcit-12" class="external-link">Day 1 - WCIT-2012: Plenary 1 (December 3, 2012)<br /></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012</a>
</p>
No publishersnehashishLive BlogInternet Governance2012-12-03T14:00:21ZBlog EntrySection 66-A, Information Technology Act, 2000: Cases
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/section-66-a-information-technology-act-2000-cases
<b>In this blog post Snehashish Ghosh summarizes the facts of a few cases where Section 66-A, Information Technology Act, 2000, has been mentioned or discussed.</b>
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<p>There has been numerous instances application of the Section 66-A, Information Technology Act, 2000 (“ITA”) in the lower courts. Currently, there are six High Court decisions, in which the section has been mentioned or discussed. In this blog post, I will be summarizing facts of a few cases insofar as they can be gathered from the orders of the Court and are pertinent to the application of 66-A, ITA. </p>
<p><strong> Sajeesh Krishnan v. State of Kerala (Kerala High Court, Decided on June 5, 2012)</strong></p>
<p> Petition before High Court for release of passport seized by investigating agency during arrest</p>
<p> In the case of Sajeesh Krishnan v. State of Kerala (Decided on June 5, 2012), a petition was filed before the Kerala High Court for release of passport seized at the time of arrest from the custody of the investigating agency. The Court accordingly passed an order for release of the passport of the petitioner.</p>
<p>The Court, while deciding the case, briefly mentioned the facts of the case which were relevant to the petition. It stated that the “gist of the accusation is that the accused pursuant to a criminal conspiracy hatched by them made attempts to extort money by black mailing a Minister of the State and for that purpose they have forged some CD as if it contained statements purported to have been made by the Minister.” The Court also noted the provisions under which the accused was charged. They are Sections 66-A(b) and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 along with a host of sections under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (120B – Criminal Conspiracy, 419 – Cheating by personation, 511- Punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment, 420 – Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, 468 – Forgery for purpose of cheating, 469 – Forgery for purpose of harming and 201 – Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender read with 34 of Indian Penal Code, 1860)</p>
<strong>Nikhil Chacko Sam v. State of Kerala (Kerala High Court, Decided on July 9, 2012)<br /><br /></strong>
<p>Order of the Kerala High Court on issuing of the summons to the petitioner</p>
<p> In another case, the Kerala High Court while passing an order with respect to summons issued to the accused, also mentioned the charge sheet laid by the police against the accused in its order. The accused was charged under section 66-A, ITA. The brief facts which can be extracted from the order of the Court read: “that the complainant and the accused (petitioner) were together at Chennai. It is stated that on 04.09.2009, the petitioner has transmitted photos of the de facto complainant and another person depicting them in bad light through internet and thus the petitioner has committed the offence as mentioned above.”</p>
<p><strong> J.R. Gangwani and Another v. State of Haryana and Others (Punjab and Haryana High Court, Decided on October 15, 2012)</strong></p>
<p> Petition for quashing of criminal proceedings under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973</p>
<p> In the Punjab and Haryana High Court, an application for quashing of criminal proceeding draws attention to a complaint which was filed under Section 66-A(c). This complaint was filed under Section 66-A(c) on the ground of sending e-mails under assumed e-mail addresses to customers of the Company which contained material which maligned the name of the Company which was to be sold as per the orders of the Company Law Board. The Complainant in the case received the e-mails which were redirected from the customers. According to the accused and the petitioner in the current hearing, the e-mail was not directed to the complainant or the company as is required under Section 66-A (c).</p>
<p>The High Court held that, “the petitioners are sending these messages to the purchasers of cranes from the company and those purchasers cannot be considered to be the possible buyers of the company. Sending of such e-mails, therefore, is not promoting the sale of the company which is the purpose of the advertisement given in the Economic Times. Such advertisements are, therefore, for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience to the company or to deceive or mislead the addressee about the origin of such messages. These facts, therefore, clearly bring the acts of the petitioners within the purview of section 66A(c) of the Act.”</p>
<strong>Mohammad Amjad v. Sharad Sagar Singh and Ors. (Criminal Revision no. 72/2011 filed before the Court of Sh. Vinay Kumar Khana Additional Sessions Judge – 04 South East: Saket Courts Delhi)<br /><br /></strong>
<p> Revision petition against the order of the metropolitan magistrate</p>
<p> In a revision petition came up before the Additional Sessions Judge on the grounds that the metropolitan magistrate has dismissed a criminal complaint under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code without discussing the ingredients of section 295-A, IPC and 66-A, IT Act.</p>
<p>In this case, the judge observed that, “...section 66A of Information Technology Act (IT Act) does not refer at all to any 'group' or 'class' of people. The only requirement of Section 66A IT Act is that the message which is communicated is grossly offensive in nature or has menacing character.” He also observed that the previous order “not at all considered the allegations from this angle and the applicability of Section 66A Information Technology Act, 2000 to the factual matrix of the instant case.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/section-66-a-information-technology-act-2000-cases'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/section-66-a-information-technology-act-2000-cases</a>
</p>
No publishersnehashishIT ActInternet GovernanceInformation Technology2012-12-06T09:20:51ZBlog EntryOnline Censorship: How Government should Approach Regulation of Speech
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship
<b>Why is there a constant brouhaha in India about online censorship? What must be done to address this?</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abraham's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-02/news/35530550_1_internet-censorship-speech-unintended-consequences">published in the Economic Times</a> on December 2, 2012.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, we must get the basics right — bad law has to be amended, read down by courts or repealed, and bad implementation of law should be addressed via reform and capacity building for the police. But most importantly those in power must understand how to approach the regulation of speech.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To begin with, speech is regulated across the world. Even in the US — contrary to popular impression in India — speech is regulated both online and offline.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, law is not the basis of most of this regulation. Speech is largely regulated by social norms. Different corners of our online and offline society have quite complex forms of self-regulation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The harm caused by speech is often proportionate to the power of the person speaking — it maybe unacceptable for a politician or a filmstar to make an inflammatory remark but that very same utterance from an ordinary citizen may be totally fine.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To complicate matters, the very same speech by the very same person could be harmful or harmless based on context. A newspaper editor may share obscene jokes with friends in a bar, but may not take similar liberties in an editorial.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The legal scholar Alan Dershowitz tells us, "The best answer to bad speech is good speech." More recently the quote has been amended, with "more speech" replacing "good speech".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Censorship by the state has to be reserved for the rarest of rare circumstances. This is because censorship usually results in unintended consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The "Streisand Effect", named after the singer-actor Barbra Streisand, is one of these consequences wherein attempts to hide or censor information only result in wider circulation and greater publicity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Maharashtra police's attempt to censor the voices of two women has resulted in their speech being broadcast across the nation on social and mainstream media. If the state had instead focused on producing good speech and more speech, nobody would have even heard of these women.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Circumventing Censorship</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Peer-to-peer technologies on the internet mimic the topology of human networks and can also precipitate unintended consequences when subject to regulation. John Gilmore, a respected free software developer, puts it succinctly: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."<br /><br />Most of the internet censorship in the US is due to IPR-enforcement activities. This is why Christopher Soghoian, a leading privacy activist, attributes the massive adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies such as proxies and VPNs (virtual private networks) by American consumers to the crackdown on online piracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, and even when the government has had legitimate reasons to regulate speech, there have been unintended consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During the exodus of people from the North-east, the five SMS per day restriction imposed by the government resulted in another exodus from SMS to alternative messaging platforms such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApp and Twitter.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In both cases the circumvention of censorship by the users has resulted in a worsening situation for law-enforcement organisations — VPNs and applications like WhatsApp are much more difficult to monitor and regulate.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Mixed Memes</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regulation of speech also cannot be confused with cyber war or security. Speech can occasionally have security implications but that cannot be the basis for enlightened regulation.<br /><br />A cyber war expert may be tempted to think of censored content as weapons, but unlike weapons that usually remain lethal, content that can cause harm today may become completely harmless tomorrow. This is unlike a computer virus or malware. For example, during the exodus, the online edition of ET featured the complete list of 309 URLs that were in the four block orders issued by the government to ISPs.<br /><br />However, this did not result in fresh harm, demonstrating the fallacy of cyber war analogies. A cyber security expert, on the other hand, may be tempted to implement a 360° blanket surveillance to regulate speech, but as Gilmore again puts it, "If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody."<br /><br />In short, if your answer to bad speech is more censorship, more surveillance and more regulation, then as the internet meme goes, "You're Doing It Wrong".</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship</a>
</p>
No publishersunilSocial MediaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-12-05T07:06:52ZBlog EntryOurSay: how India’s technology is cutting into corruption
https://cis-india.org/news/oursay-how-india2019s-technology-is-cutting-into-corruption
<b>In the world’s largest democracy, corruption has long been part of the system of governance. However, transformative new technologies are playing an exciting and powerful role in citizen engagement, good governance and in the mobilisation of the masses for social action.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/17/oursay-how-indias-technology-is-cutting-into-corruption/">The blog post by by Gautam Raju, co-founder and creative director, OurSay Australia was published in Crikey on 17 February 2012</a>. Nishant Shah has been quoted in it.</p>
<p>Since the beginnings of the Indian independence movement, technology has been a central element to citizen engagement. According to Nishant Shah, from the Centre of Internet and Society, print and cinema reflected the views of citizens and informed them of the visions and changes that the country was going through. Today, India has one of the largest young and connected populations in the world.</p>
<p>Fifty per cent of the population is under the age of 25 and there are about 880 million mobile phone subscribers. New technologies are shifting the way that citizens interact with government and mobilise around issues they care about.</p>
<p>Based in a cramped office in New Delhi, the group Gram Vaani community media are developing tools to make governments more accountable. This group of young people with impressive resumes and big dreams form part of the new generation of Indian social entrepreneurs calling for change.</p>
<p>One of their most revolutionary products is a citizen news telephone hotline. The initiative is having a huge impact with recorded reports of government officials being fined for corruption, school teachers being paid overdue salaries and medical resources being sent to remote areas to fight malaria outbreaks. It allows callers to report incidents or problems from their regions, which are then transcribed and made available through a website for the media, government and general public.</p>
<p>This technology is particularly effective in remote areas, where Gram Vaani partners with local NGOs who empower local communities to use the tool. The service, which is expanding across the Indian state of Jharkhand, clocked 40,000 calls during the first month. Roshan Nair, from Gram Vaani, said: “NGOs have taken up the entire responsibility of informing local residents about our hotline, verifying information, and training new users. We have supported them, but they continue to do good work at great personal risk.” The technology is also currently deployed in Afghanistan with plans to expand to Pakistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>During my most recent visit in January, 74-year-old anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement dominated the media. The movement has been fighting for the introduction of the Lokpal Bill, which would create an independent ombudsman with the power to investigate corruption allegations from citizens. The movement launched a successful social media campaign, which built an image of Hazare as the 21st century Gandhi.</p>
<p>Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter were used as organising tools for protests and when Hazare was arrested, his team released YouTube videos of him in jail to rally supporters. Their campaign was incredibly successful, mobilising thousands to support passing of the legislation.</p>
<p>According to a 2011 report released by Facebook, Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill were the most mentioned topics in Indian status updates, a sign that Indians are increasingly using the internet to share and debate political events.</p>
<p>Online movements such as the IAC are spreading through Indian urban areas with online campaigns on issues of violence, the environment and the protection of women are gaining momentum and political leverage. Increasing tension from the government around internet censorship and with more organisations and citizens harnessing the power of the internet and mobile phones for social action creates a very interesting space to watch in 2012.</p>
<p>Another powerful governance project Ipaidabribe.com is the world’s largest crowd-sourced database on corruption, with more than 18,000 acts of corruption registered. Developed by NGO Janaagraha, the website aims to tackle corruption by allowing citizens to log corrupt acts that are then used to lobby for better governance systems, law enforcement and regulation. A reporting tool on the website allows the public to view detailed analytics on where bribes are made, to which government department and their total costs to the public.</p>
<p>The Transport Department of Karnataka was frequently reported for bribes on the website, which led to the Public Transport Commissioner inviting Janaagraha to identify procedures that would help foster transparency and accountability in their bureaucratic processes. The Karnataka state government has since agreed to put posters promoting the website in all government offices. The technology is currently deployed in Kenya with Janaagraha stating that they are in talks with 15 countries.</p>
<p>India is booming; changing at a rate the country has never seen before. Despite the increasing use of technology by organisations and social movements, India still has a huge challenge in bridging the digital divide. Despite the powerful examples provided, social action and citizen engagement movements largely remain concentrated in urban, metropolitan settings, and often only engage the middle class. According to Mr Shah, from the Centre of Internet and Society, “there are innovations which are allowing people with cell phones in rural and remote India to be better connected, but there is no substantial data that actually proves that it fosters citizen engagement”.</p>
<p>As organisations such as Gram Vaani and Janaagraha begin to build more tools to foster citizen engagement and hold governments accountable, it is going to be incredibly fascinating to not only observe their future impact, but also see how technologies will be developed and spread to rural areas.</p>
<p><em>Gautam Raju travelled to India in January as part of an OurSay research trip</em>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/oursay-how-india2019s-technology-is-cutting-into-corruption'>https://cis-india.org/news/oursay-how-india2019s-technology-is-cutting-into-corruption</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2012-02-17T02:40:43ZNews ItemGetting the (Digital) Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Right
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right
<b>On the eve of the Tokyo Quad Summit in May 2022, President Biden unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), visualising cooperation across the Indo-Pacific based on four pillars: trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonisation and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption. Galvanised by the US, the other 13 founding members of the IPEF are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The first official in-person Ministerial meeting was held in Los Angeles on 9 September 2022.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="https://directionsblog.eu/getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right/">originally published in Directions</a> on 16 September 2022.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is still early days. Given the broad and noncommittal scope of the <a href="http://indiamediamonitor.in/ViewImg.aspx?rfW3mQFhdxZsqXnJzK5Xi5+XYlnW6zXnPDF3Ad56Y/KdgI1zvICzrodtLI85MPKdVO1fIh79GUlPfyXY2/bE2g==" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">economic arrangement</a>, it is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a trade deal among members in the short run. Instead, experts believe that this new arrangement is designed to serve as a ‘<a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/building-on-common-ground-7963518/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">framework or starting point</a>’ for members to cooperate on geo-economic issues relevant to the Indo-Pacific, buoyed in no small part by the United States’ desire to make up lost ground and counter Chinese economic influence in the region.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai has underscored the relevance of the Indo-Pacific digital economy to the US agenda with the IPEF. She has emphasized the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/05/23/on-the-record-press-call-on-the-launch-of-the-indo-pacific-economic-framework/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">importance of</a> collaboratively addressing key connectivity and technology challenges, including standards on cross-border data flows, data localisation and online privacy, as well as the discriminatory and unethical use of artificial intelligence. This is an ambitious agenda given the divergence among members in terms of technological advancement, domestic policy preferences and international negotiating stances at digital trade forums. There is a significant risk that imposing external standards or values on this evolving and politically-contested digital economy landscape will not work, and may even undermine the core potential of the IPEF in the Indo-Pacific. This post evaluates the domestic policy preferences and strategic interests of the Framework’s member states, and how the IPEF can navigate key points of divergence in order to achieve meaningful outcomes.</p>
<h3><strong>State of domestic digital policy among IPEF members</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Data localisation is a core point of divergence in global digital policymaking. It continues to dominate discourse and trigger dissent at all <a href="https://www.ikigailaw.com/the-data-localization-debate-in-international-trade-law/#acceptLicense" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">international trade forums</a>, including the World Trade Organization. IPEF members have a range of domestic mandates restricting cross-border flows, which vary in scope, format and rigidity (see table below)<strong>. </strong>Most countries only have a conditional data localisation requirement, meaning data can only be transferred to countries where it is accorded an equivalent level of protection – unless the individual whose data is being transferred consents to said transfer. <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ee977f2e-ecfb-45cf-9f63-186a78a49512#:~:text=Australia%20has%20no%20broad%20data,transferred%20or%20processed%20outside%20Australia." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Australia </a>and the <a href="https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pdi/docs/FAQs_Network_Penetration_Reporting_and_Contracting_for_Cloud_Services_(01-27-2017).pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">United States</a> have sectoral localisation requirements for health and defence data respectively. India presently has multiple sectoral data localisation requirements. In particular, a 2018 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) <a href="https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=11244&Mode=0" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">directive</a> imposed strict local storage requirements along with a 24-hour window for foreign processing of payments data generated in India. The RBI imposed a <a href="https://theprint.in/economy/what-is-data-localisation-why-mastercard-amex-diners-club-cant-add-more-customers-in-india/703790/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">moratorium</a> on the issuance of new cards by several US-based card companies until compliance issues with the data localisation directive were resolved. Furthermore, several iterations of India’s recently <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/explained-why-has-the-government-withdrawn-the-personal-data-protection-bill-2019/article65736155.ece" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">withdrawn </a>Personal Data Protection Bill contained localisation requirements for some categories of personal data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indonesia and Vietnam have <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-retreat-of-the-data-localization-brigade-india-indonesia-and-vietnam/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">diluted</a> the scopes of their data localisation mandates to apply, respectively, only to companies providing public services and to companies not complying with other local laws. These dilutions may have occurred in response to concerted pushback from foreign technology companies operating in these countries. In addition to sectoral restrictions on the transfer of geospatial data, South Korea<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/korean-approach-to-data-localization-pub-85165" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"> retains </a>several procedural checks on cross-border flows, including formalities regarding providing notice to individual users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moving onto another issue flagged by USTR Tai, while all IPEF members recognise the right to information privacy at an overarching or constitutional level, the legal and policy contours of data protection are at different stages of evolution in different countries. <a href="https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/index.html?t=law&c=JP#:~:text=Personal%20Information%20Protection%20Commission,-Kasumigaseki%20Common%20Gate&text=Japan%20does%20not%20have%20a%20central%20registration%20system.&text=There%20is%20no%20specific%20legal,(eg%20Chief%20Privacy%20Officer)." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Japan</a>, <a href="https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/index.html?t=law&c=KR" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">South Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.pdp.gov.my/jpdpv2/assets/2020/01/Introduction-to-Personal-Data-Protection-in-Malaysia.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Malaysia</a>, <a href="https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/data-protected/data-protected---new-zealand#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20data%20portability%20right%20in%20New%20Zealand.&text=While%20there%20is%20no%20%22right,a%20correction%20to%20that%20information." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">New Zealand,</a> <a href="https://www.privacy.gov.ph/data-privacy-act/#:~:text=%E2%80%93%20(a)%20The%20personal%20information,against%20any%20other%20unlawful%20processing." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Philippines</a>, <a href="https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Overview-of-PDPA/The-Legislation/Personal-Data-Protection-Act#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20PDPA%3F,Banking%20Act%20and%20Insurance%20Act." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Singapore</a> and <a href="https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/thailand-personal-data-protection-act#:~:text=The%20legislation%20mandates%20that%20data,1%20million%20in%20criminal%20fines." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Thailand </a>have data protection frameworks in place. Data protection frameworks in India and Brunei are under consultation. Notably, the US does not have a comprehensive federal framework on data privacy, although there are patchworks of data privacy regulations at both the federal and state levels.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regulation and strategic thinking on artificial intelligence (AI) are also at varying levels of development among IPEF members. India has produced a slew of policy papers on Responsible Artificial Intelligence. The most recent <a href="https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2021-08/Part2-Responsible-AI-12082021.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">policy paper</a> published by NITI AAYOG (the Indian government’s think tank) refers to constitutional values and endorses a risk-based approach to AI regulation, much like that adopted by the EU. The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), chaired by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, expressed concerns about the US ceding AI leadership ground to China. The NSCAI’s final <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report </a>emphasised the need for US leadership of a ‘coalition of democracies’ as an alternative to China’s autocratic and control-oriented model. Singapore has also made key strides on trusted AI, launching <a href="https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/news-and-events/announcements/2022/05/launch-of-ai-verify---an-ai-governance-testing-framework-and-toolkit" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">A.I. verify</a> – the world’s first AI Governance Testing Framework for companies that wish to demonstrate their use of responsible AI through a minimum verifiable product.</p>
<h3><strong>IPEF and pipe dreams of digital trade</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some members of the IPEF are signatories to other regional trade agreements. With the exception of Fiji, India and the US, all the IPEF countries are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/rcep#:~:text=RCEP%20entered%20into%20force%20on,Australia%20as%20an%20original%20party." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">(RCEP)</a>, which also includes China. Five IPEF member countries are also members of the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/cptpp/comprehensive-and-progressive-agreement-for-trans-pacific-partnership" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)</a> that President Trump backed out of in 2017. Several IPEF members also have bilateral or trilateral trading agreements among themselves, an example being the <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/digital-economy-partnership-agreement-depa/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA)</a> between Singapore, New Zealand and Chile.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Pie.png" alt="Pie" class="image-inline" title="Pie" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All these ‘mega-regional’ trading agreements contain provisions on data flows, including prohibitions on domestic legal provisions that mandate local computing facilities or restrict cross-border data transfers. Notably, these agreements also incorporate <a href="https://publications.clpr.org.in/the-philosophy-and-law-of-information-regulation-in-india/chapter/indias-engagement-with-global-trade-regimes-on-cross-border-data-flows/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">exceptions</a> to these rules. The CPTPP includes within its ambit an exception on the grounds of ‘legitimate public policy objectives’ of the member, while the RCEP incorporates an additional exception for ‘essential security interests’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IPEF members are also spearheading <a href="https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/wto/can-the-wto-build-consensus-on-digital-trade/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multilateral efforts </a>related to the digital economy: Australia, Japan and Singapore are working as convenors of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which counts 86 WTO members as parties. India (along with South Africa) vehemently <a href="https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/WT/GC/W819.pdf&Open=True" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opposes</a> this plurilateral push on the grounds that the WTO is a multilateral forum functioning on consensus and a plurilateral trade agreement should not be negotiated within the aegis of the WTO. They fear, rightly, that such gambits close out the domestic policy space, especially for evolving digital economy regimes where keen debate and contestation exist among domestic stakeholders. While wary of the implications of the JSI, other IPEF members, such as Indonesia, have cautiously joined the initiative to ensure that they have a voice at the table.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is unlikely that the IPEF will lead to a digital trade arrangement in the short run. Policymaking on issues as complex as the digital economy that must respond to specific social, economic and (geo)political realities cannot be steamrolled through external trade agreements. For instance, after the Los Angeles Ministerial India <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-opts-out-of-joining-ipef-trade-pillar-to-wait-for-final-contours-122091000344_1.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opted out</a> of the IPEF trade pillar citing both India’s evolving domestic legislative framework on data and privacy as well as a broader lack of consensus among IPEF members on several issues, including digital trade. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal explained that India would wait for the “<a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1858243" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">final contours</a>” of the digital trade track to emerge before making any commitments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Besides, brokering a trade agreement through the IPEF runs a risk of redundancy. Already, there exists a ‘<a href="https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/a01_0193.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">spaghetti bowl’</a> of regional trading agreements that IPEF members can choose from, in addition to forming bilateral trade ties with each other.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is why Washington has been clear about calling the IPEF an ‘<a href="https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-set-to-join-us-led-indo-pacific-economic-arrangement-next-week-with-aim-to-counter-china/963795/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">economic arrangement</a>’ and not a trade agreement. Membership does not imply any legal obligations. Rather than duplicating ongoing efforts or setting unrealistic targets, the IPEF is an opportunity for all players to shape conversations, share best practices and reach compromises, which could feed back into ongoing efforts to negotiate trade deals. For example, several members of RCEP have domestic data localisation mandates that do not violate trade deals because the agreement carves out exceptions that legitimise domestic policy decisions. Exchanges on how these exceptions work in future trade agreements could be a part of the IPEF arrangement and nudge states towards framing digital trade negotiations through other channels, including at the WTO. Furthermore, states like Singapore that have launched AI self-governance mechanisms could share best practices on how these mechanisms were developed as well as evaluations of how they have helped policy goals be met. And these exchanges shouldn’t be limited to existing IPEF members. If the forum works well, countries that share strategic interests in the region with IPEF members, including, most notably, the European Union, may also want to get involved and further develop partnerships in the region.</p>
<h3><strong>Countering China</strong></h3>
<p>Talking shop on digital trade should certainly not be the only objective of the IPEF. The US has made it clear that they want the message emanating from the IPEF ‘<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/biden-to-visit-japan-for-quad-summit-to-have-bilateral-meetings-with-modi-122051900128_1.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">to be heard in Beijing</a>’. Indeed, the IPEF offers an opportunity for the reassertion of US economic interests in a region where President Trump’s withdrawal from the CPTPP has left a vacuum for China to fill. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the IPEF has representation from several regions of the Indo-Pacific: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.</p>
<p>This should be an urgent policy priority for all IPEF members. Since its initial announcement in 2015, the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/china-digital-silk-road/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Digital Silk Road (DSR)</a>, the digital arm of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has spearheaded <a href="https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/02/china-digital-silk-road-implications-for-defence-industry" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">massive investments</a> by the Chinese private sector (allegedly under close control of the Chinese state) in e-commerce, fintech, smart cities, data centres, fibre optic cables and telecom networks. This expansion has also happened in the Indo-Pacific, unhampered by China’s aggressive geopolitical posturing in the region through maritime land grabs in the South China Sea. With the exception of <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3024479/vietnam-shuns-huawei-it-seeks-build-aseans-first-5g" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Vietnam</a>, which remains wary of China’s economic expansionism, countries in Southeast Asia welcome Chinese investments, extolling their developmental benefits. Several IPEF members – <a href="https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ISEAS_Perspective_2022_57.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">including</a> Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore – have associations with Chinese private sector companies, predominantly Huawei and ZTE. A <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/07/11/localization-and-china-s-tech-success-in-indonesia-pub-87477" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a> evaluating Indonesia’s response to such investments indicates that while they are aware of the risks posed by Chinese infrastructure, their calculus remains unaltered: development and capacity building remain their primary focuses. Furthermore, on the specific question of surveillance, given evidence of other countries such as the US and Australia also using digital infrastructure for surveillance, the threat from China is not perceived as a unique risk.</p>
<h3><strong>Setting expectations and approaches</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Still, the risks of excessive dependence on one country for the development of digital infrastructure are well known. While the IPEF cannot realistically expect to displace the DSR, it can be utilised to provide countries with alternatives. This can only be done by issuing carrots rather than sticks. A US narrative extolling ‘digital democracy’ is unlikely to gain traction in a region characterised by a diversity of political systems that is focused on economic and development needs. At the same time, an excessive focus on thorny domestic policy issues – such as data localisation and the pipe dream of yet another mega-regional trade deal – could risk derailing the geo-economic benefits of the IPEF.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, the IPEF must focus on capacity building, training and private sector investment in infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. The US must position itself as a geopolitically reliable ally, interested in the overall stability of the digital Indo-Pacific, beyond its own economic or policy preferences. This applies equally to other external actors, like the EU, who may be interested in engaging with or shaping the digital economic landscape in the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Countering Chinese economic influence and complementing security agendas set through other fora – such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – should be the primary objective of the IPEF. It is crucial that unrealistic ambitions seeking convergence on values or domestic policy do not undermine strategic interests and dilute the immense potential of the IPEF in catalysing a more competitive and secure digital Indo-Pacific.</p>
<h3><strong>Table: Domestic policy positions on data localisation and data protection</strong></h3>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Table.png/@@images/8e9a5192-5f6c-4666-8d78-e0863111534a.png" alt="Table" class="image-inline" title="Table" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/directions-cyber-digital-europe-arindrajit-basu-september-16-2022-getting-the-digital-indo-pacific-economic-framework-right</a>
</p>
No publisherarindrajitPrivacyInternet GovernanceDigital GovernanceDigital Economy2022-10-03T14:56:22ZBlog EntryUN Questionnaire on Digital Innovation, Technologies and Right to Health
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/un-questionnaire-digital-innovation-technologies-right-to-health
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) contributed to the questionnaire put out by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on digital innovation, technologies and the right to health. The responses were authored by Pahlavi and Shweta Mohandas, and edited by Indumathi Manohar. </b>
<h3 style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/United.png" alt="United" class="image-inline" title="United" /></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center; "><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span><b>Questionnaire</b></span></span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br /><b>1. What are benefits of increased use of digital technologies in the planning and delivery of health information, services and care? Consider the use of digital technologies for healthcare services, the collection and use of health-related data, the rise of social media and mobile phones, and the use of artificial intelligence specifically to plan and deliver healthcare. Please share examples of how such technologies benefited specific groups. How have digital technologies contributed to availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of healthcare? Has the use of artificial intelligence improved access to health information, services and care? Please comment on existing or emerging biases in health information, services and care.</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The use of digital technologies and forms of digital health interventions has seen an increase in interest from governments, industries, as well as individuals since the beginning of the pandemic. The lockdowns, and other social distancing measures created a push towards telemedicine and online consultations. Digital health services provide a number of people the opportunity to seek medical help without traveling, which particularly help people with accessibility needs, the elderly, and anyone else that has difficulty in movement.1 Telemedicine can also help meet the challenges of healthcare delivery to rural and remote areas, in addition to serving as a means of training and education.2</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The pandemic brought about a push towards telehealth and telemedicine and the telemedicine market has been reported to touch $5.4 Bn by 2025,3 with a number of applications working to make it more accessible to people in India. With respect to AI there has been some adoption of AI in India to help the most vulnerable group of people. For example: Microsoft has teamed up with the Government of Telangana to use cloud-based analytics for the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram program by adopting MINE (Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare), an AI platform to reduce avoidable blindness in children.4 Similarly Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) in Bengaluru, Karnataka is harnessing technology to make solutions for TB detection from chest x-rays, and a software solution (Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring) to identify and manage high-risk pregnancies.5 More recently IWill by ePsyClinic, a mental-health platform in India, has received a grant from Microsoft's 'AI for Accessibility' program to accelerate the building of a Hindi-based AI Mental Health conversational program.6</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However the use of digital technologies and online medical interventions has also widened the increasing gap between those who can afford a smart phone and internet and those who cannot. A digital-only health intervention also results in excluding a wide number of people who do not have a smartphone, for example the Indian contact-tracing app, Aarogya Setu, which was a mandatory download to access public places during the lockdown was initially only available via a smartphone. Additionally, the app initially was not compatible with screen readers.7 The disparities in digital access and infrastructure is not limited to individuals— a report by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology India highlighted that the government hospitals and dispensaries have very little ICT infrastructure with only some major public hospitals having computers and connectivity.8</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As stated above, the adoption of digital health technologies is not uniform around the world, and the people who are not able to access these technologies missed being included in the data that is being collected by these systems, further excluding from the data set which might be used to train future interventions. In the same light, digital technologies such as AI based screening are based on historical data that have been proved to contain biases against</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">marginalised communities. Continuing to use these systems without addressing these biases and or including more diverse dataset results in the same people being marginalised and misdiagnosed further. For example, safety apps where data is provided by limited people could identify Dalit and Muslim areas as unsafe, reflecting the prejudices of the app’s middleand upper-class users.9 While this has not been revealed in healthcare apps, the growing use of CCTVs and subsequent use of facial recognition in only certain pockets of the city reveal the historical biases in the police system that lead to targeted surveillance.10</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>2. How has the rise of web platforms and social media increased access to health information and services, or conversely, increased risk of misdiagnosis or other harms? Please share examples of ways in which social media and web platforms facilitated innovation in access to evidence-based health information and services, or created new threats of discrimination, mental health harms, or online or offline violence.</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media platforms have helped people immensely during the pandemic. For example, when people reached out to strangers for help for hospital beds and oxygen. However, the benefits of such were limited to people who were on social media and had the reach and networks to share such information.11Furthermore, social media and messaging apps such as Whatsapp also led to the spread of misinformation during the pandemic. For example a Whatsapp message claiming to be from the Ministry of Aayush which permitted homeopathy doctors to treat Covid19 spread significantly, leading to the official government channels clarifying that it is fake and cautioning people against it.12 It was also noted that at times when women shared requests for beds or oxygen during covid on social media, they were faced with fake calls, stalking and trolling on social media, making it harder for them to seek help.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>3. How has the right to privacy been impacted by the use of digital technologies for health? Please share examples of ways in which data gathered from digital technologies have been used by States, commercial entities or other third parties to either benefit or harm groups regarding the right to health.</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2006, the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was approved by the Indian State wherein a massive infrastructure was developed to reach the remotest corners and facilitate easy access of government services efficiently at affordable costs.13There has been a paradigm shift in the Indian state’s governance strategy, with severe implications for privacy and inclusion. However, this shift has been undertaken primarily through a series of administrative orders with no real legislative mandate and minimal judicial oversight. This digitisation began with services such as taxation, land record, passport details, but it soon extended its ambit, and it now covers most services for which the citizen is dependent upon the state— the latest being digital health.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the Indian context, there have been a number of policies that have been published which dealt with digital health. The policies looked at creating a digital health ID, digitisation of health data, and the management of health data. However these policies are being introduced without the existence of a comprehensive data protection legislation. While there are certain safeguards mentioned in each policy, without privacy and data protection legislation it is impossible to ensure compliance and the rights of the data owners. This issue became a reality when during the vaccination for Covid, some vaccination centres created Health ID for people without their consent.14</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>4. What are current strengths or weaknesses of digital health governance at national, regional and global levels? Please provide examples of laws, regulations or other safeguards that has been put in place to protect and fulfill the rights to health, privacy, and confidentiality within the use of digital technologies for health? Do restrictive laws or law enforcement create any specific challenges for persons using digital technologies to access health information or services?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digitisation of the healthcare system in India had started prior to the pandemic. However, the pandemic also saw a slew of digitisation policies being rolled out, the most notable being the National Digital Health Mission (re-designed as the Aayushman Bharat Digital Mission) which empowered and saw the government use the vaccination process to generate Health IDs for citizens, in several reported cases without their knowledge or consent.15 The entire digitisation process has been undertaken in the absence of any legislative mandate or judicial oversight. It has primarily been undertaken through issuance of executive notifications and resulting in absent or inadequate grievance redressal mechanisms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The rollout of the NDHM also saw health IDs being generated for citizens. In several reported cases across states, this rollout happened during the Covid-19 vaccination process— without the informed consent of the concerned person. All of these developments took place in the absence of a data protection law and a law regulating the digital health sphere, raising critical concerns around citizens’ privacy and the governance and oversight mechanisms for digital health initiatives.</p>
<hr />
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> Valdez, R. S., Rogers, C. C., Claypool, H., Trieshmann, L., Frye, O., Wellbeloved-Stone, C., & Kushalnagar, P. (2021). Ensuring full participation of people with disabilities in an era of telehealth. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(2), 389-392.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Paul, Hickok, Sinha, & Tiwari. (2018). Artificial Intelligence in the Healthcare Industry in India. Centre for Internet and Society India. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/ai-and-healthcare-report/view</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Dayalani, V., K., H., S., G., R., T., & M., L. (2021, February 15). 1mg Rises In Indian Telemedicine Space As Sector Set To Touch $5.4 Bn Market Size by 2025. Inc42 Media. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://inc42.com/datalab/telemedicine-a-post-covid-reality-in-india/</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Government of Telangana adopts Microsoft Cloud and becomes the first state to use Artificial Intelligence for eye care screening for children - Microsoft Stories India. (2017, August 3). Microsoft Stories India. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://news.microsoft.com/en-in/governmenttelangana-adopts-microsoft-cloud-becomes-first-state-use-articial-intelligence-eye-care-screeningchildren/</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">D’Monte, L. (2017, February 15). <i>How Philips is using AI to transform healthcare</i>. Mint. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.livemint.com/Science/yxgekz1jJJ3smvvRLwmaAL/How-Philips-is-using-AI-to-transformhealthcare.html</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">PTI. (2022, November 11). Microsoft supports IWill with “AI for Accessibility” grant to develop AI CBT mental health program for 615 million Hindi users. Microsoft Supports IWill With “AI for Accessibility”Grant to Develop AI CBT Mental Health Program for 615 Million Hindi Users. Retrieved November 15,2022, from https://www.ptinews.com/pti/Microsoft-supports-IWill-with--AI-for-Accessibility--grant-todevelop-AI-CBT-mental-health-program-for-615-million-Hindi-users/58238.html</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Nath. (2020, May 2). <i>Coronavirus | Mandatory Aarogya Setu app not accessible to persons with disabilities</i>.Coronavirus | Mandatory Aarogya Setu App Not Accessible to Persons With Disabilities - the Hindu. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/coronavirus-mandatory-aarogya-setu-app-notaccessible-to-persons-with-disabilities/article31489933.ece</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Sharma, N. C. (2018, July 16). <i>Adoption of e-medical records facing infra hurdles: Report</i>. Mint. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.livemint.com/Politics/CucBmKaoWLZuSf1Y9VaafM/Adoption-of-emedical-recordsfacing-infra-hurdles-Report.html</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">https://www.livemint.com/news/world/ai-algorithms-far-from-neutral-in-india-11613617957200.html</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Vipra. (n.d.). <i>The Use of Facial Recognition Technology for Policing in Delhi</i>. Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/the-use-of-facial-recognition-technology-for-policingin-delhi/</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Kalra, A., & Ghoshal, D. (2021, April 21). Twitter becomes a platform of hope amid the despair of India’s COVID crisis. Reuters. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/world/india/twitterbecomes- platform-hope-amid-despair-indias-covid-crisis-2021-04-21/</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Times of India . (2020, April 29). WhatsApp message on Homeopathy and coronavirus treatment is fake- Times of India. The Times of India. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://timesondia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/whatsapp-message-on-homeopathy-and-coronavirustreatment-is-fake/articleshow/75425274.cms</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Amber Sinha, Pallavi Bedi and Amber Sinha, “Techno-Solutinist Responses to Covid 19”, EPW, Vol LVI, No. 29, July 17, 2021 Retrieved from: https://www.epw.in/journal/2021/29/commentary/technosolutionist-responses-covid-19.html</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Rana, C. (2021, October 1). <i>COVID-19 vaccine beneficiaries were assigned unique health IDs without their consent</i>.The Caravan. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://caravanmagazine.in/health/covid-19-vaccinebeneficiaries-were-assigned-unique-health-ids-without-their-consent</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/un-questionnaire-digital-innovation-technologies-right-to-health'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/un-questionnaire-digital-innovation-technologies-right-to-health</a>
</p>
No publisherPahlavi and Shweta MohandasDigital MediaDigital TechnologiesInternet GovernanceDigital Governance2022-11-21T16:10:06ZBlog EntryBig Tech’s privacy promise to consumers could be good news — and also bad news
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-rajat-kathuria-isha-suri-big-tech-consumers-privacy-policy
<b>Rajat Kathuria, Isha Suri write: Its use as a tool for market development must balance consumer protection, innovation, and competition.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In February, Facebook, rebranded as Meta, stated that its revenue in 2022 is anticipated to reduce by $10 billion due to steps undertaken by Apple to enhance user privacy on its mobile operating system. More specifically, Meta attributed this loss to a new AppTrackingTransparency feature that requires apps to request permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties. Through this change, Apple effectively shut the door on “permissionless” internet tracking and has given consumers more control over how their data is used. Meta alleged that this would hurt small businesses benefiting from access to targeted advertising services and charged Apple with abusing its market power by using its app store to disadvantage competitors under the garb of enhancing user privacy.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access the full article published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/big-tech-consumers-privacy-policy-7866701/">Indian Express</a> on April 13, 2022</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-rajat-kathuria-isha-suri-big-tech-consumers-privacy-policy'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-rajat-kathuria-isha-suri-big-tech-consumers-privacy-policy</a>
</p>
No publisherRajat Kathuria and Isha SuriInternet GovernancePrivacy2023-01-18T23:25:28ZBlog EntryComments to the proposed amendments to The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-to-proposed-amendments-to-it-intermediary-guidelines-and-digital-media-ethics-code-rules
<b>This note presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India, on the proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“proposed amendments”). We thank Isha Suri for her review of this submission.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Preliminary</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In these comments, we examine the constitutional validity of the proposed amendments, as well as whether the language of the amendments provide sufficient clarity for its intended recipients. This commentary is in-line with CIS’ previous engagement with other iterations of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">General Comments</h2>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Ultra vires the parent act</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Section 79(1) of the Information Technology (IT) Act states that the intermediary will not be held liable for any third-party information if the intermediary complies with the conditions laid out in Section 79(2). One of these conditions is that the intermediary observe “<i>due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observe such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf.</i>” Further, Section 87(2)(zg) empowers the central government to prescribe “<i>guidelines to be observed by the intermediaries under sub-section (2) of section 79.</i>”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A combined reading of Section 79(2) read with Section 89(2)(zg) makes it clear that the power of the Central Government is limited to prescribing guidelines related to the due diligence to be observed by the intermediaries while discharging its duties under the IT Act. However, the proposed amendments extend the original scope of the provisions within the IT Act.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In particular, the IT Act does not prescribe for any classification of intermediaries. Section 2(1) (w) of the Act defines intermediaries as “<i>with respect to any particular electronic records, means any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record and includes telecom service providers, network service providers, internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online-market places and cyber cafes</i>”. Intermediaries are treated and regarded as a single monolithic entity with the same responsibilities and obligations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The proposed amendments have now established a new category of intermediaries, namely online gaming intermediary. This classification comes with additional obligations, codified within Rule 4A of the proposed amendments, including enabling the verification of user-identity and setting up grievance redressal mechanisms. The additional obligations placed on online gaming intermediaries find no basis in the IT Act, which does not specify or demarcate between different categories of intermediaries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 2021 Rules have been prescribed under Section 87(1) and Section 87(2)(z) and (zg) of the IT Act. These provisions do not empower the Central Government to make any amendment to Section 2(w) or create any classification of intermediaries. As has been held by the Supreme Court in <i>State of Karnataka and Another v. Ganesh Kamath & Ors</i> that: “<i>It is a well settled principle of interpretation of statutes that conferment of rule making power by an Act does not enable the rule making authority to make a rule which travels beyond the scope of the enabling Act or which is inconsistent therewith or repugnant thereto.</i>” In this light, we argue that the proposed amendment cannot go beyond the parent act or prescribe policies in the absence of any law/regulation authorising them to do so.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Recommendation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We recommend that a regulatory intervention seeking to classify intermediaries and prescribe regulations specific to the unique nature of specific intermediaries should happen through an amendment to the parent act. The amendment should prescribe additional responsibilities and obligations of online gaming intermediaries.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">A note on the following sections</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since the legality of classifying intermediaries into further categories is under question, our subsequent discussions on the language of the provisions related to online gaming intermediary are recommended to be taken into account for formulating any new legislations relating to these entities.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Specific comments</h2>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Fact checking amendment</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Amendment to Rule 3(1)(b)(v) states that intermediaries are obligated to ask their users to not host any content that is, <i>inter alia, </i>“<i>identified as fake or false by the fact check unit at the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorised by the Central Government for fact checking</i>”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read together with Rule 3(1)(c), which gives intermediaries the prerogative to terminate user access to their resources on non-compliance with their rules and regulations, Rule 3(1)(b)(v) essentially affirms the intermediary’s right to remove content that the Central government deems to be ‘fake’. However, in the larger context of the intermediary liability framework of India, where intermediaries found to be not complying with the legal framework of section 79 lose their immunity, provisions such as Rule 3(1)(b)(v) compel intermediaries to actively censor content, on the apprehension of legal sanctions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this light, we argue that Rule 3(1)(b)(v) is constitutionally invalid, inasmuch that Article 19(2), which prescribes grounds under which the government restrict the right to free speech, does not permit restricting speech on the ground that it is ostensibly “<i>fake or false</i>”. In addition, the net effect of this rule would be that the government would be the ultimate arbiter of what is considered ‘truth’, and every contradictions to this narrative would be deemed to be false. In a democratic system like India’s, this cannot be a tenable position, and would go against a rich jurisprudence of constitutional history on the need for plurality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For instance, in <i>Indian Express Newspapers v Union of India,</i> the Supreme Court had held that <i>‘the freedom of the press rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.</i>’ Applying this interpretation to the present case, it could be said that the government’s monopoly on directing what constitutes “<i>fake or false</i>” in the online space would prevent citizens from accessing dissenting voices and counterpoints to government policies .</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is problematic when one considers that in the Indian context, freedom of speech and expression has always been valued for its instrumental role in ensuring a healthy democracy, and its power to influence public opinion. In the present case, the government, far from facilitating any such condition, is instead actively indulging in guardianship of the public mind (Sarkar et al, 2019).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other provisions in the IT Act which permit for censorship of content, including section 69A, permit the government to only do so when content is relatable to grounds enumerated in Article 19(2) of the Constitution. In addition, in the case of <i>Shreya Singhal vs Union of India</i>, where, the constitutionality of section 69A was challenged, the Supreme Court upheld the provision because of the legal safeguards inherent in the provision, including offering a hearing to the originator of the impugned content and reasons for censoring content to be recorded in writing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In contrast, a fact check by the Press Information Bureau or by another authorised agency provides no such safeguards, and does not relate to any constitutionally recognized ground for restricting speech.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Recommendation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The proposed amendment to Rule 3(1)(b)(v) is unconstitutional, and should be removed from the final draft of the law.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Clarifications are needed for online games rules definitions</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The definitions of an "online game" and "online gaming intermediary" are currently extremely unclear and require further clarification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the proposed amendments stand, online games are characterised by the user's “<i>deposit with the expectation of earning winnings</i>”. Both deposit and winnings can be “<i>cash</i>” or “<i>in kind</i>", which does not adequately draw a boundary on the type of games this amendment seeks to cover. Can the time invested by the player in playing a game be answered under the “in kind” definition of deposit? If the game provides a virtual in-game currency that can be exchanged for internal power ups, even if there are no cash or gift cards used as payout, is that considered to be an “in kind” winnings? The rules, as currently drafted, are vague in their reference towards “in kind” deposits and payouts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This definition of online games also does not differentiate between single or multiplayer games, and traditional games like chess which have found an audience online such as Candy Crush (single player), Minecraft (multiplayer collaborative) or chess (traditional). It is unclear whether these games were intended to fall within the purview of these amendments to the rules, and if they are all subjected to the same due diligence requirements as pay-to-play games. This, in conjunction with the proposed rule 6A which allows the Ministry to term any other game as an online game for the purposes of the rules, also provides them with broad, unpredictable powers . This ambiguity hinders clear comprehension of the expectations among the target stakeholders, thus affecting the consistency and predictability of the implementation of the rules.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Similarly, "online gaming intermediaries" are also defined very broadly as "<i>intermediary that offers one or more than one online game</i>". As defined, any intermediary that even hosts a link to a game is classified as an online gaming intermediary since the game is now "offered" through the intermediary. As drafted, there does not seem to be a material distinction between an "intermediary" as defined by the act and "online gaming intermediary" as specified by these rules.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Recommendation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We recommend further clarification on the definitions of these terms, especially for “in kind” and “offers” which are currently extremely vague terms that provide overbroad powers to the Ministry.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Intermediaries and Games</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Online gaming intermediaries" are defined very broadly as "<i>intermediary that offers one or more than one online game</i>". Intermediaries are defined in the Act as "<i>any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that message or provides any service with respect to that message</i>".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to the media coverage (Barik, 2023) around these amendments, it seems that there is an effort to classify gaming companies as "online gaming intermediaries" but the language of the drafted amendments do not support this. An “intermediary” status is given to a company due to its functional role in primarily offering third party content. It is not a classification for different types of internet companies that exist and thus must not be used to make rules for entities that do not perform this function.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Not all gaming companies present a collection of games for their users to play. According to the drafted definition multiple platforms where games might be present like, an app stores where multiple game developers can publish their games for access by users, a website that lists links to online games, a social media platform that acts as an intermediary between two users exchanging links to games, as well as websites that host games for users to directly access may all be classified as an "online gaming intermediary" since they "offer" games to users. These are a rather broad range of companies and functions to be singularly classified an "online gaming intermediary".</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Recommendation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We recommend a thoroughly researched legislative solution to regulating gaming companies that operate online rather than through amendments to intermediary rules. If some companies are indeed to be classified as “online gaming intermediaries”, there is a need for further reasoning on which type of gaming companies and their functions are intermediary functions for the purposes of these Rules.</p>
<hr />
<p>Comments can be <b><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/it-rules-amendment" class="internal-link">downloaded here</a></b></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-to-proposed-amendments-to-it-intermediary-guidelines-and-digital-media-ethics-code-rules'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-to-proposed-amendments-to-it-intermediary-guidelines-and-digital-media-ethics-code-rules</a>
</p>
No publisherDivyansha Sehgal and Torsha SarkarDigital MediaInternet GovernanceInformation TechnologyIT Act2023-02-07T15:21:47ZBlog EntryCivil Society’s second opinion on a UHI prescription
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/civil-society-second-opinion-on-uhi-prescription
<b>On January 13, Pallavi Bedi and Shweta Mohandas from CIS participated in an online collaboration organised by Internet Freedom Foundation for a joint submission to the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India released by the National Health Authority.</b>
<p>The article originally published by Internet Freedom Foundation can be <a class="external-link" href="https://internetfreedom.in/civil-societys-second-opinion-on-a-uhi-prescription/">accessed here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The National Health Authority (NHA) released the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India on December 14, 2022. The deadline for submission of comments was January 13, 2023. We collaborated with the Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, & the Forum for Medical Ethics Society to submit comments on the paper.</p>
<h3 id="background">Background</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The UHI is proposed to be a “foundational layer of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM)” and is “envisioned to enable interoperability of health services in India through open protocols”. The ABDM, previously known as the National Digital Health Mission, was announced by the Prime Minister on the 74th Independence Day, and it envisages the creation of a National Digital Health Ecosystem with six key features: Health ID, Digi Doctor, Health Facility Registry, Personal Health Records, Telemedicine, and e-Pharmacy. After launching the programme in six Union Territories, the National Health Authority issued a press release on August 26, 2020 announcing the public consultation for the Draft Health Data Management Policy for NDHM. While the government has repeatedly claimed that creation of a health ID is purely voluntary, contrary <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/health/doctors-in-chandigarh-compelled-to-register-for-the-voluntary-national-health-id">reports</a> have emerged. In our <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H5zWsIPj92Vp_gxloBcBzjTwOFif47xY/view">comments</a> as part of the public consultation, our primary recommendation was that deployment of any digital health ID programme must be preceded by the enactment of general and sectoral data protection laws by the Parliament of India; and meaningful public consultation which reaches out to vulnerable groups which face the greatest privacy risks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As per the synopsis document which accompanies the consultation paper, it aims to “seek feedback on how different elements of UHI should function. Inviting public feedback will allow for early course correction, which will in-turn engender trust in the network and enhance market adoption. The feedback received through this consultation will be used to refine the functionalities of UHI so as to limit any operational issues going forward.” The consultation paper contains a set of close-ended questions at the end of each section through which specific feedback has been invited from interested stakeholders. We have collaborated with the Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, & the Forum for Medical Ethics Society to draft the comments on this consultation paper.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our main concern relates to the approach the Government of India and concerned Ministries adopt to draft a consultation paper without explicitly outlining how the proposed UHI fits into the broader healthcare ecosystem and quantifying how it improves it rendering the consultation paper and public engagement efforts inadequate. Additionally, it doesn’t allow the public at large, and other stakeholders to understand how it may contribute to people’s access to quality care towards ensuring realisation of their constitutional right to health and health care. The close-ended nature of the consultation process, wherein specific questions have been posed, restricts stakeholders from questioning the structure of the ABDM itself and forces us to engage with its parts, thereby incorrectly assuming that there is support for the direction in which the ABDM is being developed.</p>
<h3 id="our-submissions">Our submissions</h3>
<p>A. <b>General comments</b></p>
<p>a. <b>Absence of underlying legal framework</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ensuring health data privacy requires legislation at three levels- comprehensive laws, sectoral laws and informal rules. Here, the existing proposal for the data protection legislation, i.e., the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (DPDPB, 2022) which could act as the comprehensive legal framework, is inadequate to sufficiently protect health data. This inadequacy arises from the failure of the DPDPB, 2022 to give higher degree of protection to sensitive personal data and allowing for non-consensual processing of health data in certain situations under Clause 8 which relates to “deemed consent”. Here, it may also be noted that the DPDPB, 2022 fails to specifically define either health or health data. Further, the proposed Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act, 2017, which may have acted as a sectoral law, is presently before the Parliament and has not been enacted. Here, the absence of safeguards allows for data capture by health insurance firms and subsequent exclusion/higher costs for vulnerable groups of people. Similarly, such data capture by other third parties potentially leads to commercial interests creeping in at the cost of users of health care services and breach of their privacy and dignity.</p>
<p>b. <b>Issues pertaining to scope</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Clarity is needed on whether UHI will be only providing healthcare services through private entities, or will also include the public health care system and various health care schemes and programs of the government, such as eSanjeevani.</p>
<p>c. <b>Pre-existing concerns</b></p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Exclusion</b>: Access to health services through the Unified Health Interface should not be made contingent upon possessing an ABHA ID, as alluded to in the section on ‘UHI protocols in action: An example’ under Chapter 2(b). Such an approach is contrary to the Health Data Management Policy that is based on individual autonomy and voluntary participation. Clause 16.4 of the Policy clearly states that nobody will “be denied access to any health facility or service or any other right in any manner by any government or private entity, merely by reason of not creating a Health ID or disclosing their Health ID…or for not being in possession of a Health ID.” Moreover, the National Medical Commission Guidelines for Telemedicine in India also does not create any obligation for the patient to possess an ABHA ID in order to access any telehealth service. The UHI should explicitly state that a patient can log in on the network using any identification and not just ABHA.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Consent</b>: As per media <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/health/chandigarh-administratio-aggressively-pushes-national-health-id-registrations-among-residents">reports</a>, registration for a UHID under the NDHM, which is an earlier version of the ABHA number under the ABDM, may have been voluntary on paper but it was being made mandatory in practice by hospital administrators and heads of departments. Similarly, <a href="https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/govt-created-uhid-without-consent-say-vaccinated-indians">reports</a> suggest that people who received vaccination against COVID-19 were assigned a UHID number without their consent or knowledge.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Function creep</b>: In the absence of an underlying legal framework, concerns also arise that the health data under the NDHM scheme may suffer from function creep, i.e., the collected data being used for purposes other than for which consent has been obtained. These concerns arise due to similar function creep taking place in the context of data collected by the Aarogya Setu application, which has now pivoted from being a contact-tracing application to “<a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/aarogya-setus-journey-from-a-quick-fix-for-contract-tracing-to-health-app-of-the-nation-8006372/">health app of the nation</a>”. Here, it must be noted that as per a RTI response dated June 8, 2022 from NIC, the Aarogya Setu Data Access And Knowledge Sharing Protocol “<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSUoZtFqrIcqJH2Q2zK-LJmTDKF49l66/view">has been discontinued</a>".</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Issues with the United Payments Interface may be replicated by the UHI</b>: The consultation paper cites the United Payments Interface (UPI) as “strong public digital infrastructure” which the UHI aims to leverage. However, a trend towards market concentration can be witnessed in UPI: the two largest entities, GooglePay and PhonePe, have seen their market share hover around 35% and 47% (by volume) for some time now (their share by value transacted is even higher). Meanwhile, the share of the NPCI’s own app (BHIM) has fallen from 40% in August 2017 to 0.74% in September 2021. Thus, if such a model is to be adopted, it is important to study the UPI model to understand such threats and ensure that a similar trend towards oligopoly or monopoly formation in UHI is addressed. This is all the more important in a country in which the decreasing share of the public health sector has led to skyrocketing healthcare costs for citizens.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">B. Our response also addressed specific questions about search and discovery, service booking, grievance redressal, and fake reviews and scores. Our responses on these questions can be found in our comments <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j9wUafZM10kmS_MOzk-D8LYIPMm_9JOa/view?usp=share_link">here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="our-previous-submissions-on-health-data">Our previous submissions on health data</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have consistently engaged with the government since the announcement of the NDHM in 2020. Some of our submissions and other outputs are linked below:</p>
<ol>
<li>IFF’s comment on the Draft Health Data Management Policy dated May 21, 2022 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I4ZAVLNa00v_MeTDYoAv63Ueq6ICTwWT/view?usp=sharing">link</a>)</li>
<li>IFF’s comments on the consultation Paper on Healthcare Professionals Registry dated July 20, 2021 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10x0IirdQTZCC9S_w83nTVp1GRsxArDt7">link</a>)</li>
<li>IFF and C-HELP Working Paper: ‘Analysing the NDHM Health Data Management Policy’ dated June 11, 2021 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sEBg-syzsbe159x4PGkAHzcZilct0cQq/view">link</a>)</li>
<li>IFF’s Consultation Response to Draft Health Data Retention Policy dated January 6, 2021 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/124iqcboTxkrPLMPX6erLXjhH1SDk_L0B/view?usp=sharing">link</a>)</li>
<li>IFF’s comments on the National Digital Health Mission’s Health Data Management Policy dated September 21, 2020 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H5zWsIPj92Vp_gxloBcBzjTwOFif47xY/view?usp=sharing">link</a>)</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="important-documents">Important documents</h3>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Response on the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India by Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, the Forum for Medical Ethics Society, & IFF dated January 13, 2023 (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j9wUafZM10kmS_MOzk-D8LYIPMm_9JOa/view?usp=share_link">link</a>)</li>
<li>NHA’s Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India dated December 14, 2022 (<a href="https://abdm.gov.in:8081/uploads/Consultation_Paper_on_Operationalising_Unified_Health_Interface_UHI_in_India_9b3a517a22.pdf">link</a>)</li>
<li>Synopsis of NHA’s Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India dated December 14, 2022 (<a href="https://abdm.gov.in:8081/uploads/Synopsis_Operationalising_Unified_Health_Interface_UHI_in_India_308cd449fb.pdf">link</a>)</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/civil-society-second-opinion-on-uhi-prescription'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/civil-society-second-opinion-on-uhi-prescription</a>
</p>
No publisherPallavi Bedi and Shweta MohandasHealth TechHealth ManagementInternet GovernanceHealthcare2023-02-15T08:20:15ZBlog EntryIndia's social media "spring" masks forgotten protests
https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-masks-forgotten-protests
<b>Irom Sharmila has been on hunger strike for 10 years to protest against military abuses, force-fed by tubes through her nose. But the tragedy for the world's longest hunger strike is that she is on the wrong side of India's digital divide.</b>
<p>Twitter, Facebook and aggressive private TV have helped rally India's biggest protests in decades to support civil activist Anna Hazare, a digital groundswell of a wired middle class that echoes the Arab Spring and has taken a Congress party-led government of elderly politicians by surprise.</p>
<p>But Sharmila, who has been on a hunger strike in Manipur to demand an end to the army's sweeping emergency powers there, has only managed a small following, a footnote in media coverage.</p>
<p>"We also once tried to take our fight to New Delhi ... but we did not get support from the rest of the nation," Sharmila told Tehelka magazine.</p>
<p>She must be frustrated. The Hazare phenomenon has rallied Indians from the start with social media. Hazare's India Against Corruption website says it has had 13 million phone calls of support. Its Facebook page has nearly 500,000 "likes".</p>
<p>Its leaders have tweeted each step of the whirlwind crisis, whether describing their arrests in real time or negotiations with the government, outmanoeuvring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his ministers at every step.</p>
<p>"Protest at PM's residence: 35 people detained, taken to Tughlaq Rd. PS, hundreds still there, come if you can #Janlokpal," twitter user @janlokpal sent its followers in just one example of how the movement was rallying support.</p>
<p>Cases like Sharmila expose the digital divide of Asia's third largest economy and underscore how a growing urban middle class may be getting its political voice heard while millions of poor remain off the digital protest map.</p>
<p>"This is the first time digital social media has resonated with such a large number of people," said Nishant Shah, head of research at the Centre for Internet and Society think-tank.</p>
<p>"But this is far more of a middle class, urban movement, than a national movement. Many people in India are excluded from it."</p>
<p>Twitter and Facebook are barely used in many of India's social causes, including battles over land rights that are one of India's most pressing problems involving millions of farmers.</p>
<p>Huge social issues in India, from caste discrimination to high food prices, from the building of dams to protests by farmers against nuclear power plants, have failed to create the kind of digital mobilisation that Hazare enjoys.</p>
<h3>A Digital Divide</h3>
<p>India's internet users have grown 1,400 percent between 2000 and 2010, behind only China and Vietnam among Asian countries, according to a report by Burson-Marsteller, a consulting firm.</p>
<p>But that masks India's low base. Internet penetration is around 8 percent in India, the lowest among major Asian countries. That compares with nearly 40 percent in China.</p>
<p>Out of a population of 1.2 billion, there are only 29 million people active in digital social networks. A report by Maplecroft consultancy warned that India was lagging other BRICs, Brazil, China and Russia in "digital inclusion".</p>
<p>"India, for example, the wealthier, more affluent segment of the population, primarily based in urban areas, has embraced the use of modern communications technology," the report said.</p>
<p>"The vast majority of the population has, however, been excluded from this process."</p>
<p>Those statistics highlight that while the middle class has found a voice, electorally the centre-left Congress party will still need to pander to its traditional vote base of millions of farmers and poor Indians ahead of a 2014 general election.</p>
<p>Congress, in power for most of the life of independent India, has failed to use social media tools. One minister lost his job for tweeting too frankly, in a sign of government unease over the web, and the party lags behind an opposition that has embraced Twitter.</p>
<h3>Libya Overshadowed</h3>
<p>So far, private TV channels have provided 24-hour coverage of the protests -- the news from Libya is hardly to be seen. Urban Indians with mobile phones in hand have dominated rallies in the open grounds where Hazare was on his second week of fasting.</p>
<p>Small protests across the country, from demonstrations outside ministers' houses to rallies outside metro stations, have been organised through Twitter and Facebook.</p>
<p>An app that can be downloaded on to smartphones running the Android operating system gives users the latest news on the campaign for a tough "Jan lokpal", or anti-corruption bill, and details of the latest meetings.</p>
<p>"Social media has been huge for us, it has a life of its own," said Shazia Ilmi, in charge of Hazare media strategy.</p>
<p>Even before Hazare was arrested last week, organisers had prepared a pre-recorded video from him that went on YouTube.</p>
<p>The movement does have deep roots and social media has widened the protests, if not caused them. Many of Hazare's protests have also been through word of mouth. Corruption also affects the poor more than middle classes with endemic bribes, whether permission for street food stands or driving licences.</p>
<p>"It's not an up and down, national movement. It is largely a middle class cause," said Sagarika Ghose, a novelist and journalist at the CNN-IBN news television channel.</p>
<p>"But it's hugely important one. For a younger generation, corruption has become a catch-all phrase for the failure of development."</p>
<p>Some activists are already criticising Hazare as a hype of an elitist social media.</p>
<p>"Those thronging the Ramlila grounds or marching in support of Anna in the metros are not necessarily 'the people' of the country, and it is dangerous to take the two as identical," academic Prabhat Patnaik wrote in The Hindu newspaper.</p>
<p>(Editing by Paul de Bendern and Alex Richardson)</p>
<p>This article by Alistair Scrutton was <a class="external-link" href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/idINIndia-58963020110825">published</a> in Reuters on 25 August 2011.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-masks-forgotten-protests'>https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-masks-forgotten-protests</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-09-01T06:24:38ZNews ItemInterview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interview-with-big-brother-watch-on-privacy-and-surveillance
<b>Maria Xynou interviewed Emma Carr, the Deputy Director of Big Brother Watch, on privacy and surveillance. View this interview and gain an insight on why we should all "have something to hide"!</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For all those of you who haven't heard of Big Brother Watch, it's a London-based campaign group which was founded in 2009 to protect individual privacy and defend civil liberties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/about">Big Brother Watch</a> was set up to challenge policies that threaten our privacy, our freedoms and our civil liberties, and to expose the true scale of the surveillance state. The campaign group has produced unique research exposing the erosion of civil liberties in the UK, looking at the dramatic expansion of surveillance powers, the growth of the database state and the misuse of personal information. Big Brother Watch campaigns to give individuals more control over their personal data, and hold to account those who fail to respect our privacy, whether private companies, government departments or local authorities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/who-we-are/emma-frances-carr-deputy-director">Emma Carr</a> joined Big Brother Watch as Deputy Director in February 2012 and has since been regularly quoted in the UK press. The Centre for Internet and Society interviewed Emma Carr on the following questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">How do you define privacy?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Can privacy and freedom of expression co-exist? Why/Why not?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">What is the balance between Internet freedom and surveillance?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">According to your research, most people worldwide care about their online privacy – yet they give up most of it through the use of social networking sites and other online services. Why, in your opinion, does this occur and what are the potential implications?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Should people have the right to give up their right to privacy? Why/Why not?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">What implications on human rights can mass surveillance potentially have?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">“I'm not a terrorist and I have nothing to hide...and thus surveillance can't affect me personally.” Please comment.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Do we have Internet freedom?</p>
</li>
</ol><ol> </ol>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>VIDEO <iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KhmwPYgLfjo" width="250"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interview-with-big-brother-watch-on-privacy-and-surveillance'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/interview-with-big-brother-watch-on-privacy-and-surveillance</a>
</p>
No publishermariaSAFEGUARDSInternet GovernancePrivacy2013-10-15T14:24:27ZBlog Entry