The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 171 to 185.
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in Multi-stakeholder Cooperation
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-multi-stakeholder-cooperation
<b>The Internet & Jurisdiction Project is organizing the workshop “Transnational due process: A case study in multi-stakeholder cooperation” at the Internet Governance Forum convened by the United Nations on November 10-13, 2015. Sunil Abraham will be a speaker in this event.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Multi-stakeholder cooperation is necessary to develop and implement operational solutions to Internet Governance challenges. One such challenge is the tension between the cross-border nature of the Internet and diverse national jurisdictions. As a result, direct requests are increasingly addressed by public authorities and courts in one country to Internet platforms and DNS operators in other jurisdictions for domain seizures, content takedowns and user identification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since 2012, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project facilitates a multi-stakeholder dialogue process on this issue. More than 80 entities have collaboratively produced a draft transnational due process framework.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The roundtable at the Internet Governance Forum 20125 will gather participants in the I&J Project from different stakeholder groups to report on the progress of the Internet & Jurisdiction process and talk about:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">the method employed to develop this framework, challenges encountered and solutions found</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">the potential distribution of roles among the respective stakeholders in the operation of the diverse framework components</li>
</ul>
<h2>Participants</h2>
<ul>
<li>ANNE CARBLANC, Head of Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD</li>
<li>EILEEN DONAHUE, Director Global Affairs, Human Rights Watch</li>
<li>BYRON HOLLAND, President and CEO, CIRA (Canadian ccTLD)</li>
<li>CHRISTOPHER PAINTER, Coordinator for Cyber Issues, US Department of State</li>
<li>SUNIL ABRAHAM, Executive Director, CIS India</li>
<li>ALICE MUNYUA, Lead dotAfrica Initiative and GAC representative, African Union Commission</li>
<li>Speaker tbc, Google</li>
<li>FRANK LaRUE, Former UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression</li>
<li>Speaker tbc, German Federal Foreign Office</li>
<li>HARTMUT GLASER, Executive Secretary, Brazilian Internet Steering Committee</li>
<li>MATT PERAULT, Head of Policy Development, Facebook</li>
</ul>
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<p>This was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.internetjurisdiction.net/ij-project-workshop-at-internet-governance-forum-2015/">published on the website of Internet & Jurisdiction</a> Also see this on <a class="external-link" href="http://igf2015.sched.org/event/c5aca9d5712654402e069bbe2dd97eb2?iframe=no&w=i:0;&sidebar=yes&bg=no#.Vj4RWl58hQo">IGF website</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-multi-stakeholder-cooperation'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-multi-stakeholder-cooperation</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance ForumInternet Governance2015-11-07T15:47:41ZNews Item Indian Porn Ban is Partially Lifted But Sites Remain Blocked
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked
<b>The Indian government made a quick about-face on its order to block hundreds of pornography websites on Tuesday, partially lifting the ban after political backlash against the moral policing.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/08/05/indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked/">Wall Street Journal</a> on August 5, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">But the websites remained blocked because Internet service providers were afraid of legal trouble.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The new order from the Department of Telecommunications said that Internet service providers could unblock any of the 857 websites, so long as they don’t contain child pornography. However, the websites remain blocked because service providers say they have no way of knowing whether they contain child porn, and no control over whether they will in the future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ravi Shankar Prasad, the IT minister, said Tuesday night that the government would trim down the list of banned sites, to focus only on those that contain child porn.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned,” <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/porn-ban-to-be-lifted-partially-says-government/1/456229.html">said Mr. Prasad on the TV news channel</a> India Today.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The wording of the new order created confusion, because it appears to put the responsibility for policing the Internet for child pornography on service providers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“How can we go ahead? What if something comes up tomorrow [on one of these sites], which has child porn, or something else?,” said an executive at an Indian service provider who asked not to be named.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The onus cannot be put on the service providers. What the government is doing is inherently unfair, it is not what the law requires,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based civil liberties advocacy group. It is the government’s job to determine what violates the law, not private companies, Mr. Prakash said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceChilling EffectCensorship2015-09-13T09:00:03ZNews ItemDIDP Request #12: Revenues
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-12-revenues
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in this blog post.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Request</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">22 July 2015</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Cherine Chalaby, Chair, Finance Committee of the Board</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Xavier Calvez, Chief Financial Officer</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mr. Samiran Gupta, ICANN India</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All other members of Staff involved in accounting and financial tasks</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Sub: Raw data with respect to granular income/revenue statements of ICANN from 1999-2011</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We would like to thank ICAN for their prompt response to our earlier requests. We appreciate that the granular Revenue Details for FY14 have been posted online.<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1]</a> We also appreciate that a similar document has been posted for FY13.<a href="#fn2" name="fr2">[2] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And we hope that one for FY12 would be posted soon, as noted by you in your Response to our Request No. 20141222-1.<a href="#fn3" name="fr3">[3] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As also noted by you in the same request, similar reports cannot be prepared for FY99 to FY11 since “[i]t would be extremely time consuming and overly burdensome to cull through the raw data in order to compile the reports for the prior years”.<a href="#fn4" name="fr4">[4] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Additionally, it was also mentioned that the “relevant information is available in other public available documents”.<a href="#fn5" name="fr5">[5]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hence, we would like to request for the raw data for years FY99 to FY11, for our research on accountability and transparency mechanisms in Internet governance, specifically of ICANN. Additionally, we would also like to request for the links to such public documents where the information is available.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We look forward to the receipt of this information within the stipulated period of 30 days. Please feel free to contact us in the event of any doubts regarding our queries. <br />Thank you very much. <br />Warm regards, <br />Aditya Garg, <br />I Year, National Law University, Delhi <br />For Centre for Internet & Society <br />W: http://cis-india.org</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">ICANN Response</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ICANN referred to our earlier DIDP request (see <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/20141222-1-2015-01-22-en">here</a>) where we had sought for a detailed report of their granular income and revenue statements from 1999-2014. They refused to disclose the data on grounds that it would be ‘time consuming’ and ‘overly burdensome’, which is a ground for refusal as per their exceptions to disclosure.</p>
<p>Our request may be found <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/didp-request-20150722-2-redacted-22jul15-en.pdf">here</a>, and their response is linked to <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/didp-response-20150722-2-21aug15-en.pdf">here</a>.</p>
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<p>[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>]. See <i>FY14 Revenue Detail By Source</i>, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/fy2014-revenue-source-01may15-en.pdf.</p>
<p>[<a href="#fr2" name="fn2">2</a>]. See FY13 Revenue Detail By Source, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/fy2013-revenue-source-01may15-en.pdf</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr3" name="fn3">3</a>]. See <i>Response to Documentary Information Disclosure Policy Request No. 20141222-1</i>, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/cis-response-21jan15-en.pdf.</p>
<p>[<a href="#fr4" name="fn4">4</a>]. <i>Id</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr5" name="fn5">5</a>]. See <i>Response to Documentary Information Disclosure Policy Request No. 20141222-1</i>, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/cis-response-21jan15-en.pdf.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-12-revenues'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-12-revenues</a>
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No publisherAditya GargICANNInternet Governance2015-09-14T15:32:37ZBlog EntryIndia’s digital check
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-sunil-abraham-july-8-2015-india-digital-check
<b>All nine pillars of Digital India directly correlate with policy research conducted at the Centre for Internet and Society, where I have worked for the last seven years. This allows our research outputs to speak directly to the priorities of the government when it comes to digital transformation. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was originally <a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-india-s-digital-check-2102575">published by DNA</a> on July 8, 2015.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Broadband Highways and Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity: The first two pillars have been combined in this paragraph because they both require spectrum policy and governance fixes. Shyam Ponappa, a distinguished fellow at our Centre calls for the leveraging of shared spectrum and also shared backhaul infrastructure. Plurality in spectrum management, for eg, unlicensed spectrum should be promoted for accelerating backhaul or last mile connectivity, and also for community or local government broadband efforts. Other ideas that have been considered by Ponappa include getting state owned telcos to exit completely from the last mile and only focus on running an open access backhaul through Bharat Broadband Limited. Network neutrality regulations are also required to mitigate free speech, diversity and competition harms as ISPs and TSPs innovate with business models such as zero-rating.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Public Internet Access Programme: Continuing investments into Common Service Centres (CSCs) for almost a decade may be questionable and therefore a citizen’s audit should be undertaken to determine how the programme may be redesigned. The reinventing of post offices is very welcome, however public libraries are also in need urgent reinventing. CSCs, post offices and public libraries should all leverage long range WiFi for Internet and intranet, empowering BYOD [Bring Your Own Device] users. Applications will take time to develop and therefore immediate emphasis should be on locally caching Indic language content. State <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/topic/public-library-acts">Public Library Acts</a> need to be amended to allow for borrowing of digital content. Flat-fee licensing regimes must be explored to increase access to knowledge and culture. Commons-based peer production efforts like Wikipedia and Wikisource need to be encouraged.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology: DeitY, under the leadership of free software advocate Secretary RS Sharma, has accelerated adoption and implementation of policies supporting non-proprietary approaches to intellectual property in e-governance. Policies exist and are being implemented for free and open source software, open standards and electronic accessibility for the disabled. The proprietary software lobby headed by Microsoft and industry associations like <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/topic/nasscom">NASSCOM</a> have tried to undermine these policies but have failed so far.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government should continue to resist such pressures. Universal adoption of electronic signatures within government so that there is a proper audit trail for all communications and transactions should be made an immediate priority. Adherence to globally accepted data protection principles such as minimisation via “form simplification and field reduction” for Digital India should be applauded. But on the other hand the mandatory requirement of Aadhaar for DigiLocker and eSign amounts to contempt of the Supreme Court order in this regard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">e-Kranti — Electronic Delivery of Services: The 41 mission mode projects listed are within the top-down planning paradigm with a high risk of failure — the funds reserved for these projects should instead be converted into incentives for those public, private and public private partnerships that accelerate adoption of e-governance. The dependency on the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for implementation of <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/topic/e-governance">e-governance</a> needs to be reduced, SMEs need to be able to participate in the development of e-governance applications. The funds allocated for this area to DeitY have also produced a draft bill for Electronic Services Delivery. This bill was supposed to give RTI-like teeth to e-governance service by requiring each government department and ministry to publish service level agreements [SLAs] for each of their services and prescribing punitive action for responsible institutions and individuals when there was no compliance with the SLAs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Information for All: The open data community and the Right to Information movement in India are not happy with the rate of implementation of National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). Many of the datasets on the Open Data Portal are of low value to citizens and cannot be leveraged commercially by enterprise. Publication of high-value datasets needs to be expedited by amending the proactive disclosure section of the Right to Information Act 2005.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Electronics Manufacturing: Mobile patent wars have begun in India with seven big ticket cases filed at the Delhi High Court. Our Centre has written an open letter to the previous minister for HRD and the current PM requesting them to establish a device level patent pool with a compulsory license of 5%. Thereby replicating India’s success at becoming the pharmacy of the developing world and becoming the lead provider of generic medicines through enabling patent policy established in the 1970s. In a forthcoming paper with Prof Jorge Contreras, my colleague Rohini Lakshané will map around fifty thousand patents associated with mobile technologies. We estimate around a billion USD being collected in royalties for the rights-holders whilst eliminating legal uncertainties for manufacturers of mobile technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IT for Jobs: Centralised, top-down, government run human resource development programmes are not useful. Instead the government needs to focus on curriculum reform and restructuring of the education system. Mandatory introduction of free and open source software will give Indian students the opportunity to learn by reading world-class software. They will then grow up to become computer scientists rather than computer operators. All projects at academic institutions should be contributions to existing free software projects — these projects could be global or national, for eg, a local government’s e-governance application. The budget allocated for this pillar should instead be used to incentivise research by giving micro-grants and prizes to those students who make key software contributions or publish in peer-reviewed academic journals or participate in competitions. This would be a more systemic approach to dealing with the skills and knowledge deficit amongst Indian software professionals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Early Harvest Programmes: Many of the ideas here are very important. For example, secure email for government officials — if this was developed and deployed in a decentralised manner it would prevent future surveillance of the Indian government by the NSA. But a few of the other low-hanging fruit identified here don’t really contribute to governance. For example, biometric attendance for bureaucrats is just glorified bean-counting — it does not really contribute to more accountability, transparency or better governance.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>The author works for the Centre for Internet and Society which receives funds from Wikimedia Foundation that has zero-rating alliances with telecom operators in many countries across the world</i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-sunil-abraham-july-8-2015-india-digital-check'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-sunil-abraham-july-8-2015-india-digital-check</a>
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No publishersunilDigital IndiaInternet GovernanceE-Governance2015-09-15T14:55:47ZBlog EntryIndia partially lifts Porn Ban?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban
<b>India is said to have partially removed the porn ban. But many internet service providers have refused to restore access, due to a 'vague' government order. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post by Nazhat Khan was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.desiblitz.com/content/india-partially-lifts-porn-ban">published in DESI blitz</a> on August 7, 2015.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has partially lifted the ban of online pornography, just days after blocking user access to 857 adult websites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian government enforced the ban on July 30, 2015, only to reverse its decision on August 4, 2015. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Communications and IT Minister, clarifies the ban only targets websites promoting child pornography.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He says: “A new notification will be issued shortly. The ban will be partially withdrawn. Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned.” Under the new order, internet service providers (ISPs) in India are allowed to unblock these 857 websites – except for those that contain child pornography.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This has caused another outrage. ISPs complain it is not within their capability and responsibility to do so. Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) explains: “ISPs have no way or mechanism to filter out child pornography from URLs, and the further unlimited sub-links.</p>
<table class="invisible" style="text-align: justify; ">
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy3_of_Pranesh.png" alt="Pranesh" class="image-inline" title="Pranesh" /></th>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Hence, we request your good self to advise us immediately on the future course of action in this regard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Till your further directive, the ISPs are keeping the said 857 URLs disabled.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An executive at an Indian ISP tells the Wall Street Journal: “How can we go ahead? What if something comes up tomorrow [on one of these sites], which has child porn, or something else?” <br /><br />Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, points out it is not right for the government to pass the ball over to private companies. <br /><br />He says: “The onus cannot be put on the service providers. What the government is doing is inherently unfair, it is not what the law requires.” In effect, porn sites in India are still blocked. The Supreme Court and senior officials are yet to provide clearer directives for ISPs.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceCensorship2015-09-20T06:30:34ZNews ItemNet Neutrality: India is a Keybattle Ground
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground
<b>Hardnews talks to Sunil Abraham, the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), about the future of the Internet in India.</b>
<p id="stcpDiv" style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Abeer Kapoor was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2015/08/net-neutrality-india-keybattle-ground">published in Hardnews</a> on August 10, 2015.</p>
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<p><span><span> </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>There are competing definitions of net neutrality. What do you think an Indian definition of net neutrality should be?</b><br />It should be driven by an empirical understanding of the harms and benefits for Indian consumers. Any regulation should be based on evidence of harm. Forbearance should be the first option for any regulator. The second option is mandating transparency. The third option, as (Managing Director of the World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies Programme) William Melody says, should be raising competition before we consider other more intrusive regulatory measures such as price regulation, mandatory registration and licensing, etc. Telling network administrators how to run their networks should be the very last option we consider. Ideally, the Competition Commission of India should have started an investigation into the competition harms emerging from network neutrality violations. There are other harms emerging from network neutrality violations, such as free speech harms, diversity harms, innovation harms and privacy harms. These residual elements should have been the focus of the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) consultation paper process, the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) panel process and the consultations of the parliamentary standing committee.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>There are certain rights that are essential, like privacy. How do you think the right to privacy will play into the definition of Indian net neutrality?</b><br />Deep packet inspection – which is a method that is used to manage Internet traffic and walled garden access via mobile applications – causes significant privacy harms and gives rise to a range of security vulnerabilities. These cannot be directly addressed in network neutrality policy. On privacy and security, it is not clear that the Indian situation is different from the global trend, so it is unlikely that we will have an India-specific privacy language in our network neutrality policy.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Privacy harms caused by network neutrality violations have to be addressed by enacting the privacy bill into law. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been working on this Bill for the last five or six years. The latest draft has implemented the recommendations of the Justice AP Shah Committee. The last leak of the privacy Bill revealed that the DoPT has included the nine principles identified by the <span><a href="http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/rep_privacy.pdf">Shah Committee Report on Privacy</a></span>. We hope that the government will introduce this Bill at the earliest. Section 43A of the IT Act may also need to be amended to address all the nine privacy principles.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>The report drafted by DoT on net neutrality is ambiguous and almost reluctant to take a stand. What are the key points of this report?</b><br />The <span><a href="https://mygov.in/sites/default/files/master_image/Net_Neutrality_Committee_report.pdf">DoT panel report</a> </span>does take a stand. It clearly identifies network neutrality as a policy goal. Unfortunately, the panel did not provide its own definition of network neutrality, but instead quoted a definition submitted by civil society activists who testified before it without explicitly adopting it. The panel report examines zero rating and legitimate traffic management in quite a bit of detail and does prescribe some regulatory decision trees to the policymakers. When it comes to specialised services and walled gardens there could have been more detailed and specific recommendations. The biggest disappointment in the report is the call for licensing of those OTT (Over the Top) service providers that provide equivalent services to those provided by telcos. While the need to address regulatory arbitrage from the perspective of privacy and surveillance law may be virtuous, it may not be technically feasible to do so, especially if there is end-to-end encryption. Also, regulatory arbitrage could be addressed by reducing regulations for telcos rather than increasing them for </span><span>OTT providers.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>Do you think licensing and regulation of OTT services such as Google and WhatsApp are a necessity?</b><br />It is a myth that they exist in a regulatory vacuum. Many regulations do apply to them and a few of them do comply with Indian authorities on issues like speech regulation, legal interception and also data access. With competition law and taxation there is very little compliance. The trouble is not that there are regulatory vacuums, but rather that these services operate from foreign jurisdictions. Without offices, servers and human resources within the Indian jurisdiction it is very difficult for the courts to implement their orders, and for law enforcement to ensure compliance with Indian laws. This jurisdictional challenge affects most developing countries and not just India, and can only be solved by harmonising procedural and substantive law across jurisdictions, through the spread of soft norms, development of self-regulatory mechanisms using the multi-stakeholder models and through the creation of international law through various multilateral and pluri-lateral bodies.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>The report reduces the neutrality debate to ‘access.’ Do you think this approach is reductive?</b><br />Access is very important in the Indian context so I don’t see how that is reductive. Many observers believe that the next round in the war for network neutrality will happen in the global South. India is a key battleground – what happens here will have global impact and implications. Network neutrality policies need to consider free speech, privacy, competition, diversity and innovation goals of the markets they seek to regulate. If we are not being doctrinaire about network neutrality we could adopt what (Professor of Internet & Media Law at the University of Sussex) Chris Marsden calls forward-looking “positive net neutrality” wherein “higher QoS (Quality of Service) for higher prices should be offered on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory [FRAND] terms to all comers”. FRAND, according to Prof. Marsden, is well understood by the telcos and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as it is the basis of common carriage. This understanding of network neutrality allows for technical and business model innovation by ISPs and telcos without the associated harms. There are zero-rating services being launched by Mozilla, Jaana, Mavin and others that are attempting to do this. I do not believe that they violate network neutrality principles, unlike Airtel Zero or Internet.org.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>While this report attempts to arrive at a middle ground between the TSPs and the OTTs, how is this going to reflect in the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme?</b><br />We know we have a policy solution when all stakeholders are equally unhappy. But we also need an elegant solution that is easy to implement. Scholars like (Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University) Vishal Mishra have a theoretical solution based on the Shapley Value, that assumes a multi-sided market model, but this may not work in real life. Professor V. Sridhar of the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru (IIITB) has a very elegant idea of setting a ceiling and floor for price and speed and also for insisting on a minimum QoS of the whole of the Internet. These ideas I have not heard in the American and European debate around network neutrality. I remain hopeful that the Indian middle ground will be qualitatively different, given that the structure and constraints of the Indian telecom sector are very different from that in developed countries. Ensuring network neutrality is essential to the success of Digital India. Unfortunately, the Digital India plans that we have heard so far don’t make this </span><span>explicitly clear.</span></p>
<div id="stcpDiv">
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>The Internet was never meant to be monetised. Do you think that private players are eating into a public good that is absolutely necessary for development?</b><br />I have never heard that statement before. <a href="http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2011/06/3992"><span>The Internet</span>, <span>after its early history, has been completely built using private capital</span></a>. The public Internet has always been monetised. Collectively, the individual entrepreneurs and enterprises that build and run the components of the Internet have created a common public good – which is the globally interconnected network. But the motivation for private capital behind maintaining and building their corner or component of this network has also been profit maximisation.</span></p>
<div id="stcpDiv">
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>What has contributed to the growing need to regulate and administer the Internet?</b><br />Technical advancements and business model innovations have resulted in both benefits and harms and therefore there could be a rationale for regulation. But more regulation per se is not a virtue and does not serve the interest of citizens and consumers. Expanding the regulatory scope of government infinitely will only result in failure, given the limited capacity and resources of the State. Therefore, whenever the State enters a new area of regulation it should ideally stop regulating in another area. In other words, there is no clear case that the regulation of the Internet is needed to keep growing exponentially – as evolving technologies may require specific regulation – if the resultant harms cannot be addressed using existing law. In most cases, traditional law is sufficient to deal with crimes and offences online.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span> </span></p>
<hr />
<p>This story is from the print issue of Hardnews: August 2015</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaNet NeutralityInternet Governance2015-09-20T07:08:42ZNews ItemOutrage before sharing
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing
<b>Has the social media converted people into a lynch mob that seeks out justice and passes judgement instantly, without bothering to hear both sides of the story? </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nikhil Varma was <a class="external-link" href="http://m.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/outrage-before-sharing/article7633402.ece">published in the Hindu on September 9, 2015</a>. Rohini Lakshané was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet has changed the way we communicate in more ways than we can imagine. Apart from being a medium to share pictures and updates with family and friends, social media has also become an arena where political debates are a commonplace and people are quick to make judgements. The social media space has become one where superlatives are commonly used and videos or conversations about inappropriate behaviour or even a tweet or Facebook post has a tendency to go viral and snowball into a shaming of the individual or organisation in question, without bothering to hear out the other side of the story. Outraging can be over anything, from the faults of the Government, to lay people who sometimes find themselves the subject of an online shaming campaign.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently, an FB user put up pictures of a person, who she claimed misbehaved with her on a street in Delhi. Within a few hours, the man’s picture went viral and he was arrested by the police, even as he was called names and abused on social media networks. A few days later, eyewitness accounts corroborated the man’s account of the incident. The response online now put the girl at fault and blamed her for politicising the issue. The initial response to the video of the Rohtak sisters bashing up alleged molesters also saw the outrage shifting sides.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">How does one deal with people making judgements with a click of a button? Does online shaming dent the chances of people getting justice in genuine cases of assault?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society says, “Online, public shaming is a useful and often effective strategy for calling out unacceptable behaviour when recourse to other remedies is tedious, time-consuming, or non-existent. Its flipside is that shaming online could lead to mob justice or a witch-hunt. The onus should be on the viewers or readers of such an act of shaming to not take the law into their own hands and on the news media to do their basic duty of checking facts before publishing or broadcasting anything.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">She adds, “People use social networking sites, among other things, as verandas where they can gather gossip, and talk about their interests. If people jumping the gun and being judgemental offline isn’t a cause for concern, I don’t see why it should be when it happens online.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On checks, Rohini contends, “They would not be in the interest of free speech. It would, of course, make a difference if social media users paused to think.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">V. Shakti, Social Media and Branding Professional, points out that the mass adoption of social media platforms has had positive and negative effects. “It has ensured that anyone can reach out and get any information. The flip side is that this power to reach millions needs to be handled with care and responsibility. The Jasleen Kaur incident is a glaring reflection. Such is the mindset of people online that anyone who is shamed is assumed guilty and derided. Sometimes the shaming does permanent damage to the target and the effects are life-long. The minute Jasleen posted a picture online, even the media jumped in calling the guy a ‘pervert’, if this were some other country, they would be sued. We need to understand that un-shaming is not an option and hence be careful when throwing mud at someone online. Remember, it could be you tomorrow. Think, verify and then act. Like I always say, there are three sides to every story - yours, mine and the truth.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For psychiatrist and Integrative medicine specialist Shyam Bhatt, online shaming is a combination of a sense of mob justice and the feeling of participating in a cause. “It is easy to sign up for a cause online, you can click share and feel good about yourself. People also tend to get swayed by what their friend circles are talking about.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Social media user Praveen Rao feels an attempt to feel involved with causes is responsible for this phenomenon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“It is important for people to check the authenticity and wait for a clear picture to emerge before talking about something. However, in the rush to appear clued in, people tend to share anything that goes viral, without pausing to think if someone’s life could be ruined. It is a good tool to call out genuine cases of misbehaviour and assault, but mob justice should be avoided.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaSocial MediaInternet Governance2015-09-20T17:08:14ZNews ItemSustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sustainable-smart-cities-india-conference-2015-bangalore
<b>Nispana Innovative Platforms organized a Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, in Bangalore on 3rd and 4th September, 2015. The event saw participation from people across various sectors including Government Representatives from Ministries, Municipalities, Regulatory Authorities, as well as Project Management Companies, Engineers, Architects, Consultants, Handpicked Technology Solution Providers and Researchers. National and International experts and stakeholders were also present to discuss the opportunities and challenges in creating smart and responsible cities as well as citizens, and creating a roadmap for converting the smart cities vision into a reality that is best suited for India.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objective of the conference was to discuss the meaning of a smart city, the promises made, the challenges and possible solutions for implementation of ideas by transforming Indian Cities towards a Sustainable and Smart Future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Smart Cities Mission</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Considering the pace of rapid urbanization in India, it has been estimated that the urban population would rise by more than 400 million people by the year 2050<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> and would contribute nearly 75% to India’s GDP by the year 2030. It has been realized that to foster such growth, well planned cities are of utmost importance. For this, the Indian government has come up with a Smart Cities initiative to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Initially, the Mission aims to cover 100 cities across the countries (which have been shortlisted on the basis of a Smart Cities Proposal prepared by every city) and its duration will be five years (FY2015-16 to FY2019-20). The Mission may be continued thereafter in the light of an evaluation to be done by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and incorporating the learnings into the Mission. This initiative aims to focus on area-based development in the form of redevelopment, or developing new areas (Greenfield) to accommodate the growing urban population and ensure comprehensive planning to improve quality of life, create employment and enhance incomes for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What is being done?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Smart City Mission will be operated as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) and the Central Government proposes to give financial support to the Mission to the extent of Rs. 48,000 crores over five years i.e. on an average Rs. 100 crore per city per year.The Government has come up with 2 missions:Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Smart Cities Mission for the purpose of achieving urban transformation.The vision is to preserve India’s traditional architecture, culture & ethnicity while implementing modern technology to make cities livable, use resources in a sustainable manner and create an inclusive environment. Additionally, Foreign Direct Investment regulations have been relaxed to invite foreign capital and help into the Smart City Mission.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What is a Smart City?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Over the two-day conference, various speakers shared a common sentiment that the Governments’ mission does not clearly define what encompasses the idea of a Smart City. There is no universally accepted definition of a Smart City and its conceptualization varies from city to city and country to country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A global consensus on the idea of a smart city is a city which is livable, sustainable and inclusive. Hence, it would mean a city which has mobility, healthcare, smart infrastructure, smart people, traffic maintenance, efficient waste resource management, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, there is a global debate at United Nations regarding developmental goals. One of these goals is gender equality which is very important for the smart city initiative. According to this, a smart city must be such where the women have a life free from violence, must be made to participate and are economically empowered.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Promises</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The promises of the Smart City mission include:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Make a sustainable future, reduce carbon footprint, adequate water supply, assured electricity supply, proper sanitation, including solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, affordable housing especially for the poor, robust IT connectivity and digitalization, good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation, sustainable environment, safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and health and education.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The vision is to preserve country’s traditional architecture, culture & ethnicity while implementing modern technology. It was discussed how the Smart City Mission is currently attracting global investment, will create new job opportunities, improve communications and infrastructure, decrease pollution and ultimately improve the quality of living.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Challenges</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The main challenges for implementation of these objectives are with respect to housing, dealing</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">with existing cities and adopting the idea of retro-fitting.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, another challenge is that of eradicating urban poverty, controlling environment degradation, formulating a fool-proof plan, proper waste management mechanism, widening roads but not at the cost of pedestrians and cyclist and building cities which are inclusive and cater to the needs of women, children and disabled people.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the top challenges will include devising a fool-proof plan to develop smart cities, meaningful public-private partnership, increasing the renewable energy, water supply, effective waste management, traffic management, meeting power demand, urban mobility, ICT connectivity, e-governance, etc., while preparing for new threats that can emerge with implementation of these new technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What needs to be done?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following suggestions were made by the experts to successfully implement government’s vision of creating successful smart cities in India.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Focus on the 4 P’s: Public-Private-People Partnership since people very much form a part of the cities.</li>
<li>Integration of organizations, government bodies, and the citizens. The Government can opt for a sentiment analysis.</li>
<li>Active participation by state governments since Land is a state subject under the Constitution. There must be a detailed framework to monitor the progress and the responsibilities must be clearly demarcated.</li>
<li>Detailed plans, policies and guidelines</li>
<li>Strengthen big data initiatives</li>
<li>Resource maximization</li>
<li>Make citizens smart by informing them and creating awareness</li>
<li>Need for competent people to run the projects</li>
<li>Visionary leadership</li>
<li>Create flexible and shared spaces for community development.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>National/International case studies</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Several national and international case studies were discussed to list down practical challenges to enable the selected Indian cities learn from their mistakes or include successful schemes in their planning from its inception.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Amsterdam Smart City: It is said to be a global village which was transformed into a smart city by involving the people. They took views of the citizens to make the plan a success. The role of big data and open data was highly emphasized. Also, it was suggested that there must be alignment with respect to responsibilities with the central, state and district government to avoid overlap of functions. The city adopted smart grid integration to make intelligent infrastructure and subsidized initiatives to make the city livable.</li>
<li>GIFT City, Gujarat: This is an ICT based sustainable city which is a Greenfield development. It is strategically situated. One of the major features of the City is a utility tunnel for providing repair services and the top of the tunnel can be utilized as a walking/jogging track. The city has smart fire safety measures, wide roads to control traffic, smart regulations.</li>
<li>TEL AVIV Smart City, Israel: It has been named as the Mediterranean cool city with young and free spirted people. The city comprises of creative class with 3 T’s-talent, technology and tolerance. The city welcomes startups and focuses on G2G, G2C and C2C initiatives by adopting technologically equipped initiatives for effective governance and community building programmes.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event saw participation from people across various sectors including Government Representatives of Ministries, Municipalities, Regulatory Authorities, as well as Project Management Companies, Engineers, Architects, Consultants, Handpicked Technology Solution Providers and Researchers.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><b>Foundation for Futuristic Cities:</b> The conference saw participation from this think tank based out of Hyderabad working on establishing vibrant smart cities for a vibrant India. They are currently working on developing a "Smart City Protocol" for Indian cities collaborating with Technology, Government and Corporate partners by making a framework for Smart Cities, Big Data and predictive analytics for safe cities, City Sentiment Analysis, Situation Awareness Tools and mobile Apps for better city life by way of Hackathons and Devthons.</li>
<li><b>Centre for SMART cities, Bangalore:</b> This is a research organization which aims to address the challenge of collaborating and sharing knowledge, resources and best practices that exist both in the private sector and governments/municipal bodies in a usable form and format.</li>
<li><b>BDP – India (Studio Leader – Urbanism): </b>The Organization is based out of Delhi and is involved in providing services relating to master planning, urbanism, design and landscape design. The team includes interior designers, engineers, urbanists, sustainability experts, lighting designers, etc. The vision is to help build and create high quality, effective and inspiring built spaces.</li>
<li><b>UN Women: </b>It is a United Nations Organization working on gender equality, women empowerment and elimination of discrimination. They strive to strengthen rights of women by working with women, men, feminists, women’s networks, governments, local authorities and civil society to create national strategies to advance gender equality in line with national and international priorities. The UN negotiated the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in August 2015 (which would be formally adopted by World leaders in September 2015) and it feature 17 sustainable development goals, one of them being achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls.</li>
<li><b>Elematic India Pvt. Ltd.: </b>The Company is a leading supplier of precast concrete technology worldwide providing smart solutions for concrete buildings to help enable build smart cities with safe infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Conclusion</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event discussed in great detail about what a smart city would look like in a country like India where every city has different demographics, needs and resources.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Participants had a mutual understanding that a city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and height of its dream. The initiative of creating smart cities would echo across the country as a whole and would not be limited to the urban centers. Hence, the plan must be inclusive in implementation and right from its inception, the people and their needs must be given due consideration to make it a success. The issue of the road ahead was resonating in the minds of many, as to how would this exactly happen. Hence, the first step, as was suggested by the experts, was to involve the citizens by primarily informing them, taking their suggestions and planning the project for every city accordingly. While focusing on cities which would be made better by human ingenuity and technology, along with building mechanism for housing, commerce, transportation and utilities, it must not be forgotten that technology is timely, but culture is timeless. The cities must not be faceless and community space must be built with walkable spaces with smart utilization of limited resources. Also, it must be ensured that the cities do not cater to the needs of the elite and skilled population, but also the less privileged community. Adequate urban mapping must be done to ensure placement for community facilities, such as restrooms, trash bins, and information kiosks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A story shared from personal experience by an expert Architect in building Green infrastructure was highly instrumental in setting the tone of the conference and is bound to stay with many of the participants. The son of the Architect, a small child from Baroda left his father speechless when he questioned him about the absence of butterflies from the Big City of Mumbai since he used to play with butterflies every morning in his hometown in Gujarat. The incident was genuinely thought provoking and left every architect, government representative and engineer thinking that before they step on to build a smart cities with technologically equipped infrastructure and utilities - can we, as a country, come together and ensure to build a smart city with butterflies? Can we pay equal attention to sustainability, environment and requirements of a community in the smart city that is envisioned by the Government to make the city livable and inclusive?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Questions that I, as a participant, am left with are:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Building a Greenfield project is comparatively easier than upgrading the existing cities into Smart ones, which requires planning and optimum utilization of resources. The role of local bodies needs to be strengthened which would primarily require skilled workforce, beginning from planning to execution. Therefore, what must be done to make the current cities “Smarter” and how encourage and fund ordinary citizens to redefine and prioritize local needs?</li>
<li>The conference touched upon the need for a well-planned policy framework to govern the smart cities; however, what was missing was a discussion on the kind of policies that would be required for every city to ensure governance and monitor the operations. Chalking out well thought of urban policies is the first step towards implementation of the Project and requires deliberation in this regard.</li>
<li>The Government plans seem to cater to the needs of a handful of sections of the society and must focus on safety of women, chalk out initiatives to build basic utilities like public toilets, plan the infrastructure keeping in mind the disabled individuals, etc. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is of paramount importance since it is necessary for the Government to consider who would be the potential inhabitants of these future smart cities and what would be their particular needs. Before the cities are made better by use of technology, there is a requirement of more toilets as a basic utility. Thus, instead of focusing on technological advancement as the sole foundation to make lives of the people easy, the cities must have provision of utilities which are accessible to develop livable smart cities. Hence, what measures would the Government and other bodies involved in the plan take to ensure that the urban enclaves would not oversee the under privileged class?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another issue that went unnoticed during the two-day event was pertaining to the Fundamental Rights of individuals within the city. For example, the right of privacy, right to access services and utilities, right to security, etc. These basic rights must be given due recognition by the smart city developers to uphold the spirit of these internationally accepted Human Rights principles. Therefore, it is important to ask how these future cities are going to address the rights of its people in the cities?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apart from plans of working on waste management, another important factor that must not be overlooked is sustainability in terms of maximization of the available resources in the best possible ways and techniques to be adopted to stop the fast paced degradation of the environment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference could suggest more solutions to adopt measures like rain water harvesting, better sewage management in the existing cities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, the importance of big data in building the smart cities was emphasized by many experts. However, the question of regulation of data being generated and released was not talked about. Use of big data analytics involves massive streaming of data which required regulation and control over its use and generation to ensure such information is not misutilised in any way. In such a scenario, how would these cities regulate and govern big data techniques to make the infrastructure and utilities technologically efficient on one hand, but also to use the large data sets in a monitored fashion on the other?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An answer to these crucial issues and questions would have brought about a lot of clarity in minds of all the officials, planners and the potential residents of the Smart Cities in India.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> 2014 revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, July 2014, Available at : http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/publications/2014-revision-world-urbanization-prospects.html</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Smart Cities, Mission Statement and Guidelines, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, June 2015, Available at : http://smartcities.gov.in/writereaddata/SmartCityGuidelines.pdf</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sustainable-smart-cities-india-conference-2015-bangalore'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sustainable-smart-cities-india-conference-2015-bangalore</a>
</p>
No publishervanyaInternet Governance2015-09-21T02:24:19ZBlog EntryAfter the Lockdown
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown
<b></b>
<div>
<p>This post was first published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/after-the-lockdown-120040200010_1.html">Business Standard</a>, on April 2, 2020.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
This is a time when, as
the authorities deal with a lockdown, there needs to be an equal
emphasis on providing for large numbers of people without the money for
food and necessities, while the rest of us wait it out. Hard as it is,
an MIT scholar writes that after the Spanish flu in 1918, cities that
restricted public gatherings sooner and longer had fewer fatalities, and
emerged with stronger economic growth.<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4" target="_blank"><strong>1</strong></a> It
is likely that costs and benefits vary with economic and social
capacity, and we may have a harder time with it here. Going forward,
government action to help provide relief, rehabilitate people and deal
with loss needs to be well planned, including targeting aid to the urban
and displaced poor.<strong><a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/" target="_blank">2</a></strong></div>
<div>
As important now as to
ensure the lockdown continues is to plan on how to revive productive
activity and the economy, and restore public confidence. A systematic
approach will likely yield better results.</div>
<div>
A major element of the
recovery plan is steps such as liberal credit and amortisation terms,
perhaps much more than the three-month extension the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) has announced. A primary purpose is the re-initiation of
large-scale activities such as construction, of which there are
reportedly about 200,000 large projects around the country. These have
to be nursed back to being going concerns. The RBI may need to consider
doing more, including lowering rates.</div>
<div>
An ominous development
that has grown as the economy slowed is financial stress that could
swell non-performing assets (NPAs). At the half-year ending September
2019, about half of non-financial large corporations in India, excluding
telecom, showed financial stress (<em>see table</em>).</div>
<div> </div>
<a style="text-align: center;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUGInMPm0qA/XoX9HV4-HBI/AAAAAAAAHio/bpAUXcOxJ2AZ3mHTisIdMGLnbon7r5YpQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Indebted%2BFirms-Likely%2BFinancial%2BHeadwinds-Krishna%2BKant-BS.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUGInMPm0qA/XoX9HV4-HBI/AAAAAAAAHio/bpAUXcOxJ2AZ3mHTisIdMGLnbon7r5YpQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Indebted%2BFirms-Likely%2BFinancial%2BHeadwinds-Krishna%2BKant-BS.jpg" alt="null" height="320" width="205" /></a>
<p> </p>
<p>Source: Krishna Kant: "Coronavirus shutdown puts Rs 15-trillion debt at risk, to impact finances", BS, March 30, 2020:</p>
<div><a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/coronavirus-shutdown-puts-rs-15-trillion-debt-at-risk-to-impact-finances-120032901036_1.html">https://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/coronavirus-shutdown-puts-rs-15-trillion-debt-at-risk-to-impact-finances-120032901036_1.html</a></div>
<p> </p>
<div>
These include some of
India’s largest companies, producing power, steel, and chemicals. The
201 companies have total debt of nearly Rs 15 trillion, more than half
of all borrowings. There is also the debt overhang of the National
Highways Authority of India, and of the telecom companies. Ironically,
the telecom companies are our lifeline now, despite having nearly
collapsed under debt because of ill-advised policies in the past, which
have still not changed. Perhaps our obvious dependence telecom services
now will spark well conceived, convergent policies for this sector, so that we can function effectively. </div>
<div>
A start with immediate
changes in administrative rules for 60GHz, 70-80GHz, and 500-700MHz
wireless use, modelled on the US FCC regulations as was done for the
5GHz Wi-Fi in October 2018, could change the game. It will provide the
opportunity in India for the innovation of devices, their production,
and use, possibly unleashing this sector. This can help offset our
reliance on imported technology and equipment. However, such changes in
policies and purchasing support have eluded us thus far. Now, the only
way our high-technology manufacturers can thrive is to succeed
internationally, in order to be able to sell to the domestic market.
Imagine how hard that might be, and you begin to get an inkling of why
we have few domestic product champions, struggling against odds in areas
such as optical switches, networking equipment, and wireless devices.
For order-of-magnitude change, however, structural changes need to be
worked out in consultation with operators in the organisation of
services through shared infrastructure.</div>
<div> </div>
<p>For the longer term, a fundamental
reconsideration for allocating resources is needed through coherent,
orchestrated policy planning and support. What the government can do as a
primary responsibility, besides ensuring law and order and security, is
to develop our inadequate and unreliable infrastructure, including
facilities and services that enable efficient production clusters, their
integrated functioning, and skilling. For instance, Apple’s recent
decision against moving iPhone production
from China to India was reportedly because similar large facilities
(factories of 250,000) are not feasible here, and second, our logistics
are inadequate. Such considerations should be factored into our
planning, although Apple may well have to revisit the very
sustainability of the concept of outsize facilities that require the
sort of repressive conditions prevailing in China. However, we need not
aim for building unsustainable mega-factories. Instead, a more practical
approach may be to plan for building agglomerations of smaller,
sustainable units, that can aggregate their activity and output
effectively and efficiently. Such developments could form the basis of
numerous viable clusters, and where possible, capitalise on existing
incipient clusters of activities. Such infrastructure needs to be
extended to the countryside for agriculture and allied activities as
well, so that productivity increases with a change from rain-fed,
extensive cultivation to intensive practices, with more controlled
conditions.</p>
<p>The automotive industry,
the largest employer in manufacturing, provides an example for other
sectors. It was a success story like telecom until recently, but is now
floundering, partly because of inappropriate policies, despite its
systematic efforts at incorporating collaborative planning and working
with the government. It has achieved the remarkable transformation of
moving from BS-IV to BS-VI emission regulations in just three years,
upgrading by two levels with an investment of Rs 70,000 crore, whereas
European companies have taken five to six years to upgrade by one level.
This has meant that there was no time for local sourcing, and therefore
heavy reliance on global suppliers, including China. While the
collaborative planning model adopted by the industry provides a model
for other sectors, the question here is, what now. In a sense, it was
not just the radical change in market demand with the advent of
ridesharing and e-vehicles, but also the government’s approach to
policies and taxation that aggravated its difficulties.</p>
<div>
Going forward, policies
that are more congruent in terms of societal goals, including employment
that support the development of large manufacturing opportunities, need
to be thought through from a perspective of aligning and integrating
objectives (in this case, transportation). Areas such as automotive and
other industries for the manufacture of road and rail transport vehicles
need to be considered from the perspective of reconfiguring the
purpose, flow, and value-added, to achieve both low-cost, accessible
mass transport, and vehicles for private use that complement
transportation objectives as also employment and welfare.</div>
<div>
Systematic and convergent planning and implementation across sectors could help achieve a better revival.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com</div>
<div>
<em>1: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4</a></em></div>
<div>
<em>2: <a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/">https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/</a></em></div>
<p> </p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecominternet governanceInternet Governance2020-04-09T10:05:49ZBlog EntryThe Government’s Increased Focus on Regulating Non-Personal Data: A Look at the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/national-data-governance-framework-policy
<b>Digvijay Chaudhary and Anamika Kundu wrote an article on the National Data Governance Framework Policy. It was edited by Shweta Mohandas.</b>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Non Personal Data (‘NPD’) can be <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429022241-8/regulating-non-personal-data-age-big-data-bart-van-der-sloot">understood</a> as any information not relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The origin of such data can be both human and non-human. Human NPD would be such data which has been anonymised in such a way that the person to whom the data relates cannot be re-identified. Non-human NPD would mean any such data that did not relate to a human being in the first place, for example, weather data. There has been a gradual demonstrated interest in NPD by the government in recent times. This new focus on regulating non personal data can be owed to the economic incentive it provides. In its report, the Sri Krishna committee, released in 2018 agreed that NPD holds considerable strategic or economic interest for the nation, however, it left the questions surrounding NPD to a future committee.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">History of NPD Regulation</h2>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">In 2020, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MEITY’) constituted an expert committee (‘NPD Committee’) to study various issues relating to NPD and to make suggestions on the regulation of non-personal data. The NPD Committee differentiated NPD into human and non-human NPD, based on the data’s origin. Human NPD would include all information that has been stripped of any personally identifiable information and non-human NPD meant any information that did not contain any personally identifiable information in the first place (eg. weather data). The final report of the NPD Committee is awaited but the Committee came out with a <a href="https://static.mygov.in/rest/s3fs-public/mygov_160922880751553221.pdf">revised draft</a> of its recommendations in December 2020. In its December 2020 report, the NPD Committee proposed the creation of a National Data Protection Authority (‘NPDA’) as it felt this is a new and emerging area of regulation. Thereafter, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (‘JPC’) came out with its <a href="http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Joint%20Committee%20on%20the%20Personal%20Data%20Protection%20Bill,%202019/17_Joint_Committee_on_the_Personal_Data_Protection_Bill_2019_1.pdf">version of the Data Protection Bill </a>where it amended the short title of the PDP Bill 2019 to Data Protection Bill, 2021 widening the ambit of the Bill to include all types of data. The JPC report focuses only on human NPD, noting that non-personal data is essentially derived from one of the three sets of data - personal data, sensitive personal data, critical personal data - which is either anonymized or is in some way converted into non-re-identifiable data.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">On February 21, 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MEITY’) came out with the <a href="https://www.meity.gov.in/content/draft-india-data-accessibility-use-policy-2022">Draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy, 2022</a> (‘Draft Policy’). The Draft Policy was strongly criticised mainly due to its aims to monetise data through its sale and licensing to body corporates. The Draft Policy had stated that anonymised and non-personal data collected by the State that has “<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2022/06/223-new-data-governance-policy-privacy/">undergone value addition</a>” could be sold for an “appropriate price”. During the Draft Policy’s consultation process, it had been withdrawn several times and then finally removed from the website.<a href="https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Draft%20India%20Data%20Accessibility%20and%20Use%20Policy_0.pdf"> The National Data Governance Framework Policy</a> (‘NDGF Policy’) is a successor to this Draft Policy. There is a change in the language put forth in the NDGF Policy from the Draft Policy, where the latter mainly focused on monetary growth. The new NDGF Policy aims to regulate anonymised non-personal data (‘NPD’) kept with governmental authorities and make it accessible for research and improving governance. It wishes to create an ‘India Datasets programme’ which will consist of the aforementioned datasets. While MEITY has opened the draft for public comments, is a need to spell out the procedure in some ways for stakeholders to draft recommendations for the NDGF policies in an informed manner. Through this piece, we discuss the NDGF Policy in terms of issues related to the absence of a comprehensive Data Protection Framework in India and the jurisdictional overlap of authorities under the NDGF Policy and DPB.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">What the National Data Governance Framework Policy Says</h2>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Presently in India, NPD is stored in a variety of governmental departments and bodies. It is difficult to access and use this stored data for governmental functions without modernising collection and management of governmental data. Through the NDGF Policy, the government aims to build an Indian data storehouse of anonymised non-personal datasets and make it accessible for both improving governance and encouraging research. It imagines the establishment of an Indian Data Office (‘IDO’) set up by MEITY , which shall be responsible for consolidating data access and sharing of non-personal data across the government. In addition, it also mandates a Data Management Unit for every Ministry/department that would work closely with the IDO. IDO will also be responsible for issuing protocols for sharing NPD. The policy further imagines an Indian Data Council (‘IDC’) whose function would be to define frameworks for important datasets, finalise data standards, and Metadata standards and also review the implementation of the policy. The NDGF Policy has provided a broad structure concerning the setting up of anonymisation standards, data retention policies, data quality, and data sharing toolkit. The NDGF Policy states that these standards shall be developed and notified by the IDO or MEITY or the Ministry in question and need to be adhered to by all entities.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The Data Protection Framework in India</h2>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The report adopted by the JPC, felt that it is simpler to enact a single law and a single regulator to oversee all the data that originates from any data principal and is in the custody of any data fiduciary. According to the JPC, the draft Bill deals with various kinds of data at various levels of security. The JPC also recommended that since the Data Protection Bill (‘DPB’) will handle both personal and non-personal data, any further policy / legal framework on non-personal data may be made a part of the same enactment instead of any separate legislation. The draft DPB states that what is to be done with the NDP shall be decided by the government from time to time according to its policy. As such, neither the DPB, 2021 nor the NDGF Policy go into details of regulating NPD but only provide a broad structure of facilitating free-flow of NPD, without taking into account the <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cis-comments-revised-npd-report/view">specific concerns</a> that have been raised since the NPD committee came out with its draft report on regulating NPD dated December 2020.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Jurisdictional overlaps among authorities and other concerns</h2>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Under the NDGF policy, all guidelines and rules shall be published by a body known as the Indian Data Management Office (‘IDMO’). The IDMO is set to function under the MEITY and work with the Central government, state governments and other stakeholders to set standards. Currently, there is no sign of when the DPB will be passed as law. According to the JPC, the reason for including NPD within the DPB was because of the impossibility to differentiate between PD and NPD. There are also certain overlaps between the DPB and the NDGF which are not discussed by the NDGF. NDGF does not discuss the overlap between the IDMO and Data Protection Authority (‘DPA’) established under the DPB 2021.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Under the DPB, the DPA is tasked with specifying codes of practice under clause 49. On the other hand, the NDGF has imagined the setting up of IDO, IDMO, and the IDC, which shall be responsible for issuing codes of practice such as data retention, and data anonymisation, and data quality standards. As such, there appears to be some overlap in the functions of the to-be-constituted DPA and the NDGF Policy.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Furthermore, while the NDGF Policy aims to promote openness with respect to government data, there is a conflict with <a href="https://opengovdata.org/">open government data (‘OGD’) principle</a>s when there is a price attached to such data. OGD is data which is collected and processed by the government for free use, reuse and distribution. Any database created by the government must be publicly accessible to ensure compliance with the OGD principles.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Conclusion</h2>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Streamlining datasets across different authorities is a huge challenge for the government and hence the NGDF policy in its current draft requires a lot of clarification. The government can take inspiration from the European Union which in 2018, came out with a principles-based approach coupled with self-regulation on the framework of the free flow of non-personal data. The <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019DC0250&from=EN">guidance</a> on the free-flow of non-personal data defines non-personal data based on the origin of data - data which originally did not relate to any personal data (non-human NPD) and data which originated from personal data but was subsequently anonymised (human NPD). The <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52019DC0250&from=EN">regulation</a> further realises the reality of mixed data sets and regulates only the non-personal part of such datasets and where the datasets are inextricably linked, the GDPR would apply to such datasets. Moreover, any policy that seeks to govern the free flow of NPD ought to make it clear that in case of re-identification of anonymised data, such re-identified data would be considered personal data. The DPB, 2021 and the NGDF, both fail to take into account this difference.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/national-data-governance-framework-policy'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/national-data-governance-framework-policy</a>
</p>
No publisherDigvijay Chaudhary and Anamika KunduOpen DataOpen Government DataInternet GovernancePrivacy2022-06-30T13:24:35ZBlog EntryWhat Are The Consumer Protection Concerns With Crypto-Assets?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/what-are-the-consumer-protection-concerns-with-crypto-assets
<b>Existing consumer protection regulations are not sufficient to cover the extent of protection that a crypto-investor would require.</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.medianama.com/2022/07/223-addressing-the-consumer-protection-concerns-associated-with-crypto-assets/">published in Medianama</a> on July 8, 2022</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Crypto-asset regulation is at the forefront of India’s financial regulator’s minds. On the 6th of June, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/investment/news/sebi-raises-concern-on-crypto-says-that-its-decentralised-nature-makes-them-harder-to-regulate/articleshow/92079830.cms">in a response </a>to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance expressed clear consumer protection concerns associated with crypto-assets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This statement follows <a href="https://www.rbi.org.in/commonman/English/Scripts/PressReleases.aspx?Id=2474">multiple notices</a> issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) warning consumers of the risks related to crypto-assets, and even a <a href="https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12103">failed attempt</a> to prevent banks from transacting with any individual trading crypto-assets. Yet, in spite of these multiple warnings, and a significant drop in trading volume due to the introduction of a new taxation structure, crypto-assets still have managed to establish themselves as a legitimate financial instrument in the minds of many.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recent global developments, however, seem to validate the concerns held by both the RBI and SEBI.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The bear market that crypto finds itself in has sent shockwaves throughout the ecosystem, crippling some of the most established tokens in the space. Take, for example, the <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/crypto/luna-terra-crash-a-brief-history-of-failed-algorithmic-stablecoins-7934293/">death spiral</a> of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra USD and its sister token Luna—with Terra USD going from a top-10-traded crypto-token to being practically worthless. The volatility of token prices has had a significant knock-on effect on crypto-related services. Following Terra’s crash, the Centralised Finance Platform (CeFi) Celsius—which provided quasi-banking facilities for crypto holders—also halted all withdrawals. More recently, the crypto-asset hedge fund Three Arrows also filed for bankruptcy following its inability to meet its debt obligations and protect its assets from creditors looking to get their money back.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Underpinning these stories of failing corporations are the very real experiences of investors and consumers—many of whom have lost a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-14/terra-s-45-billion-face-plant-creates-a-crowd-of-crypto-losers">significant amount of wealth</a>. This has been a direct result of the messaging around crypto-assets. Crypto-assets have been promoted through popular culture as a means of achieving financial freedom and accruing wealth quickly. It is this narrative that lured numerous regular citizens to invest substantial portions of their income into crypto-asset trading. At the same time, the crypto-asset space is littered with a number of scams and schemes designed to trick unaware consumers. These schemes, primarily taking the form of ‘<a href="https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/pump-and-dump-schemes">pump and dump</a>’ schemes, represent a significant issue for investors in the space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It seems, therefore, that any attempt to ensure consumer protection in the crypto-space must adopt two key strategies:</p>
<ul>
<li><span>First, it must re-orient the narrative from crypto as a simple means of getting wealthy—and ensure that those consumers who invest in crypto do so with full knowledge of the risks associated with crypto-assets</span></li>
<li><span>Second, it must provide consumers with sufficient recourse in cases where they have been subject to fraud.</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this article, we examine the existing regulatory framework around grievance redressal for consumers in India—and whether these safeguards are sufficient to protect consumers trading crypto-assets. We further suggest practical measures that the government can adopt going forward.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What is the Current Consumer Protection Framework Around Crypto-assets?</h3>
<p>Safeguards Under the Consumer Protection Act and E-commerce Rules</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The increased adoption of e-commerce by consumers in India forced legislators to address the lack of regulation for the protection of consumer interests. This legislative expansion may extend to protecting the interests of investors and consumers trading in crypto-assets. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The groundwork for consumer welfare was laid in the new Consumer Protection Act, 2019 which defined e-commerce as the “buying or selling of goods or services including digital products over digital or electronic network.” It also empowered the Union Government to take measures and issue rules for the protection of consumer rights and interests, and the prevention of unfair trade practices in e-commerce.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within a year, the Union Government exercised its power to issue operative rules known as the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 (the “Rules”), which amongst other things, sought to prohibit unfair trade practices across all models of e-commerce. The Rules define an e-commerce entity as one which owns, operates or manages a digital or electronic facility or platform (which includes a website as well as mobile applications) for electronic commerce.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The definition of e-commerce is not limited only to physical goods but also includes services as well as digital products. So, one can plausibly assume that it would be applicable to a number of crypto-exchanges, as well as certain entities offering decentralized finance (DeFi) services. This is because crypto tokens—be it cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin—are not considered currency or securities within Indian law, but can be said to be digital products since they are digital goods.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The fact that the digital products being traded on the e-commerce entity originated outside Indian territory would make no difference as far as the applicability of the Rules is concerned. The Rules apply even to e-commerce entities not established in India, but which systematically offer goods or services to consumers in India. The concept of systematically offering goods or services across territorial boundaries appears to have been taken from the E-evidence Directive of the European Union and seeks to target only those entities which intend to do substantial business within India while excluding those who do not focus on the Indian market and have only a minuscule presence here.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Additionally, the Rules impose certain duties and obligations on e-commerce entities, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><span>The appointment of a nodal officer or a senior designated functionary who is resident in India, to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act;</span></li>
<li>The prohibition on the adoption of any unfair trading practices, thereby making the most important requirements of consumer protection applicable to e-commerce;</li>
<li>The establishment of a grievance redressal mechanism and specifying an outer limit of one month for redressal of complaints;</li>
<li>The prohibition on imposing cancellation charges on the consumer, unless a similar charge is also borne by the e-commerce entity if it cancels the purchase order unilaterally for any reason;</li>
<li>The prohibition on price manipulation to gain unreasonable profit by imposing an unjustified price on the consumers; </li>
<li>The prohibition on discrimination between consumers of the same class or an arbitrary classification of consumers that affects their rights; etc.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Rules also impose certain liabilities on e-commerce entities relating to the tracking of shipments, the accuracy of the information on the goods or services being offered, information and ranking of sellers, tracking complaints, and information regarding payment mechanisms. Most importantly, the Rules explicitly make the grievance redressal mechanism under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 applicable to e-commerce entities in case they violate any of the requirements under the Rules.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What this means is that at present crypto-exchanges and crypto-service providers clearly fall within the ambit of consumer protection legislation in India. In real terms, this means that consumers can rest assured that in any crypto transaction their rights must be accounted for by the corporation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With crypto related scams <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2022/06/reports-show-scammers-cashing-crypto-craze">exploding globally following 2021</a>, it is likely that Indian investors will come into contact, or be subject to various scams and schemes in the crypto marketplace. Therefore, it is imperative that consumers and investors the steps they can take in case they fall victim to a scam. Currently, any consumer who is the victim of a fraud or scam in the crypto space would as per the current legal regime, have two primary redressal remedies:</p>
<ul>
<li><span>Lodging a criminal complaint with the police, usually the cyber cell, regarding the fraud. It then becomes the police’s responsibility to investigate the case, trace the perpetrators, and ensure that they are held accountable under relevant legal provisions. </span></li>
<li>Lodging a civil complaint before the consumer forum or even the civil courts claiming compensation and damages for the loss caused. In this process, the onus is on the consumer to follow up and prove that they have been defrauded.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Filing a consumer complaint may impose an extra burden on the consumer to prove the fraud—especially if the consumer is unable to get complete and accurate information regarding the transaction. Additionally, in most cases, a consumer complaint is filed when the perpetrator is still accessible and can be located by the consumer. However, in case the perpetrator has absconded, the consumer would have no choice but to lodge a criminal complaint. That said, if the perpetrators have already absconded, it may be difficult even for the police to be of much help considering the anonymity that is built into technology.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Therefore, perhaps the best protection that can be afforded to the consumer is where the regulatory regime is geared towards the prevention of frauds and scams by establishing a licensing and supervisory regime for crypto businesses.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">A Practical Guide to Consumer Protection and Crypto-assets</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">What is apparent is that existing regulations are not sufficient to cover the extent of protection that a crypto-investor would require. Ideally, this gap would be covered by dedicated legislation that looks to cover the range of issues within the crypto-ecosystem. However, in the absence of the (still pending) government crypto bill, we are forced to consider how consumers can currently be protected and made aware of the risks associated with crypto-assets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the question of informing customers of the risks associated, we must address one of the primary means through which consumers become aware of crypto-assets: advertising. Currently, crypto-asset advertising follows a <a href="https://ascionline.in/images/pdf/vda-guidelines-23.02.22.pdf">code</a> set down by the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Advertising+Council+of+India&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">Advertising Standards Council of India</a>, a self-regulating, non-government body. As such, there is currently no government body that enforces binding advertising standards on crypto and crypto-service providers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While self-regulation has generally been an acceptable practice in the case of advertising, the advertising of financial products has differed slightly. For example, Schedule VI of the <a href="https://www.sebi.gov.in/acts/mfreg96.html#sch6#sch6">Securities and Exchange Board of India (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996</a>, lays down detailed guidelines associated with the advertising of mutual funds. Crypto-assets can, depending on their form, perform similar functions to currencies, securities, and assets. Moreover, they carry a clear financial risk—as such their advertising should come under the purview of a recognised financial regulator. In the absence of a dedicated crypto bill, an existing regulator—such as SEBI or the RBI—should use their ad-hoc power to bring crypto-assets and their advertising under their purview.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This would allow for the government to not only ensure that advertising guidelines are followed, but to dictate the exact nature of these guidelines. This allows it to issue standards pertaining to disclaimers and prevent crypto service providers from advertising crypto as being easy to understand, having a guaranteed return on investment, or other misleading messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moreover, financial institutions such as the RBI and SEBI may consider increasing efforts to inform consumers of the financial and economic risks associated with crypto-assets by undertaking dedicated public awareness campaigns. Strongly enforced advertising guidelines, coupled with widespread and comprehensive awareness efforts, would allow the average consumer to understand the risks associated with crypto-assets, thereby re-orienting the prevailing narrative around them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the question of providing consumers with clear recourse, current financial regulators might consider setting up a joint working group to examine the extent of financial fraud associated with crypto-assets. Such a body can be tasked with providing consumers with clear information related to crypto-asset scams and schemes, how to spot them, and the next steps they must take in case they fall victim to one.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><em>Aman Nair is a policy officer at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India, focusing on fintech, data governance, and digital cooperative research. Vipul Kharbanda is a non-resident fellow at CIS, focusing on the fintech research agenda of the organisation.</em></p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/what-are-the-consumer-protection-concerns-with-crypto-assets'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/what-are-the-consumer-protection-concerns-with-crypto-assets</a>
</p>
No publisherAman Nair and Vipul KharbandaConsumer RightsInternet GovernanceCryptography2022-07-18T15:22:02ZBlog EntryDeployment of Digital Health Policies and Technologies: During Covid-19
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deployment-of-digital-health-policies-and-technologies-during-covid-19
<b>In the last twenty years or so, the Indian government has adopted several digital mechanisms to deliver services to its citizens. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digitisation of public services in India began with taxation, land record keeping, and passport details recording, but it was soon extended to cover most governmental services - with the latest being public health. The digitisation of healthcare system in India had begun prior to the pandemic. However, given the push digital health has received in recent years especially with an increase in the intensity of activity during the pandemic, we thought it is important to undertake a comprehensive study of India's digital health policies and implementation. The project report comprises a desk-based research review of the existing literature on digital health technologies in India and interviews with on-field healthcare professionals who are responsible for implementing technologies on the ground.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The report by Privacy International and the Centre for Internet & Society can be <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/deployment-of-digital-health-policies-and-technologies" class="internal-link"><strong>accessed here</strong></a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deployment-of-digital-health-policies-and-technologies-during-covid-19'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deployment-of-digital-health-policies-and-technologies-during-covid-19</a>
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No publisherpallaviPrivacyDigitalisationDigital HealthDigital KnowledgeInternet GovernanceDigital MediaDigital TechnologiesDigitisation2022-07-21T14:49:56ZBlog EntrySurveillance Enabling Identity Systems in Africa: Tracing the Fingerprints of Aadhaar
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-enabling-identity-systems-in-africa-tracing-the-fingerprints-of-aadhaar
<b>Biometric identity systems are being introduced around the world with a focus on promoting human development and social and economic inclusion, rather than previous goals of security. As a result, these systems being encouraged in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, sometimes with disastrous consequences.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this report, we identify the different external actors that influencing this “developmental” agenda. These range from philanthropic organisations, private companies, and technology vendors, to state and international institutions. Most notable among these is the World Bank, whose influence we investigated in the form of case studies of Nigeria and Kenya. We also explored the role played by the “success” of the Aadhaar programme in India on these new ID systems. A key characteristic of the growing “digital identity for development” trend is the consolidation of different databases that record beneficiary data for government programmes into one unified platform, accessed by a unique biometric ID. This “Aadhaar model” has emerged as a default model to be adopted in developing countries, with little concern for the risks it introduces. Read and download the full report <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/surveillance-enabling-identity-systems-in-africa" class="internal-link">here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-enabling-identity-systems-in-africa-tracing-the-fingerprints-of-aadhaar'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-enabling-identity-systems-in-africa-tracing-the-fingerprints-of-aadhaar</a>
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No publisherShruti Trikanad and Vrinda BhandariSurveillanceAadhaarInternet GovernancePrivacy2022-08-09T08:17:32ZBlog EntryInternet opens doors to trillions more Net addresses with IPv6
https://cis-india.org/news/internet-opens-doors-to-trillions-more-net-addresses
<b>The global Internet industry reached a key milestone on June 6 when a group of Web sites, Internet service providers (ISPs) and router manufacturers banded together to participate in the World IPv6 Launch.</b>
<p>This blog post by Aaron Tan was published in techgoondu. Nishant Shah is quoted in this.</p>
<p>Google, Facebook and Yahoo have flipped the switch to the new Internet addressing system, while ISPs such as Japan’s KDDI and India’s HNS will permanently enable IPv6 for a significant portion of their residential wireline subscribers. Home networking equipment manufacturers will also turn on IPv6 by default in home router products.<br /><br />The World IPv6 Launch was organised by the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.techgoondu.com/2012/05/15/internet-society-opens-singapore-regional-office-supports-switch-to-ipv6">Internet Society</a> as part of its mission to ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible for everyone, including five billion people who have yet to connect to the Internet.<br /><br />“The support of IPv6 from these thousands of organizations delivers a critical message to the world: IPv6 is not just a ‘nice to have’; it is ready for business today and will very soon be a ‘must have’,” said Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer of Internet Society in a statement Wednesday.<br /><br />Last April, Asia-Pacific became the first region in the world to run out of IPv4 addresses. Europe will deplete its allocation of IPv4 addresses later this year, followed by the U.S. in 2013, and Latin America and Africa in 2014. With IPv6, the Internet can now support over 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses compared with 4.3 billion addresses for IPv4.<br /><br />“Understanding the importance of IPv6, some governments in Asia Pacific have committed to enable IPv6 in their internal networks with set deadlines and, given that they run such large networks, having them on IPv6 is a big step in itself,” said Rajnesh Singh, regional director of the Internet Society’s Asia-Pacific bureau.<br /><br />The Singapore Government, for instance, has spearheaded an initiative to make e-government services accessible via IPv6. The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has also started an <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ida.gov.sg/Technology/20060419151629.aspx">IPv6 transition programme</a> that offers grants and information for companies that intend to implement IPv6 on their networks.<br /><br />With the launch of IPv6, consumers can expect to see applications and services that take advantage of IPv6′s features. Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system will also <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/06/05/connecting-with-ipv6-in-windows-8.aspx">favour IPv6 connectivity</a> over IPv4.<br /><br />According to Nishant Shah, research director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, IPv6 has an in-built security protocol called IPSec, which authenticates and secures all IP data. The data carrying capacity of IPv6 networks is also going to be higher.<br /><br />“This means that more devices with more features will be able to work seamlessly through these networks. Despite the larger load of information, IPv6 packets are easier to handle and route, just like postcards with pincodes in their addresses are easier to deliver than those without”, Shah said in a joint statement with Tata Communications.<br /><br />As an example, every aspect of the Beijing Olympics – from security surveillance to managing vehicles and media coverage – was done over IPv6. “The Chinese government, in fact, has already launched a ‘China Next Generation Internet’ project to build IPv6 networks which are going to radically change the face of high-speed internet in the country,” Shah revealed.<br /><br />With all these benefits, why does IPv6 only command two percent of the world’s Internet traffic? Shah offers two clear reasons:<br /><br />The first one is that of costs and infrastructure. The IPv6 platforms do not communicate easily with the IPv4 networks. We have the choice of a mammoth transition of all IPv4 websites and networks to new IPv6 protocols. This idea of abandoning IPv4 and moving to a new protocol is not only redundant; it is also futile, because IPv4 is already running the largest network in human history quite efficiently.<br /><br />What we need are translators which will be able to speak to both the different versions and help our devices work through them seamlessly. Older, more successful technologies have been able to do this. So, television, for instance, whether it receives terrestrial data, satellite images or data transferred via cable, is able to translate and render them into images and sounds which we can consume with ease. However, the translators for the IPv4 – IPv6 are still expensive and we need more resources diverted towards making them affordable.<br /><br />The second reason is linked to the first. In order for IPv6 to become popular, it needs a minimum threshold of service providers and users riding that network. As long as the deployment remains nascent, there will be no concentrated energy to actually try and make the bridges between versions 4 and 6. While global technology organisations like Tata Communications are ready for the transition, we are going to need a systemic change among all stakeholders to make IPv6 a reality, towards a faster, safer and more robust Internet.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/internet-opens-doors-to-trillions-more-net-addresses'>https://cis-india.org/news/internet-opens-doors-to-trillions-more-net-addresses</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2012-06-14T05:12:25ZNews ItemIPv6: The First Steps
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/ip-v-6
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society has entered into a small collaboration with Tata Telecommunications in India to celebrate the IPv6 day on June 6th. We will write 5500 word vignettes, which will be sent to their global database consisting of more than 900,000 users in the Asia-Pacific. </b>
<p>It is commonplace to interchange the words Internet and Cyberspace. However, we should make a distinction between the two. Cyberspace is an experiential phenomenon, supported by the Internet but smaller. It refers to the actions, transactions, negotiations performed within the digital network.</p>
<p>The Internet is a protocol – a set of rules that allows for a digitally connected network of databases to interact with each other. This happens through a standard set of commonly accepted rules, Internet Protocol version 4 – IPv4. IPv4 allows differently configured networks, working on different platforms, and designed through different technologies to communicate effectively by agreeing on a bare minimum of universally accepted codes for data to navigate cyberspace with the least bit of effort.</p>
<p>IPv4 was defined in 1981, when there were few computers in the world with even fewer connected to networks. It was the protocol that assigned a computer on the Internet, with an IP address, the unique name of a connected device which can be recognised by digital networks. Packets of data transmitted over the Internet need an unique IP address associated to their origin and destination, so that information can travel smoothly. IPv4 was developed so that 4,294,967,296 (2^32) unique IP addresses could be accommodated within the network. When it was designed, it looked like an almost infinite system. No one had ever imagined that the World Wide Web would emerge so quickly! We have reached a point now, where the last free IP addresses have been allotted in February of 2012, and we are now reaching a ‘real-estate’ crisis on the Internet.</p>
<p>Since every device with Internet connectivity has a unique IP address – computers, servers, tablets, smart-phones, e-book readers and even alarm clocks – we need a lot more IP addresses. IPv6 – or Internet Protocol version 6 – is a new standard by which we are now going to expand the ‘land’ upon which the Internet can grow. IPv6 is an overhaul of the existing system which will be able to handle 340 undecillion (2^128) unique addresses. Leading global Internet Service Providers and technology companies like Tata Communications have recognised <a class="external-link" href="http://www.oneipworld.net/">this as the need of the hour</a> since increasingly we are living in digital information societies. However, IPv6 is going to have a range of serious implications for our hardware and software needs as well as our usage patterns and how the Internet is going to expand in the future.</p>
<p>This communique is brought to you by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.tatacommunications.com/">Tata Communications</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/" class="external-link">Centre for Internet and Society</a>.</p>
<p>If you would like any further information on IPv6 at Tata Communications, please reach out to: <a class="external-link" href="mailto:divya.anand@tatacommunications.com">divya.anand@tatacommunications.com</a> or write to <a class="external-link" href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">Nishant Shah</a>, Director-Research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/ip-v-6'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/ip-v-6</a>
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No publishernishantInternet Governance2012-06-05T07:18:16ZBlog Entry