Centre for Internet and Society

Prometheus bound and gagged

praskrishna — 2012-02-14T04:47:46Z

Funny how a healthy person like me can collapse one day and end up in the hospital. The doctor who made me go through every lab test available, finally diagnosed the cause after a chat with me. Apparently, I collapsed because I’m getting angry, increasing my blood pressure. The only solution he said is to stop reading newspapers, as I’m getting agitated by headlines like ‘India can go the China way and block sites’, or by how the government says there’s no Internet censorship while all it’s actions point the other way.

The article by Adarsh Matham was published in the New Indian Express on 20 January 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article.

Censorship is a word that is particularly abhorrent for someone like me, who grew up listening to tales of how people like Ramnath Goenka fought the censors during the Emergency. And to say that we’ll start blocking websites in India like China is doing, the most heart wrenching moment I’ve ever heard. While researching for this piece, I came across some information that is out in the open on the Internet, but which is not generating the level of debate it deserves. We seem to be immersed in discussing Kolaveri, while slowly sliding into an Orwellian nightmare. As an example, I didn’t know there are rules called ‘Intermediary Guidelines’ and ‘Cyber cafe rules’, and I bet you didn’t either. As Pranesh Prakash of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has pointed out in a blog post, these two rules alone, made up by the Department of IT in April 2011, give the government and citizens of India great powers at censoring the web by allowing them to get Internet firms to remove content that is ‘disparaging’, ‘doesn’t have rights to’, etc.

Killing freedom of speech is only the first crime of these rules as proved by the good people at CIS. To test these rules, they complained against some frivolous content to ISPs and Internet companies, which resulted in six out of seven listings being removed without informing posters or users. More alarmingly, of the 358 items the Government of India (and some states) has requested Google to remove, only eight were for hate speech, one for national security, and an astounding 255 for ‘government criticism’.

Since introducing these draconian rules, the tale only gets murkier. Not content with asking Internet firms to self-regulate, Kapil Sibal has introduced an amendment to the Copyright Act, which introduces section 52(1)(C ), that allows anyone to send a notice complaining about infringement of his copyright. While this sounds normal, the catch is that ‘the Internet company has to remove the content immediately without question, even if the notice is false or malicious’. This amendment is before Rajya Sabha, and considering how our Parliament passes bills without a debate, it’ll become a law very soon.

Baleful rules and people behind them fail to realise that such efforts will lead to the Streisand effect, whereby attempts to hide any information will lead to it being publicised more widely. Yes more widely, because you can take out some content, but India’s youth will re-post it in a million places within minutes, like they do with pirated movies. We play a lot of cunning games just to live peacefully in India already. Please don’t let us play them online too.

The writer is a tech geek.
Email: articles@theadarsh.net

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/prometheus-bound-and-gagged

Internet Curbs

praskrishna — 2012-02-13T12:29:24Z

A Delhi high court judge threatens to go the China way. The IT act is closing in. The war on the web is a war on us, writes Rishi Majumder in an article that was published in Tehelka on 18 February 2012.

AT TIMES, the law becomes a smoke-screen for itself. How things seem to be shrouds the way they actually are. Here’s how things seem to be. Righteous Indian crusader Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi and journalist Vinay Rai have taken multinational giants Facebook, Google and 19 other websites to task. They have done so by filing a civil suit and a criminal complaint because of images they thought were offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians, as well as several political leaders.

Both cases lie in Delhi’s lower courts. The civil suit, filed by Qasmi, prays for the removal of this content and assurances that such content will not be hosted by the websites in the future. The criminal complaint calls for the prosecution of these companies under Sections 292 (“sale, etc. of obscene books, etc.”), 293 (“sale, etc., of obscene objects to a young person”) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

While judgment on these cases are pending, the efforts of Qasmi and Rai have begun to bear fruit. In the criminal case, the websites have been issued summons by a Delhi trial court. Facebook and Google India sought a stay on these from the Delhi High Court, which was not granted. Instead, Justice Suresh Kait warned that, “like China, we will block all these websites”, while asking the companies to develop a mechanism to keep a check on and remove “offensive and objectionable” material. With respect to the civil suit, the companies have been told by the court on 6 February to submit within 15 days reports of steps they have taken to block offensive content. Also on the same day, Facebook and Google removed content from the Indian domains of their websites.

Now for how things actually are. First, the least one would expect of such a criminal complaint is that it would mention the actual perpetrator of the crime. But, as Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Centre for Internet and Society, wrote in TEHELKA (The Quixotic Fight to Clean Up the Web, 28 January): “It is curious that the complaint (of Rai) does not mention specific individuals or groups directly responsible for authoring the allegedly offensive material. Only intermediaries (the websites) have been explicitly named.”

Second, to hold these websites responsible for these crimes, one would have to prove that they had “actual knowledge” of this content (as stated in Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, that is being read along with the IPC to interpret the latter in the context of this case), and did nothing to prevent it.

Otherwise, as Congress MP Shashi Tharoor tweeted in the middle of this imbroglio, prosecuting Facebook and Google for this content would be like “phone companies being sued if someone sends a defamatory or obscene SMS”.

Third, what mechanism does the court expect Facebook and Google to develop to keep a check on and remove “offensive and objectionable” material? According to Oxblood Ruffin, a Canadian hacker who is a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc, the hackers group that coined the term ‘hacktivist’), it’s “impossible” for websites such as Facebook and Google to actually ensure that such content isn’t hosted in the future.

Facebook and Google are fast emerging as the biggest platforms for expression and exchange in a country that has the third largest number of Internet users in the world (175 million broadband connections by 2014, according to the Department of Telecommunications).

Instead of creating an authority to police the Web, the Internet rules outsource this job to intermediaries

“You will have to double the workforce to have content monitors, and even then it won’t be possible,” says Ruffin. “You aren’t going to filter the content (according to keywords) because that will raise censorship issues.”

Yet filtering content seems to be the only way Facebook and Google can deliver what Justice Kait asks of them. And blocking so many websites because they happen to contain “obscene” keywords like ‘sex’ or ‘virgin’ is a lot like banning lawful assembly because someone made a hate speech. The irony is this would make us “like China” anyway.

AT THE heart of this controversy is one of two new sets of Internet rules notified by the Centre last April, dealing with the liability of intermediaries, which is being used to give the provisions of criminal and civil law more specific effect in the courtrooms. For instance, Rai’s counsel argued that Google’s terms of service didn’t reflect these rules, as they were supposed to. This was refuted by his opposing counsel, who pointed out that the terms of service of the Department of Information Technology website didn’t contain them either.

Rightly so. This set of rules, like the two cases pegged on it, infringes upon our Constitution as well as our common sense. Instead of giving us a clear idea of what they wish to censor, the rules pretend to elucidate this with terms like “grossly harmful”, “harassing”, “disparaging” or “insulting any other nation”. And “blasphemous” — a frightening term. “Blasphemous is a word alien to Indian legal language,” says Internet freedom activist Anja Kovacs. “But now, with these rules, it could gradually be incorporated into mainstream law.”

Further, instead of appointing an authority to administer them, the Internet rules outsource this job to the intermediaries — making them liable to remove within 36 hours any information they store, host or publish, if a complainant claims that this contravenes the rules.

FINALLY, LET’S return to the law. These rules, adopted by the Centre under powers conferred to it by the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, are a smokescreen that covers the infringement of a very basic Indian fundamental right. Article 21, which says: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”

In 1977, animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi was asked by the government to surrender her passport, and not given a reason for this. Not given a chance to be heard. A writ petition filed by her led the Supreme Court to deliver a landmark judgment that held that the right to “life or personal liberty” included Maneka’s right to travel because “a fundamental right is not an island in itself” and so Article 21 was to be understood in conjunction with other fundamental rights [such as the freedom of speech, enshrined in 19(1)(a)]. Justice VR Krishna Iyer, who was on the Bench that delivered the judgment, explained that “the spirit of man is at the root of Article 21”, “personal liberty makes for the worth of the human person” and “travel makes liberty worthwhile”.

But most significantly, the court held that the “procedure established by law” in Article 21 could not be a mere semblance of procedure but should fulfil the principles of natural justice — one of which is “the right to be heard”.

With the passing of these rules, millions of Indians have been denied this right — including the writer of this article. If, on going online, there is a complaint calling it “grossly harmful”, “harassing”, “disparaging”, or worse still, “blasphemous”, it will have to be taken down, in 36 hours, with his only recourse being to line up at the same courts that lawyers representing Facebook and Google and Qasmi and Rai have been visiting for months now. That’s where the smokescreen dissipates.

The original was published in Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 07, Dated 18 Feb 2012, Sunil Abraham is quoted in it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-curbs

World Narrow Web

pranesh — 2012-03-27T16:00:24Z

Censorship and how govt reacts to it may push us to country-specific networks, writes Pranesh Prakash in an article published in the Indian Express on 4 February 2012.

Twitter, a popular micro-blogging service, recently announced that “[today] we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world”. In a move a few weeks ago, Blogger, Google’s blogging service, in effect announced something similar, by saying that default they would redirect Blogger users trying to get to Blogspot.com addresses (like http://example.blogspot.com) to their respective country sites (like http://example.blogspot.in). Twitter’s announcement was greeted with much disapproval by many Twitter users, as a move towards censorship, with some talking (on Twitter) about a boycott. Blogger’s move was hidden away, deep within a help page, and is being noticed now, and is causing quite a stir as caving in to censorship. Are these concerns justified? Before answering that question, let’s look at what the platforms’ announcements really say.

Twitter has given itself the ability to withhold specific tweets and users in particular countries where that content is legally required to be removed (generally with a court order). Their earlier option, they inform us, was to block the offending tweets and users in all countries. Apart from this, they will publish a notice for each tweet/ user that is blocked in a country. They will also be proactively publishing every removal request they receive at ChillingEffects.org, which allows us to hold them to account and question their decision to remove tweets.

Google, by redirecting you to the country-specific Blogger, is allowing for country-level removal of both blogs and individual blog posts. However, they also note that you can circumvent this by using a special “no redirect” address. Google currently forwards all search-related removals, but does not do so for Blogger-related requests, and all copyright-related complaints to ChillingEffects.org. Google does publish aggregate data relating to censorship of Blogger, on which free-speech advocates have been asking them to provide more granular information.

There are three problems. First, while Twitter was just as open to repressive governments’ requests last week, by making this change, they are advertising this fact to such governments. Thailand has noted it, and has congratulated Twitter.

Second, as Rob Beschizza, managing editor of the website Boing Boing, pointed out, there have been no instances of political content having been removed by Twitter. Even British courts’ super-injunctions (injunctions on speech, that prevent you from mentioning the fact that there is an injunction) were defeated by Twitter users, which only showed that attempts to censor material results in even more attention being drawn to it (which is popularly known as the “Streisand Effect”). So, does this now mean that Twitter will start applying local laws to judge “valid and applicable legal requests”, instead of American laws? What if the law is as bad as that which exists in India, where they are required to remove content within 36 hours based on any affected person’s complaint — without a court order? Will they still act on it? If they don’t, will the government or courts order Twitter.com to be blocked in India, finding it liable for illegal omissions?

Third, this trend points increasingly to the fact that we are witnessing a Balkanisation of the Web as more countries start asserting their sovereignty online. As Chinese dissident journalist Michael Anti pointed out recently, it seems we now need visas (read “circumvention techniques”) to visit the international Web. But even then, there is no longer a singular “international” Web, but an Indian Web and a Guatemalan Web, and an Angolan Web. And the government’s recent proposal of requiring companies to locate their servers in India is a move towards this (apart from being a move towards killing cloud computing).

That having been said, the reality is that the CEOs of Google, Google India, and Microsoft have been summoned to appear in Indian courts for allowing their users to publish material which they don’t know about, which is in a sealed envelope (and most of the accused companies haven’t been shown yet), and which they weren’t even asked once to remove.

The Intermediary Guidelines Rules passed by the Department of Information Technology in April 2011 do not require the user, whose content it is, to be told that there is a complaint, nor to be given a chance to defend themselves. It does not even require public notice that the content has been removed.

The truth is, the transparency around censorship that Google and Twitter are providing is far better than what most other companies are providing. For instance, Big Rock, an Indian DNS provider, suspended the CartoonsAgainstCorruption.com web address on the basis of a seemingly not legal request by the Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch, and did so without any public notice and without even informing the cartoonist whose web address it was. At least Google and Twitter are pushing back against non-legal requests, and refusing to remove content that doesn’t violate local laws. Single-mindedly criticising them will only put off other companies from following in their footsteps.

Instead of criticising those who are actually working towards transparency in censorship, we should encourage them and others, push intermediaries not to cave in to unreasonable censorship requests, prevent them from over-censoring on their own, and push hard for the government to incorporate their best practices as part of the Intermediary Guidelines Rules.

The original article was published in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/world-narrow-web

Tweeple say it pithily with hash tags

praskrishna — 2012-02-13T05:06:10Z

Twitter best captures public irreverence to pomposity and the powers-that-be, writes Deepa Kurup in this article published in the Hindu on February 11, 2012. Nishant Shah is quoted in this article.

The Twitter world is divided into two kinds of people, those who are funny and those who try.

And nothing gets them going like a jolly controversy, particularly one that involves politicians — an easy target, always — and pornography. Of course, there's still them blogs and Facebook, but Twitter, with its sense of ‘right here, right now' (something that Facebook's Timeline tries to emulate) appears to be where every current event is made light of, ripped apart, hash-tagged and, of course, wildly re-tweeted.

Hash-Tag Bash

This week, for instance, it was all about the three Ministers from Karnataka who were caught watching porn on their phones in the Legislative Assembly when the House was in session. For at least two whole days, tweeple (people using Twitter) seemed to be gripped by what has been christened #PornGate (yes, every event these days is reduced to a single hash tag on Twitter).

So jokes ranged from the genuinely clever, funny and to the lame and obscene. Though many cannot be mentioned here in print, quite a few had to do with the ministers' state of mind and being, and even offered them advice on how to tide through these, ahem, hard times.

On Facebook, a space that doesn't stifle your creativity to 140 measly characters (for those who've been living under a rock for the past six years, that's the word limit for a single Tweet), there were more elaborate forms of humour such as morphed pictures, couplets and political satire.

The last time when social media in India went viral was the Shahrukh Khan-Shirish Kundar brawl (predictably, christened #SlapGate).

Does something about Twitter, or its format, inspire everyone to try their hand at humour? Perhaps, it's the brevity — the soul of wit, remember? —- that the platform demands. “It's also probably because it's difficult to be profound in 140 characters,” offers Nishant Shah, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society, who tracks social media closely. Another factor could be what he calls the “gamification aesthetic” of web 2.0. “This is because our social networking sites and writing platforms are performances of a certain kind... they allow us to convert our everyday lives into games — with rewards, actions, punishments or rules.”

More Immediate

Ask Ramesh Srivats, a hugely funny ad man who's wildly popular on Twitter for his one-liners, and he believes that online humour, particularly so on Twitter, is fun because its immediate, more observational, real and allows people an opportunity to be irreverent.

There're no sacred cows here. And there's a certain mood that Twitter sets up, often depending on what's current; the rest is about timing. “Twitter doesn't allow you to analyse or discuss an issue… I'd rather do that on Facebook or elsewhere,” he explains. So is there pressure to say the next-most-funny thing on Twitter? “Of course not. If something comes to mind, I say it. It's just like a conversation among friends,” Mr. Srivats laughs.

Why not Facebook?

It's not that there aren't other forms of humour online — there are videos, blogs, Facebook pages and so on. There are indeed some incredibly humorous bloggers — many of them, however, have migrated to Twitter. But it's the mood that Twitter creates. Facebook, on the other hand, allows for more expression of angst, grief and even activism. Mr. Shah says that Facebook is to sadness what Twitter is to humour; perhaps, it is a more “nurturing and personalised space”.

The “gaming aesthetic” on Facebook, however, does exist with memes, videos, picture remixes and so on, he says. “But unlike Twitter, here the attempt is not to be merely humorous... banter on Facebook is about a post or an object, where as banter on Twitter is about the banter itself!

The original story was published in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tweeple-say-it-pithily-with-hash-tags

New Bill to decide on individual’s right to privacy

praskrishna — 2012-02-07T07:19:07Z

A group of experts would identify issues relating to privacy and prepare a report to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. Vishwajoy Mukherjee's article was published in Tehelka on 6 February 2012.

American jurist William J Brennan once famously remarked, “If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.” Now the Government of India is on the verge of formulating, for the first time, a Privacy Bill that will lay down a specific framework to adjudicate an individual’s right to privacy.

The Planning Commission has constituted a small group of experts under the chairmanship of Justice A P Shah, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, to identify issues relating to privacy and prepare a paper to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. The group will be studying the privacy laws and related bills promulgated by other countries and will also be analysing the impact of various programmes being implemented by the government, from the perspective of their impact on privacy. A detailed report with suggestions and remarks will then be handed to the Planning Commission by 31 March.

In the run-up to the formulation of a new Privacy Bill in India, an All India Privacy Symposium was held on 4 February to discuss aspects of privacy in the context of transparency, national security and internet banking. One of the most vociferous oppositions to the idea of privacy becoming an enshrined right for individuals, has come from those who believe that national security is of paramount importance. “The notion that one has to choose between privacy and national security is a false dichotomy of choice… When the judiciary adjudicates between privacy and surveillance, privacy in almost all cases loses. Especially when the word terrorism is invoked,” said Oxblood Ruffin, a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow, an information security and publishing collective. Speaking at the conference Ruffin stressed on the idea that the State shouldn’t act as a “peeping Tom” but instead respect the “sovereignty of its people.”

One of the more stark examples, in recent years, of the State clamping down on individual rights, such as the right to privacy, on the pretext of national security, is the Patriot Act in America. The Patriot Act was passed in the United States of America in the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the twin towers, and allowed the government to scrutinise everything from “suspicious” bank accounts to wire-tapping lines of communication. Menaka Guruswamy, a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India, believes that unlike America, India does not yet have a codified view on privacy. “Privacy is a vast, fragile, and an open space in the Indian justice system,” she told Tehelka.

Though India doesn’t have clearly defined laws dealing with the issue of privacy, it does have certain directives under which surveillance methods such as wire-tapping can be done. Wire-tapping, which is regulated under the Telegraph Act of 1885, saw a major overhaul in a 1996 Supreme Court judgment, which ruled that wire-taps are a "serious invasion of an individual's privacy." The Supreme Court (SC) recognised the fact that the right to privacy is an integral part of the fundamental right to life enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution, and therefore laid down guidelines defining who can tap phones and under what circumstances. Only the Union Home Secretary, or his counterpart in the states, can issue an order for a tap, and the government is also required to show that the information sought cannot to be obtained through any other means. The SC mandated the development of a high-level committee to review the legality of each wire-tap.

“Interceptions and intrusions by the state have often gone on to help exonerate people who have been falsely accused, so I think it would be unfair to demonise wire-tapping in general. One does have to ensure though, that those who intercept exchanges do not exceed limits,” said a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Besides the dimension of privacy versus surveillance, another important aspect which comes under the scanner when privacy laws are discussed is Internet banking. Details of personal bank accounts and other highly sensitive information of individuals have been whizzing around the cyber space with the advent of E-banking. Everything from booking tickets for movies and flights, to transferring money between accounts is happening via computers, and is happening fast. This growing trend has sparked a major debate on how safe is our information on the web, and what can the government do to secure it? In May 2000, the government passed the Information Technology Act, which laid down a set of laws intended to provide a comprehensive regulatory environment for electronic commerce.

The Act also addressed computer crimes such as hacking, damage to computer source code, breach of confidentiality and viewing of pornography and created a Cyber Appellate Tribunal to oversee and adjudicate cyber crimes. However, at the same time, the legislation gave broad discretion to law enforcement authorities through several provisions, such as Section 69, allowing the interception of any information transmitted through a computer resource and mandates that users disclose encryption keys or face a jail sentence up to seven years. Section 80 of the Act allows deputy superintendents of police to conduct searches and seize suspects in public spaces without a warrant.

“Confidentiality between banker and customer is the golden rule of traditional banking, but with the coming of E-banking, banks are using confidentiality as an excuse for not putting out data that shows how vulnerable they are to cyber crimes like hacking,” said N Vijayashankar, an E-business consultant, and a front runner in raising awareness about cyber laws in India. He said, “When framing privacy laws one has to ensure that banks are mandated to disclose data on breach of Internet security. That is the only way to ensure that banks take the necessary steps to secure customer information.” Malavika Jairam, a lawyer who focuses on technology and intellectual property, believes that allowing private participation in what should essentially be a sovereign State function is a dangerous path to tread on. “Tesco, a major retail chain in England, is now into E-banking… There are numerous examples of such private banking entities sharing customer information with insurance policy firms. These details are often used as markers for the kind of premium that will be set for a person,” Jairam said.

With the current pace of technological advancements fast thinning the line between individual privacy and public content, it remains to be seen what kind of privacy laws India will frame to keep up.

The original was published by Tehelka, Malavika Jayaram, a Fellow at CIS is quoted in it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/new-bill-to-decide-on-individual2019s-right-to-privacy

Common man as crusader

praskrishna — 2012-02-06T04:13:37Z

Tamil Nadu saw its highest poll turn out in 44 years when 75% of its adults exercised their franchise in the 2011 assembly elections. There were 48 lakh Google searches for ‘Anna Hazare’ on June 8 2011 (when he began his fast) compared to a negligible number on any day in 2010. A 42-year-old man immolated himself in Kutch last year when he was told to bribe officials to access his own ancestral land records.

Shalini Singh's article was published in the Hindustan Times on 4 February 2012.

Record-breaking polling turnouts. Swelling debates on social networking sites. Simmering discontent with corruption in everyday life. Are these signs of India Churning?

“This computer literate generation that’s integrating village and city is leading a dynamic movement. The voter turnouts reflect this,” says Delhi-based sociologist Susan Visvanathan. “Across the country, people are wanting ‘to know’, which leads to action,” she adds.

According to Nishant Shah, director of research at Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, a social cause on networking sites has never reached the levels that corruption did last year. “The movement targeted at the middle-class for whom corruption is a big issue was also the first middle-class movement in a long time.”

Citizens Resource and Action Initiative (Cranti) – a 2009 social movement led by activist-dancer Mallika Sarabhai became a street play in 2010. It’s about reminding people about their rights. The movement recently embarked on a voters’ awareness yatra in Gujarat. Director Bharatsingh Zala says citizens are becoming aware about how the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and corporates is depriving them. “People have lost patience and realised that unless they become vigilant, entrenched and pervasive, corruption will not end.”

Various socio-cultural battles are being fought in India according to sociologist Shiv Visvanathan. “The mindset of the middle-class is changing which was cynical of the political system. Corruption was earlier a civil society issue with the state and party being indifferent to it. Now, the issue has become big. But the scale of anti-corruption protest is one thing, to integrate it into one’s lifestyle/livelihood is another,” he says.

India scored 3.1 on a scale of 0 to 10 (0=most corrupt, 10=most honest) on the latest Corruption Perception Index released by global civil society corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI). The score was down from 3.3 in 2010 and 3.4 in 2009. India ranked 95 out of 183 countries, more corrupt than China (75) and better off than Pakistan (134). The organisation has been working to get the Right to Service Act passed, which is the right to get a service in X number of days. Ten states have already enacted it. TI is also working on an Integrity Pact, which is the commitment of public sector undertakings (PSU) to have complaints looked into by external independent monitors. So far, 14 PSUs have signed up. “There is a shift in attitudes now. People are voicing their resentment with corruption, a reality they accepted earlier. Tools such as the Right To Information have been effective,” says PS Bawa, chairman of TI India.

There’s a long way to go. Gerson Da Cunha, convener-trustee of Agni, a 12-year-old movement for good governance in Mumbai, feels the anti-corruption movement is a ripple than a churning right now. “We can’t see a cultural shift to a cleaner administrative life until the political system stops being the generator of unaccounted money,” he says.

Read the original published in the Hindustan Times. Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet & Society was quoted by the newspaper.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/common-man-as-crusader

India needs an independent privacy law, says NGO Privacy India

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:46:22Z

India needs an independent privacy law though there are a number of provisions in existing legislations that protect a citizen's privacy, according to an NGO that is lobbying for the cause. The story was published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012.

Privacy India, a conglomerate of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Society in Action Group (SAG), with support from Privacy International, conducted a study of the existing laws in India related to privacy over a period of one and a half years in various cities.

A report, which will be released soon, has documented their findings about privacy laws and issues in India and high-level conclave and a national symposium on privacy will be held in Delhi on February 3 and 4.

Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan and NCPRI head Aruna Roy will take part in the discussions on privacy in transparency, e-governance initiatives, national security, banking and health issues.

"India doesn't have a privacy law, but there are provisions for it in different laws. During the course of the research, we found that the Indian judiciary has not been very strict in overseeing the implementation of the privacy clauses in various laws," CIS member Prashant Iyengar said, while reporting some of the findings of the study.

Stricter implementation of the existing laws could go a long way in curbing most privacy issues, Iyengar said.

Published in the Economic Times on 2 February 2012. Prashant Iyengar is quoted in this.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/india-needs-an-independent-privacy-law-says-ngo-privacy-india

Freedom of Expression in Community Media and on the Internet Understanding Connections, Finding Common Ground

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T11:00:31Z

A meeting co-organised by the Internet Democracy Project (Delhi) and Maraa (Bangalore) with the support of the Community Radio Forum in New Delhi on 3 February 2012. Pranesh Prakash is participating in this event.

Access to FM radio and broadband Internet access have proliferated since the 90s. Since 2006, community radio has been licensed to community and educational initiatives. Today there are more than 150 community radio stations which are operational, reaching some of the most underserved communities in India. Further, Internet penetration is about 8-10%, reaching about 100 million people. Both these media are on the verge of a paradigm shift.

Due to ever-increasing convergence and the ubiquity of digital communication platforms and mobile telephony, community radio stations will be able to reach not just deeper but wider. The emergence of indigenous fonts and Internet on wireless mobile technologies will mean that the next few hundred million people will begin using the Internet. Both of these phenomena are positive developments signalling possibilities of greater democratisation of media and media for the democratisation of India at multiple levels. However, there are significant issues which threaten to
impede the free growth of these platforms - troubling as it is, the threats are related to barriers on freedom of expression.

While radio still faces a ban on the broadcast of news and current affairs, opaque spectrum allocation, the imposition of a government content code and pressure to self-regulate, the Internet on the other hand has seen tumultuous developments through 2011 and early this year as well. Both the government and the judiciary have shown scant respect for and confidence in their own people, choosing instead to regulate the free flow of information citing communal sensitivities, minority population, objectionable content, etc.

This meeting aims to bring together advocates and practitioners from both the community radio and the Internet communities, to discuss what restrictions there are on freedom of expression, through law and policy; what commonalities there are between the two platforms; and what the areas and mechanisms are through and in which these two groups can work together in the future to engage policy and legal frameworks so that people's constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression is upheld in letter and in spirit.

The meeting invites about 15 participants from both community radio and Internet circles, from across the country. The meeting will be held between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on 3 February 2012 and will take place at the UNESCO Office, B-5/29, Safdarjang Enclave, New Delhi 110029.

Agenda

10.00-10.30 a.m.	Welcome and Introductions Anja Kovacs and Ram Bhat
10.30-11.15 a.m.	Community Radio and Freedom of Expression Sajan Venniyoor Moderated by Ashish Sen
11.15-11.30 a.m.	Tea Break
11.30 a.m.-12.15 p.m.	The Internet and Freedom of Expression Anja Kovacs Moderated by Ashish Sen
12.15-13.30 p.m.	Freedom of Expression in Community Media and on the Internet: Overlaps and Common Issues Group Discussion, moderated by Ram Bhat
13.30-14.30 p.m.	Lunch
14.30-15.15 p.m.	Joint priorities for community media and Internet activists Group Discussion, moderated by Siddharth Narrain
15.15-15.30 p.m.	Tea Break
15.30-16.15 p.m.	Taking it Forward – Plan of Action Group Discussion, moderated by Anja Kovacs
16.15-16.45 p.m.	Thanks and Wrap-up Ram Bhat and Anja Kovacs

List of Participants

Anja Kovacs – Internet Democracy Project
Arti Jaiman – Gurgaon ki Awaaz and CRF
Ashish Sen – AMARC Asia Pacific and CRF
Debarun Dutta - Drishti
Geeta Seshu – the Hoot
Hemant Babu – Nomad India and CRF
Mir Ubaid – the Hoot
N Ramakrishna – Ideosync Media
Parminder Jeet Singh – IT for Change
Pranesh Prakash – Centre for Internet and Society
Ram Bhat – Maraa
Sajan Venniyoor - CRF
Sapna Shahani - WAVE (Women Aloud Videoblogging for Empowerment)
Siddharth Narrain – Alternative Law Forum
Srinivasan Ramani – Newsclick.in

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/freedom-of-expression-in-community-media-and-on-the-internet-understanding-connections-finding-common-ground

Do we need the Aadhar scheme?

sunil — 2012-02-03T10:11:24Z

"Decentralisation and privacy are preconditions for security. Digital signatures don’t require centralised storage and are much more resilient in terms of security", Sunil Abraham in the Business Standard on 1 February 2012.

We don’t need Aadhar because we already have a much more robust identity management and authentication system based on digital signatures that has a proven track record of working at a “billions-of-users” scale on the internet with reasonable security. The Unique Identification (UID) project based on the so-called “infallibility of biometrics” is deeply flawed in design. These design disasters waiting to happen cannot be permanently thwarted by band-aid policies.

Biometrics are poor authentication factors because once they are compromised they cannot be re-secured unlike digital signatures. Additionally, an individual’s biometrics can be harvested remotely without his or her conscious cooperation. The iris can be captured remotely without a person’s knowledge using a high-res digital camera.

Biometrics are poor identification factors in a country where the registrars have commercial motivation to create ghost identities. For example, bank managers trying to achieve targets for deposits by opening benami accounts. Biometrics for these ghost identities can be imported from other countries or generated endlessly using image processing software. The de-duplication engine at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will be fooled into thinking that these are unique residents.

An authentication system does not require a centralised database of authentication factors and transaction details. This is like arguing that the global system of e-commerce needs a centralised database of passwords and logs or, to use an example from the real world, to secure New Delhi, all citizens must deposit duplicate keys to their private property with the police.

Decentralisation and privacy are preconditions for security. The “end-to-end principle” used to design internet security is also in compliance with Gandhian principles of Panchayat Raj. Digital signatures don’t require centralised storage of private keys and are, therefore, much more resilient in terms of security.

Biometrics as authentication factors require the government to store biometrics of all citizens but citizens are not allowed to store biometrics of politicians and bureaucrats. The state authenticates the citizen but the citizen cannot conversely authenticate the state. Digital signatures as an authentication factor, on the other hand, does not require this asymmetry since citizens can store public keys of state actors and authenticate them. The equitable power relationship thus established allows both parties to store a legally non-repudiable audit trail for critical transactions like delivery of welfare services. Biometrics exacerbates the exiting power asymmetry between citizens and state unlike digital signatures, which is peer authentication technology.

Privacy protections should be inversely proportional to power. The transparency demanded of politicians, bureaucrats and large corporations cannot be made mandatory for ordinary citizens. Surveillance must be directed at big-ticket corruption, at the top of the pyramid and not retail fraud at the bottom. Even for retail fraud, the power asymmetry will result in corruption innovating to circumvent technical safeguards. Government officials should be required by law to digitally sign the movement of resources each step of the way till it reaches a citizen. Open data initiatives should make such records available for public scrutiny. With support from civil society and the media, citizens will themselves address retail fraud. To solve corruption, the state should become more transparent to the citizen and not vice versa.

UIDAI’s latest 23-page biometrics report is supposed to dispel the home ministry’s security anxieties. It says “biometric data is collected by software provided by the UIDAI, which immediately encrypts and applies a digital signature.” Surely, what works for UIDAI, that is digital signatures, should work for citizens too. The report does not cover even the most basic attack — for example, the registrar could pretend that UIDAI software is faulty and harvest biometrics again using a parallel set-up. If biometrics are infallible, as the report proclaims, then sections in the draft UID Bill that criminalise attempts to defraud the system should be deleted.

The compromise between UIDAI and the home ministry appears to be a turf battle for states where security concerns trump developmental aspirations. This compromise does nothing to address the issues raised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yashwant Sinha.

Read the original published in the Business Standard on 1 February 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/do-we-need-the-aadhar-scheme

Google move is not good for netizens, say experts

praskrishna — 2012-02-03T10:03:17Z

Google's plan to merge data across 60 of its properties, which was announced last week, has drawn criticism from experts on the Internet, who are saying that this is detrimental to privacy. Balaji Narasimhan wrote this in the Hindu Business Line. The article was published on 31 January 2012.

"Google is doing what is good for shareholders. This is not positive for netizens,” said Mr Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society. “People like you and me have to either accept it or leave."

But what are the alternatives? Mr Somick Goswami, Director Consulting, PwC India, didn't want to comment directly on Google, but in the larger context of data privacy, he asked, "Do users want a free Internet or control over content? There is a lot of advocacy going around it. End of the day, when using the Internet, there has to be trust."

One way that Google could build trust could be by using something pertaining to loyalty, which retailers use in the real world in order to woo customers.

Mr Ram Menon, Executive Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer of Tibco, said that many of his clients make offers that are in context with what users want.

"For example, if you like cappuccino and this knowledge is known to a vendor, he can offer you a cappuccino when you walk past the store." He said that in such cases, there was no affront to privacy because the offer is relevant and in context. "You are a member and have opted in," he said.

Perhaps, the fact that all of Google's services are free has something to do with the privacy issue, pointed out the Australian Privacy Foundation. As its site privacy.org.au noted, "The company's business model is based on advertising revenue. Users pay no fees for their use of the services."

And the merger of its 60 policies apart, there is another issue worrying users — new acquisitions. As Mr Abraham pointed out, “When I was browsing Silk Smitha before YouTube was acquired by Google, I had no idea that one day this information would be known to Google."

And the issue becomes more serious in the context of a growing mobile workforce. As the Australian Privacy Foundation said, "Android mobile phones effectively trap users into having a Google user account."

Using Google services on a mobile – especially Google Latitude, a service that allows you to enable your friends to view your current location – allows Google to track your movements.

And since Google is predominantly an advertising-driven company, it could be argued that one day they might share information about you with a third party, enabling them to market to you more effectively, though this may not necessarily be done with your explicit permission – and this means that you may get an offer for products even if you have not opted in for such a service.

What can be done? Mr Abraham rued the fact that there are no specific laws to safeguard users.

"India needs privacy laws. In the US, law makers will create a fuss. In India, we are at the mercy of companies."

The original was published in the Hindu Business Line. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/google-move-is-not-good-for-netizens-say-experts

Sense and Censorship

sunil — 2012-01-31T06:15:38Z

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills, at the US House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, appear to enforce property rights, but are, in fact, trade bills. This article by Sunil Abraham was published in the Indian Express on 20 January 2012.

In developed countries like the US, intellectual property (IP) plays a dominant role in the economy, unlike in economies like India. Countries that have significant IP are keen to increase global and national enforcement activities, while countries with little domestic IP are keen to reduce outgoing royalties in the balance of payments and therefore, keen to expand alternatives, limitations and exceptions like copyleft licensing, compulsory/statutory licensing and fair dealing.

The loss of generic medicines, hardware based on open standards, public domain content, free and open source software, open access journal articles, etc will equally impoverish consumers in the US and in India. SOPA and PIPA, therefore, do not represent the will of the average American but rather the interests of the IP sector, which has tremendous influence in the Hill. There is one more layer of complication for policy-makers to consider as they work towards a compromise of interests in Internet governance — the tension between the old and the new. The incumbents — corporations with business models that have been rendered obsolete by technological developments — versus emerging actors who provide competing products and services, often with greater technological sophistication, higher quality, at a lower cost.

The US, in terms of policy and infrastructure, still controls the global Domain Name System (DNS) and consequently, post-SOPA/PIPA, can take unilateral trade action without worrying about national variations enabled by international law. These bills directly undermine the business models of many Indian companies — generic drug manufacturers like Ranbaxy, software service providers like Infosys, electronics manufacturers like Spice and players in many other sectors dominated by IP rights. So it is baffling that they have not added their voices to the global outcry.

SOPA and PIPA, if passed, will enable the US administration to take three-pronged action against IP infringers — seizure of domain names and DNS filtering, blocking of transactions by financial intermediaries and revocation of hosting by ISPs. While circumvention may still be possible, it will get increasingly laborious — something like the Great Firewall of China, but worse. Unfortunately, the implementation of these blunt policy instruments will require more and more public-funded surveillance and censorship.

The censorship potential of efforts like SOPA and PIPA may appeal to others, as autocratic and democratic regimes across the world have been keen to try technology-mediated social engineering — these efforts have been multiplied in the post-Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street world. Organised religion, social conservatives and those who have been at the receiving end of free speech would all want to shut down platforms like WikiLeaks and political movements like Anonymous and the Pirate Party.

These are equally dismal times for Internet governance in India. Google, Facebook and 20-odd other intermediaries are trying to avoid jail time at the hands of a Delhi court. However, ever since the IT Act amendments were put in place three years back, digital activists have been requesting intermediaries to register their protests early and often, regarding draconian provisions in the statute and in the associated rules. Their silence is going to be very expensive for all of us. We cannot depend on the private sector alone to defend our constitutional rights. As yet unpublished research from CIS demonstrates that private intermediaries only bother with defending freedom of expression when it undermines their business interests. Working with an independent researcher, we conducted a policy sting operation — faulty take-down notices were served to seven intermediaries asking for legitimate content to be taken down. In six of those cases, the intermediaries over-complied, in one case deleting all comments on a news article instead of just those comments identified in the notice. The only take-down that was resisted was one claiming that sale of diapers was “harmful to minors” under the Indian IT Act (because they caused nappy rash). It is clear that the IT Act and its associated rules have already had a chilling effect on online participation by Indians.

Fortunately for us, during the previous parliamentary session — Jayant Chaudhary, Lok Sabha MP from the Rashtriya Lok Dal, asked for the revision of rules concerning intermediaries, cyber-cafes and reasonable security practices. The next Parliament session is the last opportunity for the House to reject these rules and intervene for a free Internet.

The writer is executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society

Read the original published in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/sense-and-censorship

Twitter’s Censorship Move Aimed at Regaining China?

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T04:54:51Z

Twitter, the popular social networking site for micro-blogging, has announced it is open to content censorship and region-based filtering, if required by law. The service boasts nearly 300 million users from across the world. Vinod Yalburgi writes this in the International Business Times.

In a Twitter post - "Tweets Must Still Flow", the service's management has stated: "Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country, while keeping it available in the rest of the world."

Twitter's drastic move comes in the wake of recent U.S. government allegations against Internet sites like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, regarding the need to regulate and filter controversial user-generated content. Both Google and Facebook have made similar commitments.

Like us on Facebook

However, it must be seen if either of the three do follow through with those commitments.

Meanwhile, experts quoted in a report by The Times of India, where too social networking Web sites are coming under the scanner, suggest the lack of clarity in laws in countries like India means Twitter can only act reactively; the situation in Germany or France, for example, where laws about pro-Nazi propaganda are codified, they can act proactively.

Another post by Twitter speaks of a new feature that will allow the site's administrators to enable region-based selective content blocking, thereby allowing region-sensitive information to remain hidden from users in those areas. The post also cited the example of Germany and France: "Some countries differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content."

There is also speculation that one reason for this decision could be Twitter's plans to re-enter the Chinese market, where the micro-blogging service has been banned since 2009. Incidentally, China boasts the largest number of Internet users in the world, at this moment.

The hope, for Twitter, must be the promise to block sensitive tweets (or those the Chinese government deems offensive) without affecting the global audience. Twitter has rarely resorted to such censorship practices. However, the company does not seem unwilling to shy away from that responsibility.

"...if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld," the company's statement said.

"The region-specific blocking was already being used on video hosting websites like Youtube and Hulu, where due to the wishes of copyright owners many videos are not available in India. Twitter is extending this technology to its tweets," said Pranesh Prakash at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India.

"We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people. Cultural ethos is very important to us," Kapil Sibal, the Indian Telecom Minister, said last month, during his request to both Google and Facebook to filter offensive content.

The trend of social networking Web sites resisting censorship seems a thing of the past. Prakash recalls an incident in 2011, when the U.S. government sought detailed information about a Twitter user, only to be challenged, by the Internet company, in court.

Read the original published by International Business Times on 28 January 2012. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/twitter2019s-censorship-move-aimed-at-regaining-china

Google’s privacy policy raises hackles

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T03:58:57Z

Have you ever used Google to search for a restaurant while you were logged in its network using your Google id? Or shared information about your trip to Goa with your friends on Google +? Or watched belly dance on YouTube? Or looked for Sunny Leone pictures on Google images? If yes, Google knows about it. Javed Anwer wrote on article on this. It is published in the Times of India on 26 January 2012.

And according to its new privacy policy it is going to put this information to some use.

The web giant says the new privacy policy will allow it to offer better services, including more relevant search results. But web experts have raised concerns over potential misuse of data and breach of privacy. According to Google's new privacy policy that will come into effect from March 1, the company is "getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google services and replacing them with one that's shorter, easier to read" and something that will enable it to "create intuitive experience across Google" . Unlike in the past when Google had allowed users to choose personalized services, this time there is no option to opt out.

For an end-user this means that whatever information he shares through Google searches, Gmail, Google +, Picassa etc will be used to customize Google services for him. That the move is significant can be gauged from the fact that Google has provided a link to the new policy directly under its search engine on main page, something that the company rarely does. Google users will also be notified about the policy change through an email. "Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience," said Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, in a post on the company's official blog.

Whitten gave some example of how this information will be used. "We can make search better - figuring out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink. We can provide more relevant ads too," she wrote. "We can provide reminders that you're going to be late for a meeting based on your location , your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends' names, are accurate because you've typed them before."

The privacy policy from Google is at the heart of its new business strategy as it works to keep the search engine relevant and its services fresh in the face of social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. It is also prompted by the proliferation of devices like smartphones and tablets. However, privacy experts are not amused. Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for Internet and Society, said the new changes are not good for a consumer's privacy.

"I understand that Google collects the data so that it can build a 360 degree profile of a user and based on the information serve relevant advertisements . But there is no reason for them to store this data for long. Storing data makes it prone to misuse by authorities as well as corporations," said Abraham. Another, problem, he said is that different services are used for different purposes. "I don't want my bakery shop owner to know what kind of medicines Ibuy from the nearby medical store," said Abraham.

Are you being watched?

What |

For an end-user the new policy means that whatever information he shares through Google searches, Gmail, Google+, Picassa, etc will be used to customize Google services for him

Why |

The privacy policy is at the heart of Google's business strategy as it tries to keep the search engine relevant in the face of social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook

Concerns |

It's instrusive as online activity is tracked; storing data makes it prone to misuse by authorities as well as corporations

The original was published in the Times of India. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/google2019s-privacy-policy-raises-hackles

Our Internet and the Law

nishant — 2012-03-26T09:28:22Z

Nishant Shah was interviewed by the BBC Channel 5 (Radio) for its Outriders section. Jamillah Knowles reports this through this blog post published by BBC Radio on 24 January 2012.

Hello Outriders!

This week on the podcast we look at some of the problems netizens are facing when it comes to access and sharing online. SOPA, the stop online piracy act and PIPA - protect IP bills have been making headlines from the United States, where the bills were designed and all over the web where protesters showed that they did not want this sort of legislation to be passed.

It's a tricky topic as there are many protesters raising their voices against the laws and there are plenty of people who support these ideas too.

Indian internet

Along with these headlines about legislation in America, there are many other places around the world that are debating how best to manage a population that has an increasing presence on the internet.

In India, a court case is continuing that may affect how social networking websites work. Not in relation to copyright material, but as a reaction to offensive content being spread and shared.

So, what do they mean by offensive content and who are the big names in this case?

Friend of Outriders, Nishant Shah, is the Co-Founder and director of research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society, he explained the case and more about the effects of a possible outcome.

Friend of Outriders, Nishant Shah, is the Co-Founder and director of research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society, he explained the case and more about the effects of a possible outcome.

Last week also saw a huge story of the web as content sharing website Megaupload was taken down and the site's owners were charged with copyright violation.

As a response, the loose network of hackers and activists known as Anonymous activated their own take down campaign, targeting the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Upload down

Many users of the MegaUpload site watched countless hours of video posted by other people with accounts on the site, copyright or otherwise, but the shut down does not just mean that people are no longer able to watch videos, it also means that people who had put files on that site, are currently unable to access them.

One such customer is Jay Springett, who is a technology consultant, photographer and musician. I asked him how he came to use the site and if he had heard anything about getting his files back.

Well, we hope that Jay does get his raw files back and I grateful to him for talking to us about his experience - it's good to have a reminder about our information and files online. Take care of what you own and think twice about the reliability of the cloud. Though you may never be in this situation - and we hope this is the case, it's always a very good idea to keep copies of your own files, you never know what might be ahead as the internet changes.

Well, thanks to our guests as ever and of course you too can share your internet adventures or experiments with electrical things. Drop me a line at outriders at bbc dot co dot uk, tweet at me on Twitter where we are @BBC_Outriders or search for Outriders on Facebook and Google+ to add us to your feed.

Until next week!
~ Jamillah

Listen the Podcast here

The original blog post was published by BBC Radio

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-law

Privacy Matters — Analyzing the Right to "Privacy Bill"

natasha — 2012-02-15T04:27:28Z

On January 21, 2012 a public conference “Privacy Matters” was held at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. It was the sixth conference organised in the series of regional consultations held as “Privacy Matters”. The present conference analyzed the Draft Privacy Bill and the participants discussed the challenges and concerns of privacy in India.

The conference was organized by Privacy India in partnership with the Centre for Internet & Society, International Development Research Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the Godrej Culture Lab and Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Participants included a wide range of stakeholders that included the civil society, NGO representatives, consumer activists, students, educators, local press, and advocates.

Comments to the Right to Privacy Bill

Welcome

Prashant Iyengar was the Lead Researcher with Privacy India, opened the conference with an explanation of Privacy India’s mandate to raise awareness, spark civil action and promote democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. He summarized the five “Privacy Matters” series previously organised across India in Kolkata on January 23, 2011, in Bangalore on February 5, 2011, in Ahmedabad on March 26, 2011, in Guwahati on June 23, 2011 and in Chennai on August 6, 2011.

Keynote Address

Na. Vijayashankar (popularly known as Naavi), a Bangalore based e-business consultant, delivered the key note address on the quest of a good privacy law in India.

He described the essential features of good privacy legislation. In analyzing the Draft Privacy Bill’s definition of the right to privacy, he suggested it should be defined through the “right to personal liberty” rather than through what constitutes “infringements”. Mr. Vijayashankar went on to explain that the “privacy right” should be taken beyond “information protection” and defined as a “personal privacy or a sense of personal liberty without constraints by the society”. He explained the various classifications and levels of protection associated with the availability and disclosure of data. He expressed concerns regarding monitoring of data processors and suggested that data controllers have contractual agreements between data processors, so as to ensure an obligation of data security practices. He also called for the simplification and division of offences and suggested numerous reasons as to why the Cyber Appellate Tribunal would not be an ideal monitoring mechanism or authority. See Naavi's presenation here

Session I: Privacy and the Legal System

Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Assistant Professor at the National Law School of India

Dr. Krishnaswamy started off the presentation by questioning the normative assumptions the Draft Privacy Bill makes. He referred to the controversy of Newt Gingrich's second marriage, to question the range of moral interests that were involved. The Bill falls short in accounting for dignity in relation to privacy.

He described the Draft Privacy Bill as a reasonable advance, given where privacy laws were before. Although, he feels that it does fall short, in terms of a narrow position, on what privacy law should do. He also questioned if it satisfies constitutional standards. He stressed the importance of philosophical work around the Draft Privacy Bill considering that the nature of privacy is not neat and over-arching.

Privacy and the Constitutional Law

N S Nappinai, Advocate, High Court, Mumbai,

Nappinai spoke on the constitutional right to privacy. She explained the substantial development of Article 21 of the Constitution of India to include the ‘right to privacy’ with regards to its interpretation and application. She described the different shift of the application of the right to privacy in the West in comparison to India. The West has moved from the right to privacy pertaining to property to the right to privacy concerning personal rights, whereas India moved from personal rights to property rights. She outlined three aspects of privacy: dignity, liberty and property rights.

Ms. Nappinai dissected the Bill in its major components: interception, surveillance, method and manner of personal data, health information, collection, processing and use of personal data. Using these components, she questioned what precedence exists? What should be further protected or reversed? What lessons should legislators draw from?

Shortcomings of the Draft Right to Privacy Bill falls include:

The objects and reasons section in the Draft Privacy Bill declares the right to privacy to every citizen as well as delineates the collection and dissemination of data. Nappinai dismisses the need for this delineation on the grounds that data protection is an inherent part of the right to privacy, it is not exclusive.
Large focus on transmission of data. The provisions do not account for property rights pertaining to the right to privacy. Therefore, the ‘knock-and-enter’ rule, the ‘right to be left alone’ and the ‘right to happiness’ should be included.
Applicability of the Bill should extend to all persons as well as data residing within the territory. It would be self-defeating if it only includes citizens, considering that the Constitution extends to all persons within the territory.
The right to dignity is unaccounted for.

See Nappinai's presentation here

Session II: Privacy and Freedom of Expression

Apar Gupta, Advocate, Delhi

Apar Gupta is an advocate based in Delhi who specializes in IP and electronic commerce law, spoke predominantly on the interplay between privacy and freedom of expression. He used the example of an advocate tweeting about his criticism of a judges’ ruling, to illustrate how different realms of online anonymity enable freedom of speech. He went beyond the traditional realm of journalistic architecture such as television channels or newspapers and explained online community disclosure.

Mr. Gupta provided a practical example of Indian Kanoon, a popular online database of Indian court decisions. Because Indian Kanoon is linked to the Google search engine, many individuals involved in civil and criminal matters have requested Indian Kanoon to remove the court judgments, under privacy claims. This particularly occurs with individuals involved in matrimonial cases. However, as court judgment constitute public records India Kanoon only removes court judgments when requested by a court order.

He described the several ways legislators can define privacy and freedom of expression. Considering that the privacy of an individual may border upon freedom of speech and expression, he questioned whether or not privacy should override the right to freedom of speech and expression. In addition, Mr. Gupta discussed the debate on whether or not the Privacy Bill should override all existing provisions in other laws.

Additionally, he analyzed the provisions of the Draft Privacy Bill using three judgments. In these judgments, different entities sought of various forms of speech to be blocked under privacy claims. He spoke about the dangers of a statutory right for privacy that does not safeguard freedom of speech and expression. Considering that the privacy statute may allow for a form of civil action permitting private parties to approach courts to stop certain publications, he stressed the importance for legislators to ensure balanced privacy legislation inclusive of freedom of speech and expression.

Sexual Minorities and Privacy

Danish Sheikh, researcher at Alternative Law Forum

Danish examined the status of sexual minorities in the light of privacy framework in India. The tag of decriminalization has served to greatly alter the way institutions approach the question of privacy when it comes to sexual minorities. He used the Naz Foundation judgment as a chronological marker to map the developments in the right to privacy and sexual minorities over the years.

He outlined four key effects on the right to privacy due to the Naz Foundation judgment:

Prepared the understanding of privacy as a positive right and placed obligations on the state,
Discussed privacy as dealing with persons and not just places, it took into account decisional privacy as well as zonal privacy,
Connected privacy with dignity and the valuable worth of individuals, and
Included privacy on one’s autonomous identity.

He described various incidents that took place before the Naz Foundation judgment, pre-Naz, that altered the way we conceived of queer rights in general and privacy in particular, including the Lucknow incidents, transgender toilets, passport forms, the medical establishment and lesbian unions. Post-Naz, he described two incidents including the Allahabad Muslim University sting operation as well as the TV9 “Expose” that captured public imagination.

He concluded by asking: “What do these stories tell us about privacy?” The issues faced by the transgender community tell us that privacy doesn’t necessarily encompass a one-size-fits-all approach, and can raise as many questions as it answers. The issues faced by the Lucknow NGOs display the institutionalized disrespect for privacy and that has marginally more devastating consequences for the homosexual community by the spectre of outing. The issues faced by lesbian women evidence yet another need for breaching the public/private divide, demonstrating how the protection of the law might be welcome in the family sphere. Alternate sexual orientation and gender identity might bring the community under a common rubric, but distilling the components of that rubric is essential for engaging in any kind of useful understanding of the community and the kind of privacy violations it suffers – or engage with situations when the lack of privacy is empowering.

Session III: Privacy and National Security

Menaka Guruswamy, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Menaka explored national security and its relationship to privacy. In her presentation, she compared the similar manner in which the courts approach national security and privacy issues. The courts feel national security and privacy issues are too complex to define, therefore, they take a case-by-case approach.

Ms. Guruswamy described three incidents that urged her to question national security and privacy. First, she was interested in the lack of regulation surrounding intelligence agencies and was involved in the introduction of the Regulations of Intelligence Agencies Bill as a private members bill. Second, national security litigation between the Salwa Judum judgment and the State of Chhattisgarh is an example of how national security triumphs constitutional rights and values. Third, privacy in the context of the impending litigation of Naz Foundation in the Supreme Court. She described the larger conversation of national security focus on values of equality and privacy. She discussed the following questions that serve in advancing certain conception of rights:

How do we posit privacy which necessarily, philosophically as well as judicially, is carved out as the right of an individual to be left alone?
What are the consequences when national security, which is posited as the rights of the nation, is in conflict with the right of the individual to be left alone?
Considering that constitutional rights are posited as a public facet of citizenship how does a right to privacy play in that context?

Privacy and UID

R. Ramakumar, professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Prof. Ramakumar spoke on UID, its collection of information and the threat to individual privacy. First, he provided a historical trajectory of national security that has led to increased identity card schemes. He described the concrete connection between UID and national security.

He briefed the gathering on the objectives of the UID project. He described several false claims as proposed by the UIDAI. He explicitly disproved the UIDAI claim that Aadhaar is voluntary. He did this by comparing various legislations associated with the National Population Registrar that had provisions mandating the inclusion of the UID number.

He went on to explain that the misplaced emphasis of technology to handle large populations remains unproven. He described two specific violations of privacy inherent in the UID system: convergence of information and consent. The UID database makes it possible for the linking or convergence of information across silos. In addition, consent is unaccounted for in the UID system. The UID enrollment form requires consent from a person to share their information. However, the software of the enrollment form automatically checks ‘yes’, therefore you are not asked. Even if you disagree, it automatically checks ‘yes’. Default consent raises the important question, “to what extent are we the owners of our information?” and “what are the privacy implications?”

Mr. Ramakumar was once asked, by Yashwant Sinha in a Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting, “Is the Western concept of privacy important in developing country like India?”. Using this question posed to him, he stressed the importance of privacy to be understood as a globally valued right, entitlement and freedom. He also referred to Amartya Sen’s work on individual freedoms.

Conclusion

During the daylong consultation numerous questions and themes relating to privacy were discussed:

How is the right to privacy defined?
How can the Draft Privacy Bill redefine the right to privacy?
How can reasonable deterrence mechanisms be included?
Does duplication of the right to privacy exists in different statutes?
Is the Cyber Appellate Tribunal an ideal monitoring mechanism or authority?
What are the circumstances under which authorized persons can exercise the Right of privacy invasion?
How can the Draft Privacy Bill account for the right to dignity?
How much information should the State be allowed to collect?
How can citizens become more informed about the use of their information and the privacy implications involved?
What would be the appropriate balance or trade-off between security and civil liberties?
What are the dangers with permitting the needs of national security to trump competing values?
What are the consequences for the homosexual community, when faced with institutionalized disregard for privacy?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-matters-analyzing-the-right-to-privacy-bill