Centre for Internet and Society

Procuring books in Indian libraries

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:27:28Z

Campaign to legalise parallel imports gathers steam.

In a move to advocate the cause of libraries and book readers throughout India, campaigners are telling Kapil Sibal, the Minister of Human Resources Development (HRD), why it is important to legalise parallel imports in India. This move is supported by the International Federation of Library Associations in developing countries.

Among the proposed amendments to the Copyright Act is a proposal to legalise parallel importation of books into India. This provision is now under threat because a publishers’ association convinced the HRD Minister (who is in charge of copyright law) that no one is calling for parallel importation. If parallel importing is not legalised in developing countries, it becomes impossible for libraries in India to even procure books from Amazon (for instance), especially the ones which have not yet released in India.

Parallel importation allows books that are (legally) bought overseas to be imported into India without asking the copyright owners permission. Without parallel importation being allowed, purchases made by libraries from foreign sellers (for instance on the Internet) are rendered illegal. International organisations like the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL), and Consumers International all support parallel importation, especially in developing countries.

For more on the need for parallel importation, see this write up by Pranesh Prakash from the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

For the campaign letter sent to Kapil Sibal by February 1st 2011, see below:

To
Minister for Human Resource Development
Room No 301
Shastri Bhawan
Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road
New Delhi – 110 001

Date: Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Dear Shri Sibal,

Subject: Parallel Importation of Books

We write to you as an organisation interested in the availability of books for libraries. Recently, a publishers’ association has made public statements that there are no groups that are demanding parallel importation, and that they themselves will be harmed by allowing for parallel importation.

We wish to inform you that this is not true. We believe that being able to legally purchase a book outside of India and import in into India is crucial for libraries. Many books that we wish to provide for our users—faculties, students, and others—are not available in India and have to be imported from abroad.

Currently the exception contained in s.51(b) proviso is applicable only to individuals for “private and domestic use” and does not cover libraries. Thus, if parallel importation is prohibited, then we will be unable to buy foreign books directly from foreign sellers. We often have to make purchases on online bookstores such as Amazon and Alibris, and these will be construed to be illegal without parallel importation being legal. We will be left at the mercy of what books are offered by sellers in India, instead of being able to buy what is required by our readers.

Parallel importation is allowed by the TRIPS agreement (Article 6, “Exhaustion”) as well as by the WIPO Copyright treaty (Article 6, “Right of Distribution”). We hope you will keep our concerns in mind.

Yours sincerely,
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/procuring-books

Can the mouse be a tool of revolution in India?

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:26:49Z

Do you consider yourself a ‘slacktivist’?” Vikram Sengupta considers the question for a couple of seconds, and then excuses himself. “I’ll call you back. I’m in the middle of something right now,” he says, and hangs up. Being called a ‘slacktivist’ is probably not very flattering, first thing in the morning or at any other time of the day. But this writer has been at the receiving end of endless mails from him, mails which sought to impose a burning moral imperative to sign up instantly and save the grand Canadian Musk Ox or the Mexican Dumpy Frog. The question, therefore, is not unjustified.

Activists vs slacktivists

The slick application of the word ‘slacktivist’ is the work of eminent scholar and author of The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov. Rather stinging in its import, it refers to people who, while campaigning for social causes, limit their action to the click of a mouse. In an earlier interview with DNA Sunday, Morozov was quick to clarify that he had nothing against online activism (activism through social-networking sites, websites, blogs and online petitions), “but I’d rather see the people signing (petitions) also join some offline political movements and campaign for change in the real world as much as they do in the virtual world,” he had said.

Sengupta does call back. And when the question is put to him again, he says, “People can call me a ‘slacktivist’ if they want. Look, I don’t have a lot of time to devote to activism and I don’t even know if signing petitions actually works. But when I see that a simple click of mine might possibly help save a rainforest or rid the world of its nuclear arsenal, I can’t just cynically turn away. I don’t know… I feel uncomfortable doing it.”

The phenomenon of ‘slacktivism’ elicits quite strong responses from the Indian activist community. People who grapple with the hard-knock realities of activism are not amused by the casual, momentary concern of the ‘slacktivist’.

Ashley Tellis is a freelance journalist, academic and gay rights activist. “The central limitation here is that one-click activism [slacktivism] becomes a substitute for sustained campaigns and engagement with persistent inequalities. The Indian middle-class, notorious for its apolitical and consumerist selfishness, can now feel smug and assuage its rotten conscience by thinking it has taken action on the net,” says Tellis, with some emotion.

While Tellis castigates, in no uncertain terms, the seeming apathy of the middle-class, he also acknowledges its prodigious influence on the Indian socio-political mind space. “The middle-class is an important segment. It has power, it has English, and it has the ability to be heard,” he admits.

Middle class audience

While this helps when it is mobilised for a good cause, many find it problematic that so much influence is concentrated in the hands of a single segment of society. In fact, if you take online activism, the number of people who can be reached through the internet is staggeringly low.

In a country of approximately 120 crore people, only about 5 crore [as per Indiastats.com] have access to the internet. Compare this to Tunisia, where the figure is an impressive 27%, or Egypt, where internet penetration is 16% [World Bank figures]. Given this lack of net access, more than 95% of Indians are taken out of consideration, in one fell swoop, when it comes to internet-specific activism strategies.

Anja Kovacs, a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society says, “Most of these online campaigns are aligned to the profile of its audience.” She argues, in her essay ‘Inquilab 2.0?’ that if the audience is mostly urban and middle-class, it stands to reason that a majority of online campaigns would deal with issues that are relevant to this particular segment.

Kamayani Bali Mahabal, a lawyer and human rights activist, disagrees with this assessment. “Okay, the audience may be middle class, but the issues aren’t all middle class at all,” she counters indignantly. “Look at the ‘Say No to UID’ campaign — there is no debate or dialogue that has been initiated by Nandan Nilekani, the chairperson of UIDAI [Unique ID Authority of India], and this online campaign has created a platform where people’s issues and concerns can be clarified. Many believe that the UID will have a negative impact on the poor and the migrants; this campaign has gotten people to come together to discuss, debate and strategise as well,” she says.

But Kovacs insists, “The fact remains that it is people from the middle-class who represent the voices of a largely silent majority. I find this model of activism questionable.” The accuracy of how the voiceless are being represented is a cause of concern for her, as is the very idea of a platform that denies a large section of a vibrant social democracy the chance to express themselves directly.

The whole situation, Kovacs seems to indicate, is like Chinese whispers, where information might get altered in the retelling. “There are some innovative enterprises like CGNet Swara that tackle this problem. It’s a citizen journalism service, where ordinary citizens can both call in to record news as well as listen to the recorded messages. And they do put some selected messages online, but such enterprises are few and far between.” she says ruefully.

An aid to offline activism

So as things stand, the internet is an indispensable tool to reach out to the influential Indian middle-class. Yet, given India’s socio-economic reality, it’s also a problematic and, in some cases, ineffective medium. Bali Mahabal, when asked how she reconciles these contradictions, says, “I am an offline as well as an online activist. These are not mutually exclusive roles. I straddle both worlds and I can multi-task!”

In fact, this is a strategy that a lot of offline activists are warming up to now. In 2010, Himanshu Kumar put up a video in which he said,

“To the people in the cities, I want to say that… you write something on the internet, it doesn’t make any difference to the government. Neither do people read the internet, nor does the government.” Coming from one of the leading advocates of tribal rights in the Chhattisgarh area, this video was a scathing indictment of online activists.

Kumar, however, seems to have softened his stance on the issue since then. He still maintains that online activism by itself is not sufficient to bring about substantial change, but he speaks of how the internet helped him in his campaign in Dantewada.

“When we were in Dantewada, it was almost like a different planet. We had no connection to the outside world except through the internet. It annoyed the police quite a bit because they knew that if they tried anything untoward, we could get the word out. So the internet is definitely a value addition to on-the-ground activism, but by itself, it has its limitations.”

It is clear that the internet as a platform for social activism is here to stay. As access to the net increases among Indians, so will its effectiveness. Kovacs, in her essay writes of a person who says, rather movingly, “I believe that… ordinary people can use this medium [internet] to actually make a difference, you know…to change the world.”

But if activists want to live up to this unnamed person’s lofty expectations, they also need to be fully conscious of the limitations of the internet as a medium for social change.

Read the original in DNA here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/mouse-a-tool-of-revolution

Internet, Society & Space in Indian Cities - A Call for Peer Review

praskrishna — 2012-12-14T10:32:32Z

Pratyush Shankar's research project on "Internet, Society & Space in Indian Cities" is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. His monograph explores the trajectories of transformation and perception of cities in India in context with the rise of Information Technologies for communication and presence of an active digital space.

There has been, in the fields of design and architecture, a close link between the shape and imagination of the city spaces and the dominant technologies of the time. The study of space (architecture, public places and city form) can lead to very interesting insights into the expression of the society with respect to the dominant technologies. Manuel Castells argues that space is not a mere photo¬copy (reflection) of the society but it is an important expression (Castells, 2009). Fredric Jameson, in his identification of the condition of post-modernity demonstrates how the transition into new technologies is perhaps first and most visibly reflected in the architecture, as physical spaces get materially reconstructed, not only to house the needs and peripheries of the emerging technologies but also to embody their aesthetics in their design and built form (Jameson, 1991).

Earlier technologies have led to new understandings of the notions of the public and commons. Jurgen Habermas argues on how the emergence of print cultures and technologies led to a structural transformation of the public sphere by creating new and novel forms of participation and political engagement for the print readers. Within cinema studies in India, Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Madhav Prasad have looked at the 'cinematic city' — how material conditions of the city transform to house the cinema technologies, and how the imagination of certain cities is affected by the cinematic representations of these spaces (Rajadhyaksha, 2009). Mike Davis' formulations of an 'Ecology of Fear'(Davis, 1999) and Sean Cubbit's idea of 'The Cinema Effect' (Cubitt, 2005) also show the integral relationship that technologies have with the imagination and materiality of urban spaces.

I wish to explore the trajectories of transformation and perception of cities in India in context with the rise of Information Technologies for communication and presence of an active digital space. The issue of imagination is an important one here as much as the material realities of our cities. However, to begin with one needs to look at the very idea of cities in the Indian context. The fundamental idea of a city and that of a space becomes important here and has been explored in the chapter on cities. The issue of representation as related to ideas of 'social space' and 'abstract space' (Lefebvre, 1992) has been used as a methodological framework while analyzing cities. The social space of a city here refers to the production of space that is biomorphic and anthropological. From this perspective people and history and memory along with social economic processes play a strong role in its definition. Hence, city spaces cannot be understood as a collection of building and other material production alone but rather as an act of social production involving people over a long period of time. The appropriation and representation of cities is another important concern as it creates an imagination structure and often justifies the material transformation.

The research is primarily concerned with first creating an understanding of the cities in Indian context from the point of view of their social, technological and material productions. The ideas and representations of space therefore, become critical issues of exploration to understand the nature of imagination of space with reference to Indian cities. An empirical study of issues of spatial transformation was conducted in Bangalore and Gurgaon to find certain patterns and its correlation with the present discourses on the technology and the city. The issue of perception of lived in space, cartography and myth became important issues to understand the nature of the imagination of space and positioning of the digital space. The contradiction of a networked geography with the present spatial arrangement of cities that is the centre of a larger territory becomes important shifts to be accounted for while understanding the new geography. The patterns and possibilities in these new geographies of information technologies have been understood by studying three building programmes in the city. The question of transformation and future of cities and the position of digital space in these times then became an important one to answer. The initial study concerns with laying out a framework for examining the techno-spatial discourses in cities in general while establishing the key characteristics of its narration in the Indian context.

The Researchers At Work Programme, at the Centre for Internet and Society, advocates an Open and transparent process of knowledge production. We recognise peer review as an essential and an extremely important part of original research, and invite you, with the greatest of pleasures, to participate in our research, and help us in making our arguments and methods stronger. The first draft of the monograph is now available for public review and feedback. Please click on the links below to choose your own format for accessing the document.

Word
PDF

We appreciate your time, engagement and feedback that will help us to bring out the monograph in a published form. Please send all comments or feedback by April 5, 2011 to nishant@cis-india.org or you can use your Open ID to login to the website and leave comments to this post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/city-and-space

Open Letter to the Finance Committee: Finance and Security

praskrishna — 2011-02-17T11:57:42Z

This note explores the three connections between finance and security and demonstrates the cost implications of operating a centrally designed identity management system as proposed by the UID. In doing so, it shows how the monitoring, storing, and securing of transactional data in a centralized database fall short of meeting the project's objectives of authentication, and thus is an additional cost. Further, it is argued that the blanket monitoring of the transaction database is not an effective method of detecting fraud, and is an expensive component of the project.

Operating a centralized identity management system that requires the use of a remote database for every transaction is always more expensive than a decentralized identity management system that could optionally use a local database.

Centralized database costs

Both public and private keys must be centrally stored
All transactions require connectivity for the sending and receiving of authentication of data, and have an associated connectivity cost
Securing all data at a central database has augmented costs

Decentralized database costs

Only the public key must be centrally stored
Some transactions require connectivity for the sending and receiving of authentication data

The cost of building an identity management system that includes recording, monitoring, and securing each transaction is more than the cost of building only an identity authentication system. The goal of the project is to identify a person. Recording each transaction will add unnecessary cost.

Cost of identity authentication system
Cost of monitoring transactions	> Cost of identity authentication system
Cost of securing transaction data

Increasing security or fighting fraud can be done in two ways - having a targeted approach or through blanket monitoring. The UID scheme, through the monitoring of the transaction database featuring trillions of transaction by 1.2 billion people is a blanket approach, and will provide lower return on investment than a targeted approach.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/finance-and-security

Conference Report: 'Privacy Matters' Bangalore

praskrishna — 2011-02-08T05:13:24Z

On February 5th the 'Privacy Matters" conference was held at the TERI Regional Center in Bangalore. The event was a full day and centered around issues of privacy including: privacy rights of minorities, privacy and open government data, and privacy and identity.

Conference Summary

On the 5th of February, civil society, lawyers, students, NGO’s, and representatives from the IT companies gathered together at the TERI Southern Regional Center to take part in 'Privacy Matters' - a public conference held to discuss privacy issues in India, and the privacy legislation that has been proposed in the parliament. The conference was opened by Prashant Iyengar, head researcher at Privacy India. Mr. Iyengar explained the mandate of Privacy India, which is to raise awareness of privacy, spark civil action, and promote democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India.

Keynote: Ashish Rajadhyakksha, Senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture & Society

Mr. Rajadhyaksha delivered the keynote speech. In his presentation he focused on privacy in relation to the changing nature of the individual. He pointed out how humans are now becoming technologically enhanced individuals - in essence cybernetic organisms. These technological enhancements can be both positive and negative, but in both cases come with multiple and complicated questions of privacy, because the technological enhancements facilitate everyday life but at the same time create possible privacy violations. He further raised the point that people are not aware of these privacy implications, and thus violations of privacy are not seen as coercive acts, and people do not see their liberty as being placed at risk or challenged.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

How do we define claim rights vs. liberty rights in terms of privacy ?

How do we define our rights in terms of privacy?

Privacy and Minorities: Session I of the conference focused on the privacy rights of minorities and privacy and open government data

Zainab Bawa, CIS RAW fellow spoke on Privacy and Open Government Data. Her presentation, titled Property Rights, Privacy, and Open Government Data looked at how data by governmental agencies is handled. Her research is specifically on land records and the government. In her work she looks at:

How data bases are designed

How documents are translated into English
How hard copy documents are digitized

How information is posted

What are the privacy implications for all these processes

Shubha Chacko from Sangama spoke on the issues of sex workers and questions of privacy. Ms. Chacko opened her presentation by pointing out that there is a common conception that sex workers have no rights to privacy. She then talked about the precarious position sex workers find themselves in, because the law and society find it offensive that a sex worker brings into the public sphere what society believes is to happen in the private. Ms.Chacko also spoke on the invasive techniques that sex workers are subjected to such as HIV intervention and open disclosure of health records, and how these invasive techniques take away the privacy of sex workers. Furthermore, the nature of sex workers work means that they are not privy to the same right of anonymity that many believe is an important principle of privacy. Ms. Chacko closed her presentation by pointing out that the UID might actually bring privacy to sex workers. Closing the panel, Sahana Basavapatna spoke on refugees, the UID, and privacy. Ms. Basavapatna spoke about the difficult situation that refugees are placed in as they have no identity in India, but are also easily identified.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

How can a privacy legislation insure that when data bases are architected, they are structured in a way that is appropriate for that type of data?

How can a privacy legislation work to ensure that when records are digitized, information is not lost or manipulated?
What are ways in which the Government can post data, so that it is both open and not in violation of an individual’s privacy?

How can a privacy legislation ensure anonymity for all citizens when necessary?

Should specific steps be taken in a privacy legislation to ensure the privacy of minorities such as refugees and sex workers?

How can a privacy legislation be framed and implemented in order to not perpetuate existing societal stigmas?

Identity and Privacy: Session III of the conference focused on identity and privacy

Hamish Fraser (Partner at Truman Hoyle, Sydney, Australia) spoke on the Australia Identity card, and how, among other reasons, it was privacy concerns that squashed the identity card in Australia. Furthermore, out of the attempt to make an Australian Identity Card, the Privacy Act of 1995 was passed. Currently in Australia individuals do not have identity cards, but instead they have numbers for different services – such as a tax number, a health number, and a driver license number. These numbers are not unique, and one number for a certain service cannot be used for another service, thus the government cannot track an individual by their number. Mr. Hamish also touched on the ten principles of privacy that the Australian legislation adopts, and pointed out that though the legislation does not have strong teeth, in Australia there is a strong culture of privacy that makes the law enforceable. Michael Whitener (Principal and co-founder of VistaLaw International LLC) spoke next. His presentation titled “Science Fiction Becomes Reality, but at What Cost” focused on the privacy aspects of biometrics and changing technology.

Raman Chima, Privacy analyst for Google, was the final speaker on the panel. Mr. Chima worked to expose myths that people hold about why Google collects information, and how they use that information. For instance Google gathers limited information to develop valuable products and services, and to develop innovative products that reflect strong privacy standards. Mr. Chima also pointed out that though online tracking can have negative implications, it also has many positive implications - such as allowing spam to be stopped and tracking disease in areas. He concluded his presentation by urging citizens to become more informed, and ask for more rights. He also pointed out that privacy has yet to be spelled out and presented in a way that any person can comprehend, understand, respect, and follows

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Should a privacy legislation regulate how much access to private citizens records is the government granted?
How can a privacy legislation be drafted and implemented, so that is practical and applicable for the common citizen?
How are court regulators going to balance the privacy rights against the need for authentication?

What will be the requirements for securing storage of biometric data?

How will a legislation or privacy policy respond to security breaches?
How will legislation answer the question of what constitutes "consent"?

What privacy principles should a privacy legislation in India enforce?
Should a privacy legislation allow an individual to be “forgotten”?
How could a privacy legislation be given either legal or social teeth in India?

Privacy and Social networking Session IV of the conference focused on privacy and social networking

Ujjvala Ballal from Inclusive Planet , a social networking site for the disabled, focused her presentation on the privacy rights of the disabled. She raised the point that disabled people have been struggling for equal access rights for many years. In the process they have lost much of the privacy that they have a right to. She went on to explain that there are many privacy issues that are unique to a disabled persons. Some of which include: the disclosure of their disability, the stigma that comes along with their disability, and the denial of services based on their disability.

Gagan K. (NLSIU Law Student) spoke on Privacy Issues in Social Networking Websites. Gagan pointed out that on social networking sites privacy issues include:

Data mining

Profiling

Third party disclosure.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Should information pertaining to the disabled be held to higher standards of privacy, because of its sensitive nature?

How can a privacy legislation be drafted, so it is accessible to the disabled?

Could a privacy legislation construct regulations on the handling of data, in order to prevent profiling and discrimination?

Conclusion: the concluding session was a time for discussion and opinion sharing

From the closing session, and the above sessions many themes and questions pertaining to privacy came out that will need to be addressed when considering the way forward for a privacy legislation including:

Property rights and privacy

The right to be forgotten

Privacy rights of minorities

Privacy and open government data- how is it collected, transferred, stored, and reproduced
Privacy and foreigners (refugees, illegal migration, etc)

Recognizing privacy rights in a changing technological society

Privacy implications of biometric usage
Privacy rights superseding identification needs
Corporate privacy policies
Privacy rights and the disabled
Privacy rights and social networking

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

Digital Wrongs

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:26:11Z

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights. This article by Rohin Dharmakumar was published in Forbes India on January 28, 2011.

Imagine you are in the mood for some fun and so you create a spoof video, the sort that you find on YouTube everyday. If the changes proposed under the Indian Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 come through, you won’t be able to do that.

The bill explicitly recognises the technology protection measures that publishers wrap around their content, commonly known as digital rights management (DRM), but without placing any limitations on it.

So there’s a good chance a parody clip that uses video clips from a news show or of a baby dancing to the tune of ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ could be taken down by over eager copyright owners.

Pranesh Prakash, a program manager with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit civil society policy advocacy and research body, says such a scenario is perfectly possible under the proposed new law. “Providing legal backing to technological protection measures without imposing appropriate duties means that companies can effectively expand their rights to whatever technology can do. It’s a ridiculous situation,” he says.

Even worse, the law provides for criminal liability for breaking such DRM. Ask the Indian developers behind ‘PlayFair’, an open source software that allowed consumers to bypass Apple’s FairPlay DRM.

The developers were forced to stop their project even though Apple challenged them under the US DMCA law, which has no jurisdiction in India. They still folded because as individuals they didn't have the wherewithal to challenge Apple in a court.

“Our basic principle is that generally large corporations have the wherewithal to go to court and get orders, but individuals don’t. That balance must be maintained in the law, that everything isn’t presumptively violative of the law,” says Prakash.

Many fear of what might happen when digital rights management actually starts getting protection under Indian law. Raman Jit Singh Chima, a policy analyst with Google India’s legal team, says the present version of the amendment is unclear on intermediary liability and ‘fair dealing’. Simply put, if a user does something illegal, even the service provider or search site that was used may become liable for the offence.

“Unless the government or a court of law interprets it otherwise, this could mean users submitting their content for approval before uploading, with approvals taking months due to the volume of information on the Internet,” says Chima.

Read the original in Forbes India here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/digital-wrongs

What Are You Accused of? Find Out Online

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:48:30Z

Starting Tuesday, police authorities in the Indian capital will make many crime reports, also known as First Information Reports, publicly accessible from its Web site. The report can be attained by entering details such as the name of the accused or victim and also the area where the crime took place. So far, no crime reports have been posted on the Web site.

The step is meant to help people who have been accused of a crime, and who aren’t able to find out from police—or who are perhaps reluctant to approach a police station—find out what exactly they’re supposed to have done.

“In case a police officer refuses to reveal the First Information Report, the accused can get a copy online and defend himself,” Rajan Bhagat, Delhi police spokesman told India Real Time Tuesday.

After police register a crime report, they’re supposed to carry out an investigation and then decide whether or not to bring charges.

Mr. Bhagat said the crime reports were being put online to comply with a 35-page Delhi High Court order on December 6.

“The liberty of an individual is inextricably linked with his right to be aware how he has been booked under law and on what allegations,” the court said at the time in an order that quotes Cuban revolutionary José Martí .

Mr. Bhagat said the software for uploading the FIRs has been installed at all police stations across the capital. The crime report is supposed to be made available online within 24 hours after a crime is registered.

Depending on whether the crime reports are searchable or not, and if people other than those named in the reports can access them, they could also prove useful for analyzing crime patterns in the city.

Of course, there exists some ambiguity in the new process, including how many crime reports will actually end up being uploaded online.

Crime reports for offences categorized as “sensitive” need not be uploaded. These include issues of terrorist acts, crimes relating to national security, rape, murder, kidnapping for ransom and “cases in which desperate gangsters are involved and there is the danger of witnesses or the complainant being intimidated,” the court order said.

“We cannot reveal the identity of serious criminals; this can hamper the investigation process,” said Mr. Bhagat, adding that the decision for a crime report not to be uploaded must be made by a senior police officer together with a local magistrate from the area where the crime was committed.

Some legal experts aren’t happy about the “selective” airing of information by the Delhi police.

“The service would be a complete failure,” said Pinaki Misra, senior counsel at the Delhi High Court.

Mr. Misra said the First Information Report is a public document–the first step towards registering criminal activity–and it should be freely accessible.

“There’s no reason why such information should be deemed confidential and selectively uploaded,” he said.

But others said there was good reason to avoid making a crime report public in some cases, such as to protect the identity of victims of sexual crimes, or even to protect suspects in cases where crimes could instigate violence against them.

Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Center for Internet and Society, a think-tank based in Bangalore, said the Delhi police’s new initiative was “a positive step with necessary safeguards.”

He added that the disclosure of too much information by police or other investigating agencies can sometimes lead to incidents of “mob justice,” pointing to recent occasions where bystanders have attacked people involved in highly publicized cases at their court appearances.

“The onus now is on the Delhi police as to how and what they put it in actual practice,” Mr. Abraham said.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/what-are-you-accused

One among the clan of Wikipedians

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:49:05Z

In 2005, I lived in Johannesburg and worked as an activist to make knowledge more accessible. Between fighting copyright treaties in Geneva that would give corporations an even bigger stranglehold on our minds and finding ways to supply cheap textbooks to township schools, I talked about my work frequently. After one such event, organised by Nhlanhla Mabaso, the godfather of free and open source software in the country, I met two people who were particularly interested in my work. Their names were Angela Beesley and Erik Moller; they looked like college students, and said that they were helping to build an online encyclopaedia called Wikipedia. They were bright, warm and open - and I was hooked.

Like most people, I had already started using Wikipedia by then. And also like most people, I hadn't bothered to figure out how I could participate in it. I spent the next year making nervous, anonymous edits to the entries of obscure sci-fi writers who I thought deserved more attention. I went to a meeting in Frankfurt where Wikipedians from around the world were gathering for the very first time and was relieved to discover a bunch of people who were as socially awkward as I was. I met serious people with funny names like Notafish, SJ and Anthere; I watched Richard Stallman thoughtfully pick out bits of butter and jam from his wayward beard at breakfast.

On stage, one evening, I moderated a panel of global voices. The trajectories of two people from that panel are instructive. Ting Chen, then a chronically shy and prolific editor of the German and Chinese Wikipedias, now chairs the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. Hossein Derakhshan, at the time a prominent Iranian blogger, was subsequently arrested in Iran and sentenced to a 19-year prison term for supposedly spreading anti-state propaganda.

Back home again

As for me, I moved back to Bangalore. And forgot all about Wikipedia for a while. Moving home wasn't a conscious choice; I drifted into it automatically - I had grown up here, my parents and sister lived here. At first, there was little to like. I grew up in a city where we bought eggs from the cranky woman who reared hens two houses away from us; a city in which Zafar Futehally could ride in to town from his farmhouse in Dodda Gubbi, leave his horse in a makeshift stable in my parents' garden, walk to Brigade Road to do his shopping from Mathias & Sons, and return for lunch and a quick nap before riding back. (I realise how old this makes me seem).

I rented a flat in Cooke Town, and decided that I liked my new neighbourhood.

I reminded myself of all the reasons I knew for liking Bangalore - Koshy's, Pecos, Adiga's, Premier Bookshop, Blossom and the Alternative Law Forum. I found new reasons: 1 Shanthi Road, Gallery SKE and a magical, dimly-lit bar called Upbeat.

And then, there were the Wikipedians.

New outlook

Bangalore used to bore me because I found it's middle-class boring. I can't say the same any longer. Four years and hundreds of encounters with Wikipedians later, I'm kind of excited about being home. I've been witness to some extraordinary, selfless, tireless and downright funny instances of community work, and I've seen people turn Wikipedia into something local and lovable. I've even overcome my own nervousness, and actually started editing. Perhaps it's only natural that the world's most significant repository of free knowledge would find friends here; I'm still a little surprised, and certainly very grateful.

( Achal Prabhala is a researcher and writer in Bangalore; he works on intellectual property rights in relation to medicine and knowledge, and serves on the board of the Centre for Internet & Society and on the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.)

Read the original in the Hindu here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/one-wikipedian

"Privacy matters"

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:20:22Z

Privacy India invites individuals to attend the second "Privacy matters" conference, a one-day event on the 5th February 2011 at the TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore. Privacy India, Society in Action Group, and the Centre for Internet & Society have joined hands to organize the event.

The “Privacy matters” conference will focus on discussing the challenges to privacy that India is currently facing. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g., the TRAI Act for telephony or RBI guidelines for banking, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. This lack of uniformity has led to ironically imbalanced results. In India today one has a stronger right to privacy over telephone records than over one’s own medical records. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. – people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected.

The emergence of information and communications technologies over the past two decades has radically transformed the speed and costs of access to information. However, this enhanced climate of access to information has been a mixed blessing. Whilst augmenting our access to knowledge, this new networked information economy has also now made it much easier, quicker, and cheaper to gain access to intimate personal information about individuals than ever before. As people expose more and more of their lives to others through the use of social networks, reliance on mobile phones, global trade, etc., there has emerged a heightened risk of privacy violations in India. As privacy continues to be a growing concern for individuals, nations, and the international community, it is critical that India understands and addresses the questions, challenges, implications and dilemmas that violations of privacy pose.

Who We Are

Privacy India was set up in collaboration with The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore and Society in Action Group (SAG), under the auspices of the international organization ‘Privacy International.’ Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies, the media and the public in a number of countries (see www.privacyinternational.org). Its Advisory Board is made up of distinguished intellectuals, academicians, thinkers and activists such as Noam Chomsky, the late Harold Pinter, and others, and it has collaborated with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

'Privacy Matters' conference agenda

February 5th, 2011 --- 10:30 am - 4:30pm

TERI Southern Regional Centre

4th Main, Domlur II Stage
Bangalore - 560 071

Time	Item
10:30 -10:45	Welcome Address Who is PI and what are our objectives Why is privacy important in India Prashant Iyengar (Lead Researcher at Privacy India)
10:45-11:15	Keynote: Ashish Rajadhyaksha (Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture & Society)
11:15-11:30	Tea Break
11:30 –12:30	Session I: Privacy and Open Government Data Property Rights, Privacy, and Open Government Data: Zainab Bawa (CIS-RAW Fellow)
12:30 – 1:30	Session II: Privacy Rights and Minorities Privacy Rights of Sexualality Minorities: Arvind Narrain (Alternative Law Forum) Now you see her, now you don’t - Issues of sex workers and questions around privacy: Shubha Chacko (Sangama) The UID and Refugees: Sahana Basavapatna
1:30 – 2:30	Lunch
2:30 – 3:00	Session III: Identity and Privacy Malavika Jarayam (Jayaram & Jayaram) Hamish Fraser (Partner at Truman Hoyle, Sydney Australia) Michael Whitener (Principal and co-founder of VistaLaw International LLC)
3:00-3:30	Session IV: Privacy and the Media/Social Networking Privacy and Social Networking: Ujjvala Ballal (Inclusive Planet) Privacy Issues in Social Networking Websites: Gagan K. (NLSIU law student)
3:30 – 3:45	Tea break
3:45 – 4:30	Session V: Open discussion and opinion sharing

RSVP:

prashant@privacyindia.org
elonnai@privacyindia.org

Download the poster here

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-conferencefeb5

A Refreshing Start!

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:49:44Z

Parmesh Shahani enters the New Year inspired by the various ideas he’s been exposed to in The Hague and Lavasa.

The time between December and January is the time to hit the ‘re’ button. Re-fresh. Re-start. Re-think. Re-imagine. One’s own self as well as the world around us. It is the time for new ideas. The year is just beginning and everything is possible. I decide to spend this time by taking a short learning break away from the Radia tapes, 2G scams, WikiLeaks and what have you.

My first stop is Amsterdam where I go to museum hop for exactly one day. My friends are surprised when I tell them that I’m not doing any weed, and that, yes, I’ve seen it but no, the red light district isn’t really my thing. “Well, you can’t really say you’re in Amsterdam,” declares a particularly wise one to me over Facebook.

I politely disagree. My visit is intensely enjoyable and I manage to pack in the Anne Frank House (very moving, especially if you’ve read the diary, and who hasn’t?), Rijksmuseum’s famed Rembrandt masterpieces as well as the Van Gogh Museum (indescribably moving, despite the line of tourists) all in one day. It helps that I am staying at the super luxurious Sofitel The Grand. The renovated 16th century royal guest house is full of heritage listed heirlooms showcasing Amsterdam’s history dating back to 1578, so my art tour continues even after I return from my outside excursions.

Not for too long, because I quickly have to rush to The Hague, where Nishant Shah and Sunil Abraham (who together run the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, and are in my mind, two of the smartest people living in India right now) have collaborated with the Dutch organisation Hivos to put together a thinkathon on ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ This is the third event in a series on technology, youth and engagement, that began in Taipei, moved on to Johannesburg, and will finally end in Santiago, Chile this coming February.

Nishant and Hivos’ fabulous Fieke Jansen set the tone by talking about why the question mark at the end of the title ‘Digital Natives for a Cause?’ is important. Can one think of digital natives as simply youth who have grown up with technology or can we include other older people within this term? What does it mean talking about digital natives and questions of transformation and change? What does it mean to even have a cause? Does a cause have to be framed in certain language? I discuss and debate all of this and much more with an incredible group of change-making activists, policy makers and artists from all over the world.

These include folks like Prabhas Pokherel from UNICEF Kosovo, Eddie Avila from Rising Voices Bolivia, Dorothy Okello from the Women of Uganda Network, and Simeon Oriko from the Kuyu Project in Kenya. I’m fascinated by all that they are doing. Kuyu, for instance, aims to teach young African students how to use various forms of social media to make a positive impact in their communities, through online Wikis, mobile phone networks and digital training camps. Nonkululekho Godana’s uniquely South African fashion sense catches my eye and we discuss shopping during the fun dinners, each of which is at a spectacular location in The Hague. Our thinkathon venue is the Museum of Communication, which itself is very special, with its talking installations and special multimedia galleries.

Being here gives me a chance to meet Sam Gregory from Witness, Peter Gabriel’s organisation and website that trains and equips individuals across the world to use video to document human right violations and effect change. I’ve been a big fan of what they’re doing ever since they started. It’s also great to hang out with Ushahidi’s Juliana Rotich, even if it’s only for a little while. Ushahidi develops free open source software for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping that anyone can use to further their cause. For example, Vote Report India – that catalogued the 2009 general elections – was built on this platform.

I am extremely happy with the quality time I share with co-TED fellow Jasmeen Patheja. I’m sure that you’ve heard of her Blank Noise Project; it is a physical and virtual artistic intervention that aims at creating public awareness about eve teasing. See http://blog.blanknoise.org/ or the image of one of their Bengaluru park interventions that accompanies this column. Jasmeen has just returned from Tokyo where she’s been cataloguing Japanese women’s stories about harassment. Together, we roll our eyes at how similar men all over the world are!

At the thinkathon, a hot topic of discussion is slactivism or slacker activism that a lot of social media seems to be promoting. Is signing an online petition the same as protesting on the ground, in real life? How might we conceptualise a button clicker as an agent for social transformation? Beyond this, how might we engage digital natives in terms of policy-making processes?

I mull over all these questions on my crazy 30-hour journey from snow-bound The Hague to the artificially created city of Lavasa on the outskirts of Pune. Jetlagged as hell, I make it just in time for the first talk of the INK India conference. Compared to last year’s TED, I find everything to be smaller at INK, including the audience. The Bollywood night with Kunal Ganjawala, for instance, has about 20 people dancing in front of the stage as opposed to the 100 or so from last year. And, there are problems galore, with the poorly organised transportation, constantly crashing sound system, and general organisational chaos.

I’ve been a Lavasa sceptic ever since I heard about the project and now that I’m finally visiting, I see my worst fears have been realised. It feels like being on the set of the Truman show, with the fake looking lake, pastel coloured houses, and ever-smiling and possibly ever-afraid staff members. It seems like, at least to me, that they have been trained to not draw attention to themselves, to forcibly ‘invisibilise’ themselves, lest they prick the bubble of the middle-class fantasy of an idyllic foreign-like ‘home’. I continue to be surprised as to why the conference organisers would chose a location like this to host a conference that aims to showcase the best of innovation and knowledge. The court cases against Lavasa that are being flashed on the national news even while INK is taking place, don’t really help very much in making me change my views.

But despite the logistical hiccups and weird choice of location, INK still manages to score for me on the sheer power of its excellent speakers, and I’m glad to have been there. Where do I begin, even with the highlights? Should I tell you about James Cameron’s effortless charm, as he offers his 3D cameras to Indian filmmakers who might want to play with them? Deepak Chopra’s incredible mind on display making connections between the sub-atomic and the Vedic? Phillipe Starck’s sense of humour and his overall design genius that he wears so lightly on his oh-so French sleeves?

How about Jennifer Aaker’s incredible talk that begins with an emotional story about a bone marrow transplant, loops into a campaign to improve the number of registered South Asian bone marrow donors, and ends with her understanding of what happiness is? Or Matt Groening’s video of his father doing basketball throws, backward, while he tells us just why he named Homer Simpson’s character after him?

Just like with TED last year, the Indian speaker contingent is very inspiring. Toy inventor Arvind Gupta is a livewire on stage as he rapidly shows us one toy after the other, made from material like newspapers, old CDs, straws, matchsticks, and pencils. Clay innovator Mansukhbhai Prajapati shows us the clay filters and fridges that he makes for poor consumers in India that need such products but cannot afford their conventional avatars. Commonwealth 4x400 relay gold medallist Ashwini Akkunji recounts how her athletic career started out by running after cattle in her village in Karnataka. Conductor George Mathew talks about how a New York mugging in which he was almost beaten to death became a music lesson after his muggers found his metronome in his pocket.

Anand Kumar, founder of the ‘Super 30’ classes in Bihar that train impoverished rural youth to get into the IITs, gets a standing ovation. It is good to catch up with TED stars from last year like India’s youngest headmaster Babar Ali, who is continuing to scale up his school, or Sunita Krishnan, who has used her Google grant money to build an impressive centre for women survivors of violence.

However, my best talk is by Simon Lewis, who has produced films like Look Who’s Talking in Hollywood. Simon shares his personal story of a car crash that almost ended his life but set him off on a quest to rebuild both his mind and body, piece by piece, using technology and willpower every step of the way.

He has meticulously captured this journey in his book Rise and Shine, which you should read this year, if you can. I want to leave you with http://www.thevisualmd.com/, which is a website you should visit. INK speaker Alexander Tsiaras has shared his nine visual rules of wellness here. Check it out and see if you want to follow them in 2011. I certainly do.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/refreshing-start

Knowledge Warriors

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:50:07Z

Dieci anni fa, quando Jimmy "Jumbo" Wales lanciò l'idea di una piattaforma della conoscenza partecipativa e plurilingue, di tipo enciclopedico, basata sul web, pochi erano pronti a raccoglierla. L'industria della conoscenza era rigidamente divisa tra chi la produceva, chi la fruiva e chi mediava tra i due gruppi.

Scostarsi da questa struttura sembrava assurdo. Eppure Wikipedia è uno dei siti web più grandi del mondo, con oltre 17 milioni di articoli e 365 milioni di lettori in 262 lingue. Basata sulla semplice idea che la conoscenza sia un patrimonio comunitario piuttosto che individuale, Wikipedia ha invitato chiunque avesse accesso a internet a contribuire a rafforzare le proprie conoscenze attraverso un processo di discussione, costruzione del consenso e collaborazione. A differenza di una normale enciclopedia, forte del suo battaglione di "guerrieri del sapere", Wikipedia si affida ai normali utenti, che utilizzano il potere dell'informazione online per «totalizzare la somma della conoscenza umana».

A un decennio dal suo inizio, la battaglia nata intorno a Wikipedia non si placa. I suoi partigiani esaltano la democratizzazione del sapere e la sfida al regime capitalista dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale che Wikipedia rappresenta. I suoi detrattori, invece, la identificano con nuove concentrazioni di potere, un'ingiusta rappresentazione delle voci alternative e l'appiattimento delle complesse relazioni tra l'umanità e l'informazione. Seguiamo queste guerre-Wiki per vedere quali lezioni possiamo trarne per il futuro del nostro mondo sempre più Wikificato.

01 – stabilire un punto di vista critico

La neutralità del punto di vista (Npv) è uno dei capisaldi teorici attraverso cui Wikipedia garantisce la solidità delle sue informazioni e la governance delle sue comunità. Anziché cercare la "Verità", Wikipedia promuove la "Verificabilità", per cui solo quelle idee che sono già state documentate altrove, e che possono essere addotte come prova, hanno diritto di esistere nel suo universo. Le ricerche originali, le nuove idee, le incursioni artistiche e le risposte emotive non trovano spazio in questo scenario di informazione quasi piatto. La Npv mira a eliminare l'intenzione umana, il desiderio e l'investimento nella conoscenza, a favore di quanto è già documentato. Benché questo si sia dimostrato utile per risolvere dibattiti su argomenti particolarmente delicati o provocatori, non può essere una soluzione sostenibile a lungo termine.

Gli esseri umani non hanno un rapporto neutrale con la conoscenza. Come sostiene appassionatamente il guru della rete Geert Lovink, direttore dell'Institute of Network Cultures di Amsterdam: «La conoscenza, specialmente nella società dell'informazione, è potere e denaro. Wikipedia può professarsi neutrale, ma si tratta di una neutralità costruita e falsa. Cerca di nascondere i complessi meccanismi di potere che alla fine determinano quali tipi di conoscenza sono validi». A dispetto della sua prospettiva di completa inclusione e della sua ambizione, spesso Wikipedia viene definita cabalistica, basata su rituali, priva di una riflessione critica sul suo stesso rapporto con la conoscenza. Occorre riflettere criticamente sugli sforzi di rafforzare la conoscenza umana per individuare criteri che vadano oltre la neutralità e la verificabilità.

02 – superare la saggezza delle masse

Wikipedia resta uno dei più visitati siti a contenuto elaborato dagli utenti a livello mondiale. La sua struttura "Open Wiki" invita diversi attori umani e non umani (i "robot") a collaborare nella produzione e nella documentazione della conoscenza. L'esperimento condotto dalla rivista «Nature», che ha confrontato gli articoli scientifici dell'Enciclopedia Britannica con quelli di Wikipedia, ha evidenziato un livello di accuratezza e un tasso di "errori seri" simili.

Lo scienziato informatico e artista Jaron Lanier, nel libro Tu non sei un gadget, sostiene che il collettivismo online non è la soluzione giusta per documentare il sapere umano a lungo termine. Lanier afferma che l'ethos collettivista alla base di nuovi fenomeni culturali come Wikipedia in realtà riduce la qualità del prodotto finale. Parte dal principio che il design del software di piattaforme del tipo di Wikipedia produce «regole non modificabili» che portano a nuove forme di esclusione. Considera la saggezza delle masse uno strumento che dovrebbe essere usato strategicamente. Lanier contesta a Wikipedia di promuovere «il culto del dilettantismo», che rende le singole voci non essenziali – persino quelle degli esperti – e considera la saggezza collettiva più affidabile che non i tentativi rigorosi di trovare la verità e il significato.

Negli anni a venire bisognerà sottrarre la saggezza delle masse alle piattaforme che condizionano la partecipazione attraverso il design del software e dell'interfaccia. Bisognerà usarla come uno strumento piuttosto che come fine a se stessa.

03 – una svolta verso l'inclusione

Wikipedia, come incarnazione dello zeitgeist Free/Libre/Open Source (Floss), teoricamente abbraccia una cultura di apertura, inclusione e pluralismo. Il suo design tecnologico neutrale, che assicura il diritto di contribuire a chiunque abbia accesso a internet, trascura il fatto che il numero di persone che accedono a internet, globalmente, è molto basso. La mancanza di altre interfacce utilizzabili, tramite cellulari o altre forme di portable computing, fa sì che i contributori restino concentrati in specifiche parti del mondo. Johanna Niesyto, dell'Università di Seigen, nella sua tesi di dottorato afferma: «Il profilo demografico medio di un redattore di Wikipedia è quello di un maschio bianco appassionato di internet con una visione del mondo monoculturale e limitata, basata sulla razionalità occidentale». Le contributrici donne che si sono sentite silenziate dalla cultura tech maschile di Wikipedia hanno già creato spazi alternativi, come Wikichix.org.

Nonostante la sua ricerca di pluralismo, Wikipedia palesemente esclude quei processi, idee, culture e stili di vita che non rientrano nella mentalità razionale occidentale. Rifiuta altre forme di conoscenza tradizionali, effimere e orali. La popolarità di altre enciclopedie collaborative online come Baidu Baike in Cina, testimonia le implicite esclusioni del mondo di Wikipedia.

Perché Wikipedia diventi davvero inclusiva, dovrà dissociarsi dai monolitici standard culturali, morali e politici della civiltà dominante e imparare ad arricchirsi di sfumature, diventando più sensibile e pluralista per facilitare davvero la partecipazione e la diversità, a livello di contenuto, design e governance.

04 – aprirsi alla resistenza

Wikipedia è l'incarnazione del grido di guerra, scaturito dall'euforia tecnologica, per una società aperta che dovrebbe mettere l'individuo in condizioni di sfuggire alla tirannia dello stato e dei mercati. Tuttavia il cyber-realista Evgeny Morozov, dell'Università di Stanford, nel suo ultimo libro, The Net Delusion, afferma che tale cyber-utopia è frutto di «una fede naif nella natura emancipativa della comunicazione online, fondata su un ostinato rifiuto di riconoscere il suo lato negativo».

Nel quadro tracciato da Morozov, il "mainstreaming" di progetti tipo Wikipedia costituisce la fine del vero dibattito pubblico e dell'impegno politico. Con Wikipedia il dissenso è difficile. Qualsiasi intervento che violi le "Condizioni di Servizio" e dunque sfidi i presupposti fondamentali di Wikipedia, viene immediatamente "bannato" o contrastato legalmente.

Il progetto "Wikipedia Art", avviato dagli artisti Nathaniel Stern e Scott Kildall, si è scontrato con un problema simile. È iniziato come voce di Wikipedia supportata da una serie di blog e articoli scritti da un gruppo di collaborazione che appoggiava l'iniziativa. Il progetto artistico intendeva criticare e utilizzare le stesse strutture di autorità che davano autenticità alle voci di Wikipedia. Eppure l'iniziativa è stata rapidamente rimossa, all'inizio dalla comunità e successivamente dalle azioni legali intraprese dalla Fondazione Wikimedia, che gestisce Wikipedia.

Benché Wikipedia sostenga di essere uno spazio che sovverte i processi dominanti, non riesce ad accettare la resistenza e le sfide che muovono dalla più grande sfera digitale. Se vuole aderire alle originarie ideologie di internet, che avrebbe dovuto costruire un mondo di conoscenze libere e aperte, dovrà evolvere con il web, imparando ad accogliere e facilitare tali sovvertimenti.

Wikipedia resta un autentico fenomeno storico che ha cambiato il modo in cui ci confrontiamo con l'informazione e la conoscenza nel quotidiano. Ha contribuito a mettere radicalmente in discussione la logica del tardo capitalismo e della proprietà intellettuale che ha governato l'industria della conoscenza, producendo strutture di esclusione e dominio. Tuttavia, nel celebrare il suo decimo compleanno, è ora di evolvere verso un futuro in cui la Wikificazione del mondo si confronti realisticamente con le necessità di equità, pluralismo e apertura rappresentate da progetti come Wikipedia. (traduzione di Elisa Comito)

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/guerrieri-del-sapere

Digital Natives with a Cause? - Workshop in Chile seeks participants

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:50:30Z

The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. An open call for participation follows.

As the Internet and digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking: we are constantly connected to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as a digital native– someone to whom digital technologies are central to life – you are directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Hivos in collaboration with Rising Voices is calling out to young users of technology to join a global conversation. The 3-day workshop titled “From Face to Interface” will focus on how youth utilize new platforms, media and spaces of communication and expression in the digital age. If you have used digital technologies to make your voice heard, to express your opinion in creative ways or to create new knowledge online, we want to hear from you. These can be stories where you have used a mobile phone, GPS or PDA to access the Internet and reduce the online-offline divide, stories where you accessed interactive platforms like user-generated content websites, stories where the use of technology has become part of your identity, or stories where you have been part of a collaborative method of research, production, shared learning process, participation network etc.

We invite you to share your perspectives in an informal conversation along people with similar approaches from neighboring communities. The workshop is open to applicants from, in and around Latin America and the Caribbean who are interested in an interactive and engaging dialogue that marks the beginning of the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” research inquiry into the region.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dn-workshop-in-chile

Accessibility in Telecommunications

praskrishna — 2011-11-08T08:08:49Z

CIS seeks to gather information about the accessibility of telecommunications products and services for persons with disabilities and elderly persons in India.

Given below are the links to two questionnaires:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/accessibility-telecommunications

Privacy Matters — Conference Report

praskrishna — 2011-01-27T10:22:55Z

A one-day conference on Privacy Matters was held on Sunday, 23 January 2011 at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. This was the first of a series of eleven conferences on ‘privacy’ that Privacy India is scheduled to host in different Indian cities from January to June this year. Members of Parliament, Sri Manoj Bhattacharya from the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Sri Nilotpal Basu from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) spoke in the conference. Students, the civil society and lawyers also participated in it.

Introduction

The conference was held to discuss elements of the privacy legislation that has been proposed to the Parliament of India, and the UID Bill and project. The conference focused on the tensions between privacy and society that exist in India today, and acted as a space for opinion sharing and discussion. Privacy India which was formed under the auspices of Privacy International, a UK based organization that works to protect the right of privacy around the world, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), an NGO based in Bangalore, and Society in Action Group (SAG), an NGO based in Delhi joined hands to host this event.

Rajan Gandhi, founder of SAG opened the conference with an explanation of the mandate of Privacy India, the objective of which is of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. One of Privacy India's goals is to build consensus towards the promulgation of comprehensive privacy legislation in India through consultations with the public, legislators and the legal and academic community.

Keynote

The keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy professor of law and governance. Dr. Krishnaswamy began by outlining the present situation of privacy in India. The right to privacy has been read into Sections 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India through case law, which has defined privacy — among other things — as the right to personal autonomy, the right against unreasonable search and seizure, and as a fundamental right that is critical to the person, but does not supersede public or national interest. Dr. Krishnaswamy also raised many intriguing questions including: what does privacy mean to India — is it linked to a person’s dignity and their honour? Or is it purely concerned with misappropriation of information, and further is privacy in India an issue of the individual or an issue of the family and the community? He also described the philosophical groundings of privacy as being in the right to dignity, the right to autonomy, and the misappropriation of information.

Privacy Challenges

The conference was spread into three sessions. In the first session Prashant Iyengar, head researcher of the project at Privacy India, spoke about the challenges that India specifically is facing in shaping a privacy legislation including: the need to balance the right to information/transparency and privacy, the need to create a definition of privacy that does not exclude lower classes and is not a negative right, but instead a positive right, and the problem of ubiquitous surveillance that is happening in society today. Elonnai Hickok, policy analyst at Privacy India, spoke specifically on wire tapping, and the Nira Radia tapes. In her presentation she first outlined other countries definitions of privacy which include: the right to be left alone, the protection from unauthorized searches, and the right to control information about oneself through consent. Using the case study of Nira Radia and Ratan Tata she spoke about the rising concern of wire tapping in the country as being indicative of a social change and relationship of the state and government. Elonnai also raised questions concerning whether privacy should be made inversely proportional to public figures, and if public interest will always supersede the private right of individuals.

UID and Privacy

The second session of the conference focused on the UID Bill and privacy. Presentations from NUJS student Amba Kak and Sai Vinod raised concerns about the UID project and privacy. Their presentation also compared and contrasted identity schemes of other countries with the UID. A few similarities that they found amongst all scheme were: the collection of data, the processing of data, and the storing of data. Deva Prasad from the National Law School of Bangalore presented on constitutional elements of the UID scheme ranging from loopholes in the Bill to connections that can be made when the UID Bill is placed in the larger picture. Sri Manoj Bhattacharya (MP) from RSP voiced his concerns of the UID, and emphasized that by giving an individual a number which acts as their fundamental identity which they use to function in society, the government in fact is eroding an individual’s actual identity, and that is an invasion of privacy. Sri Nilotpal Basu (MP) from CPI (M) spoke out strongly against the UID, voicing that his greatest concern with the UID is that it will be a way for corporate bodies to target individuals as consumers, and that privacy legislation could be used as a way for corporate bodies to hide from the public eye.

Conclusion

In the concluding session the floor was opened up to the public for questions and opinion sharing. Many participants shared what they believed needed to be included in privacy legislation, and what issues a privacy legislation needs to address. A few of these include: privacy rights and the media, privacy and the right to information, the privacy rights of minorities, and the privacy rights of the government. Also types of regulatory models for privacy were discussed. For instance, should privacy in India be represented and protected through a data protection law, or should privacy be seen as a fundamental right to privacy? Should privacy be represented through a broad framework, or through sector specific statutes? What should the redressal and enforcement mechanisms look like?

As seen from the presentations and the comments at the conference one thing which is clear is that privacy is an issue that concerns every person in India. Over the next six months Privacy India will be conducting ten more conferences in different Indian cities to engage the public in dialogues of privacy and raise awareness around the issues of privacy. The next workshop will be held on 5 February 2011 in Bangalore.

Download the conference summary here

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

Privacy Matters Conference Agenda

praskrishna — 2011-01-14T11:45:37Z

The "Privacy Matters" conference is taking place on Sunday January 23rd, at NUJS Law school at 10:30. It is a full day event that will discuss the challenges and concerns of privacy in India. Below is the agenda for the event. We look forward to your participation and attendance.

Privacy Matters agenda

January 23, 2011 NUJS

10:30 – 4:30 P.M.

Time:

10:30 - 11:00

Welcome

Who is PI
What are our objectives
Why is privacy important in India

11:00 - 11:30

Keynote

Sudhir Krishnaswamy

11:30 - 11: 45

Tea Break

11:45 - 1:00

Session I

Personal privacy: violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations
Informational privacy: violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations
What is the existing vacuum in Indian legislation in concern to privacy

1:00 -2:00

Lunch

2:00 - 3:30

Session II

Identity and privacy: why does it matter
International approaches to identity
The UID and Privacy

3:30 - 3:45

Tea Break

3:45 - 4:30

Session III

Open discussion and opinion sharing

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