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4 Popular Myths about UID
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/popular-myths-about-uid
<b>By now, there is already a lot of material in the public domain that is critical about the UID/Aadhar project, writes Prashant Iyengar in this blog entry published in Privacy India on January 22, 2011.</b>
<p>(See <a class="external-link" href="http://aadhararticles.blogspot.com/">aadhararticles.blogspot.com</a> for an exhaustive catalogue). Much of this material has criticized the UID for the ‘big brotherly’ techno-surveillance regime that it threatens to unleash, usually under the guise of delivering assured benefits to the marginal peasant. Many commentators have questioned the haste with which a project of this scale and complexity has sought to be pushed through. Some have expressed doubts on the feasibility – financial, technical or logistical – of the scheme. Much of this material has criticized the UID for the ‘big brotherly’ techno-surveillance regime that it threatens to unleash, usually under the guise of delivering assured benefits to the marginal peasant. Many commentators have questioned the haste with which a project of this scale and complexity has sought to be pushed through. Some have expressed doubts on the feasibility – financial, technical or logistical – of the scheme.</p>
<p>I do not intend to rehearse these arguments in this post. Instead, I pick four somewhat obscure, but troublesome assertions made about the UID and test their veracity against documents available on the UIDIA site itself. The purpose is to cut through all the equivocation behind the claims that UID officials have been making, and arrive at some minimal clarity on what the UID is (and isn’t).</p>
<h3>Registration is voluntary!</h3>
<p>How does one make sense of Nandan Nilenkani’s cryptic remark, “I wouldn’t call it compulsory. I would rather say that it will become ubiquitous”?<br /><br />In a sense, this is true enough. Nowhere in the entire bulk of UID documentation will you encounter the express words “mandatory” or “compulsory”. Hence, proved! But that isn’t to say, however, that there is any way you will be able to avoid getting registered.<br /><br />Very rapidly, accessing basic services and your very status as a citizen will be conditional on your possessing an Aadhar number. This is owing to the complex operational structure that the UID Scheme adopts which leaves the task of enrollment entirely in the hands of third party ‘Registrars’ who include a host of Central and State social security and welfare departments (including the Ministry of Rural Development which administers the Rural employment guarantee scheme), banks and insurance companies. There is nothing in the Aadhar Scheme that forbids these Registrars from making access to their services conditional on one’s consent to UID registration. In practice, many of them have and will continue to make UID registration a preliminary formality before access is granted to their services. So your ‘freedom’ to resist UID registration will depend on your ability to forego your minimum guarantee of the right to employment, cooking gas, banking and insurance services, food rations etc.<br /><br />And if miraculously you are able to subsist without these services, there is still one minor detail that is seldom mentioned in conversations about UID: without a UID number, you will not be counted as a citizen of India. This is owing to the fact that the Registrar General of India, the authority responsible for compiling the National Population Register of India under the Citizenship Act, also happens to be a ‘Registrar’ for the purposes of the UID. Which means that one’s registration in the NPR will entail automatic enrollment in the UID. The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 makes it mandatory for everyone to be enrolled in the National Population Register. So, paradoxically, although the Aadhar number does not confer citizenship, one cannot be a citizen anymore without owning an Aadhar number.</p>
<p>In other words, the UID scheme avoids the charge of being compulsory, by outsourcing its compulsion entirely.</p>
<h3>The UID Scheme will only collect a minimal set of information</h3>
<p>A frequently made assertion about the UID scheme is that the data collected will be limited to a standard set of information like one’s name, residence, date of birth, photo, all 10 finger prints and iris image. Once again, this is only a half truth. As mentioned previously, the entire process of enrollment is carried out through Registrars who have absolute freedom to expand the categories of information collected to include data that is entirely orthogonal to the purposes of the UID. This freedom is typically guaranteed by a clause in the MOUs which the UIDAI has signed with Registrars enabling them to collect additional data that “is required for their business or service”. Thus, for instance, in Himachal Pradesh, citizens are asked to provide additional details such as information about their ration cards, PAN cards, LPG connection and bank accounts[i]<br /><br />To employ a telling epithet found in one of the UID documents, the ‘Registrars own the process of enrollment’.</p>
<h3>Privacy is guaranteed</h3>
<p>Although the UIDAI makes repeated assertions regarding its intent to respect privacy and ensure data protection, the precise mechanism through which these objectives will be secured is extremely unclear.</p>
<ol><li> To begin with, the entire responsibility for devising schemes for safeguarding information during the collection phase rests entirely on the Registrars. The UIDAI’s own responsibility for privacy begins only from the moment the information is transmitted to it by the Registrars – by which time the information has already passed through many hands including the Enrolling Agency, and the Intermediary who passes on information from the Registrar to the UIDAI.</li><li>Rather than setting out an explicit redressal mechanism and a liability regime for privacy violations, the UID’s documents stop at loosely describing the responsibility of the Registrars as a ‘fiduciary duty’ towards the resident/citizen’s information. The Registrars are tasked with maintaining records of the data collected for a minimum period of six months. No maximum period is specified and Registrars are free to make what use of the data they see fit.</li><li>In addition, the Registrars are mandated to keep copies of all documents collected from the Resident either in physical or scanned copies “till the UIDAI finalizes its document storage agency.”[ii]</li><li>The ‘Data Protection and Security Guidelines’ which the UIDAI requires all Registrars to observe merely contains pious injunctions calling on them to observe care at all stages of data collection and to develop appropriate internal policies. There is mention of the desirability of external audits and periodic reporting mechanisms, but the details of these schemes are left to the individual Registrar to draw up.</li><li>Although the Draft National Identification Authority of India Bill penalizes the intentional disclosure or dissemination of identity information collected in the course of enrollment or authentication, this does not guard against accidental leaks and does not mandate the service providers to positively employ heightened security procedures. Prosecution of offences under the Act can only proceed with the sanction of the UID Authority, which further burdens the task of criminal enforcement in these cases and would make it difficult for individuals to obtain redress quickly. The total absence of a provision for civil remedies against Registrars makes it unlikely that they will take the task of protecting privacy seriously.</li><li>In other words, the individual’s right to privacy is only as strong as the weakest link in the elaborate chain of information collection, processing and storage.</li></ol>
<h3>The UIDAI will not disclose any information and will only authenticate information with Yes/No answers<br /></h3>
<p>This is another of the frequently misleading claims made by the UID Authority. Thus, for instance, in April, 2010, in response to a question in the course of an interview, Nandan Nilekani said “UID itself has very limited fields, it has only four or five fields — name, address, date of birth, sex and all that. But it also does not supply this data to anybody. .. the only authentication you can get from our system is a yes or no. So, you can’t query and say what’s this guys name or what’s his date of birth, you can’t get all that.”[iii]<br /><br />This statement is, however belied by many of the UIDAI’s own documents.</p>
<ol><li>The draft NIA Bill, for instance, permits the Authority to issue regulations on the sharing of “the information of aadhaar number holders, with their written consent, with such agencies engaged in delivery of public benefits and public services as the Authority may by order direct”. In practice, prior “written consent” for sharing is obtained from the resident as a matter of course at the time of enrollment itself, and it is impossible to obtain an Aadhar number without consenting to sharing by the UID Authority.[iv] In practice, in India, a large number of forms will be filled in by assistants and the written consent box will be ticked as a matter of course without the resident understanding the full implications of her “consent”.</li><li>The draft NIA Bill permits the authority to “make any disclosure of information (including identity information) made in the interests of national security in pursuance of a direction to that effect issued by an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary or equivalent in the Central Government after obtaining approval of the Minister in charge”. There is nothing in the Act that requires that this information be made available on an individual basis – in other words, it is possible for the data to be shared en-masse with any agency “in the interests of national security”.</li><li>There is nothing preventing “Registrars” who carry out the actual data collection functions from sharing this information with anyone they choose. Thus, for instance, the Aadhar information collected during the exercise of compiling the National Population Register will can be shared in whichever manner the Registrar General of India chooses – irrespective of what the UIDAI does with that information.</li></ol>
<p>So, while ordinarily, the UIDAI would not authenticate information other than giving Yes/No responses, there are mechanisms already in place that presume that all this information will be made available, on demand, to whichever agency that happens to be interested.</p>
<p>[i] 2011. UID project picks up pace. Indian Express. Available at: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/735790">http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/735790</a> [Accessed January 22, 2011].<br />[ii] UIDAI – Document Storage Guidelines for Registrars Ver. 1.2, August 2010.<br />[iii] 2010. To issue first set of UIDs by Feb 2011: Nilekani – CNBC-TV18 -. Money Control. Available at: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/to-issue-first-setuids-by-feb-2011-nilekani_449820-4.html">http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/to-issue-first-setuids-by-feb-2011-nilekani_449820-4.html</a> [Accessed January 22, 2011].<br />[iv] For instance, a flowchart of the Resident Enrollment Process issued by the UID stipulates “Record Resident’s consent for Information Sharing” as the tenth step in the enrollment process. Unless this step is followed, the enrollment process cannot proceed!</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://privacy-india.org/2011/01/22/4-popular-myths-about-the-uid/">Click</a> to read the original here</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/popular-myths-about-uid'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/popular-myths-about-uid</a>
</p>
No publisherPrashant IyengarInternet GovernancePrivacy2012-06-20T04:37:08ZBlog EntryGetting Connected
https://cis-india.org/news/social-media
<b>Nishant Shah of the Centre for Internet & Society talks about the growing adoption of social media, and what can constitute a "social media network" </b>
<p>See the video in livemint <a class="external-link" href="http://videos.livemint.com/video/5223036-getting-connected">here</a></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/social-media'>https://cis-india.org/news/social-media</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-01T17:03:14ZNews ItemClicktivism & a brave new world order
https://cis-india.org/news/clicktivism-a-brave-new-world-order
<b>THE FIRST decade of this century has been one of accelerated change. The proliferation of the Internet has ushered in ubiquitous transformations in the way we live. And yet, the more things change, the more they remain the same.</b>
<p>Certain human values remain sacred. As a result, more and more people have come out to voice their support for equality, justice and non-discrimination. The last ten years have seen the rise of individuals empowered by the Internet to effect change around them. Across the world people have used the power of the digital revolution to fight for issues that are relevant to them. From human rights advocacy to fighting corruption, from mobilising masses for greater participation in the electoral process to campaigning to save the environment, cyber activism has taken many shapes. These instances are shaped as much by the peoples intentions as they are by the regional contexts of the interventions. You too can become a cyber activist, but first, you must first grasp the four principles that power the participation of citizens in the processes of social change and political transformation.</p>
<h3> The FOAF Phenomenon</h3>
<p>As our lives become more networked because of Facebook, Twitter and Orkut, our contact lists have become more prolific and diverse than the little black book of phone numbers. We have always belonged to different groups, but now digital networks have introduced a phenomenon that is popularly called Friend of a Friend (FOAF). When you add people to your social network, you gain access to their networks and groups, forming weak but significant ties. Most people in the networks inherit at least seven levels of FOAF, thus expanding the scope of their reach. This ability to disseminate messages and ideas across a vast number of people — going viral — is the basis of cyber activism.</p>
<h3>Power of Clicktivism</h3>
<p>In the digital world, people who might not have the time or resources to participate directly in causes they believe in, find a way of being valuable. Platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr offer participants the ability to relay information and messages to create awareness. People who think of clicktivism as a way of shirking responsibilities in the real world fail to recognise that these clickers have been behind mass mobilisations of opinions and resources.</p>
<h3>Virtual Reality Imitates Life</h3>
<p>Cyber activism does not mean that the actions remain confined to online spaces. Most successful cyber activism campaigns collapse the real life-virtual reality differences. They seamlessly work in the physical and digital domains, playing on the strengths of both the spaces. They invite and mobilise people to perform actions that range from signing petitions and participating in policy making, to performing random acts of kindness and coordinating flash-mobs as signs of protest.</p>
<h3>No Information Fatigue Please!</h3>
<p>Even as we droop with information fatigue, there is no denying that the information highway has given us new ways of thinking about the world around us. It is easy now to find an audience for our opinions through blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogspot, and the rise of user-generated content sites like Wikipedia and YouTube enable people to question their own assumptions. As a multiplicity of ideas emerge, it paves the way for the rise of a more conscious citizen, aware of their rights and keen for change. At the end of the day, cyber activism is a reminder of the fact change, like charity, begins at home. And the Internet helps in building S.M.A.R.T. (Simple. Moral. Accountable.</p>
<p>Responsible. Transparent) structures that empower citizens to stand up for what they think is right. It reminds us that there is power in words and that powerful words can lead to transformative actions. Cyber activism foregrounds the fact that we do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from the future generations, and that we have the power to protect and preserve it.</p>
<p>Read the original article in Mail Today <a class="external-link" href="http://epaper.mailtoday.in/showstory.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=28&boxid=15431546&parentid=46837&eddate=Jan%20%202%202011%2012:00AM&issuedate=NaNundefinedundefined">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/clicktivism-a-brave-new-world-order'>https://cis-india.org/news/clicktivism-a-brave-new-world-order</a>
</p>
No publishernishantInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:02:51ZNews ItemCIS to Screen Subasri’s film “Brave New Medium”
https://cis-india.org/events/brave-new-medium
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) will host a screening of a film “Brave New Medium,” at 6 p.m. on Monday, 10 January 2011. The film is directed by Subasri Krishnan. </b>
<p>"Brave New Medium" documents the complicated dynamics of Internet and censorship across different parts of South-East Asia. It looks at how human rights activists in the region use the Internet as a tool of resistance. The film also examines ways of understanding censorship beyond the lens of the banning and the banned.</p>
<h3>Subasri Krishnan</h3>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/krishnan.jpg/image_preview" alt="Subasri Krishnan" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Subasri Krishnan" /></p>
<p>Subasri Krishnan has been an independent film-maker for the past 6 years. She has directed a number of commissioned non-fiction films on issues ranging from Gender, Micro-Finance, Governance, Farmer’s Suicides to NREGA and the Right to Freedom of Expression. She has just completed a film on Internet Censorship in both democratic and non-democratic countries in South-East Asia. Currently she is working on a research/film project on the idea of official identity documents and the notion of personhood, especially in the context of UIDAI. </p>
<p>In 2008, Subasri was awarded the prestigious George Washington International Documentary Filmmaker Fellowship. Subasri graduated from the Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/brave-new-medium'>https://cis-india.org/events/brave-new-medium</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-04T07:21:09ZEventWould it be a unique identity crisis ?
https://cis-india.org/news/unique-identity-crisis
<b>The UID project will centralise a humongous amount of data but the fear is that it might fall into the wrong hands.</b>
<p>The Unique Identification (UID) project is already up and running. It’s touted as a watershed in inclusive politics, of bringing people, who by virtue of physical remoteness, their station in society or other liabilities were excluded from the system, back into it. UID Chairman Nandan Nilekani recently said that the aadhaar number will not replace the passport, driving license or the voter identity card and that by 2014, 60 per cent of the country’s population will have the 12-digit UID number. The idea, though it has not been made explicit, is that Aadhaar will eventually become the key document for the common man to navigate the system, whether it is opening a bank account or making a rent agreement to booking a train ticket or applying for a job.</p>
<p>In fact, there is the implicit danger that sooner than later the original idea of inclusiveness could be turned on its head by denying benefits to people who don’t have the Aadhaar! “There is nothing to ensure that you will continue to receive the same benefits like those who have the UID number. The claim that it is not mandatory is legally correct. But in practice it would not be,” said Prof Sridhar Krishnaswamy of W B University for Juridical Sciences.</p>
<p>It is a fundamental premise that data subjects ought to have “inalienable moral rights” about the “integrity” of the data collected about them. But even as UID is one of the best things that could have happened to deepen the democratic process in our society, the often un-remarked fact is that the project has also become the biggest industrial collector of personal information. Considering the size and heterogeneity of the Indian population, it becomes as big as Google, and the implications of this are quite frightening. The UID draft bill, which has to be cleared by Parliament for it to become law, has only perfunctorily looked at the dangers posed by such huge and centralized collection of data. It glosses over the issue, content with making conservative noises about “the interlinking of databases”. This only shows how casual our policy makers, even the most enlightened of them, are towards the whole issue of safeguarding privacy.</p>
<p>The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has analyzed the draft UID bill in considerable depth. They have identified three main areas where the bill needs to be drastically reworked: (i) plugging all loopholes which would enable corporate organizations from accessing information from the Aadhar database for their own commercial or R & D purposes; (ii) stipulating a maximum period for the data to be stored; (iii) to be transparent about the methods it uses to collect, store and disseminate data.</p>
<p>Prof Krishnaswamy agreed that the UID bill has not taken the corporate threat seriously enough. He contends that the UID authorities should take small, concrete steps that would act as effective safeguards. “In the mobile phone segment, user information is stored only for six months. Now, the government is proposing a similar time cap for ISP too. But when it comes to UID there is no such time limit. It means personal information could be held perpetually,” he explained. All that UID Assistant Director A K Pandey had to say to this was, “if that is it, then we have to live with it.”</p>
<p>Another worrying aspect of the proposed bill, according to Usha Ramanathan, an activist and expert on identity and digital issues, is its failure to fix accountability on the main players including enrollers, outsourcing companies, and the UDAI authority itself. “The data collector and data controller should be equally held responsible for the protection of data,” she said. However, UID authorities themselves are of the view that the apprehensions are being overplayed. Pandey maintained that there was nothing in the UID that would compromise the privacy of individuals. “You go to a bank or the LIC office and you give whatever information they ask you. But when it comes to UID alone you say the information you give could be dangerous. We don’t quite understand this,” he retorted. He played down the fears that in the central data storage vital information could go corrupt. “We have taken adequate measures to protect it. We will have a backup,” he said.</p>
<p>The issue of transparency of data collection and storage remains. The CIS analysts feel that the UID should put out a synopsis of the algorithms it will use in collating and protecting data so that the public at large can be reassured of the firewalls that are in place. Then there is also the issue of not having concrete provisions in the UID bill to deal with special cases like whistleblowers and victims of abuse whose identities need to be protected even more carefully. </p>
<p>The UID authority also bypasses the question of whether it is confusing data protection with the larger issue of protection of privacy. A person’s identity is more than her date of birth, surname, religion, fingerprint or even the sum of these. Such information is basically data and allows governments or corporate bodies to provide a person a nominal identity, one that is indispensable if she is to be part of a socio-political system. The state and corporate entities conveniently deny a person her self, thereby reducing her to a subject instead of seeing each individual as a thinking, acting agency.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, right now the concern of civil society is to make at least protection of data as foolproof as possible. Aadhaar is just one of the projects that pose a threat to the privacy of individual citizens. There is the broader problem of how the Internet and mobile phones, the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and the widespread use of credit and debit cards has led to blatant misuse of personal information gathered online, sharing of consumer data without consent and the state’s own Big Brother surveillance. The need for an effective privacy law in India is imperative.</p>
<p>Read the original in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=81&contentid=20110102201101020220400536210faa">Bangalore Mirror</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/unique-identity-crisis'>https://cis-india.org/news/unique-identity-crisis</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-01T17:10:30ZNews ItemNel suk dei nativi digitali. Perché gli studenti 2.0 hanno bisogno di una bussola per orientarsi
https://cis-india.org/news/nel-suk
<b>Addio al vecchio sapere lineare fondato sulla parola scritta e sulla trasmissione di conoscenza maestro-alunno: imparare oggi ha la forma di un suk arabo nell'ora di punta. Tra social network, video-racconti su YouTube, la musica di MySpace, il linguaggio sincopato delle chat e le bufale online, gli studenti di nuova generazione hanno bisogno di una bussola per orientarsi. Ma la scuola non c'è. O meglio, non ce la fa: a studenti 2.0 corrispondono spesso istituti scolastici da secolo scorso.</b>
<p>Chi sono questi famigerati "nativi digitali" nati e cresciuti a rivoluzione Internet compiuta? Come ha scritto l'ex direttore del programma Comparative media studies dell' Mit di Boston, Henry Jenkins, la loro cultura è "partecipativa" e si fonda su "produzione e condivisione di creazioni digitali" e una "partnership informale" tra insegnanti e alunni che porta il bambino a sentirsi responsabile del progetto educativo. Il maestro non è più un trasmettitore di conoscenza ma un "facilitatore", che fa da filtro tra il caos della rete e il cervello del piccolo studente.</p>
<p>"Frequentano gli schermi interattivi fin dalla nascita", spiega Paolo Ferri docente di tecnologie didattiche e teoria e tecnica dei nuovi media all'Università Bicocca di Milano, "e considerano Internet "il principale strumento di reperimento, condivisione e gestione dell'informazione". È la prima generazione (che oggi ha tra gli o e i 12 anni) veramente hi-tech che pensa, apprende e conosce in maniera differente dai suoi fratelli maggiori. "Se per noi imparare significava leggere-studiare-ripetere, per i bambini cresciuti con i videogames vuol dire innanzitutto risolvere i problemi in maniera attiva", spiega Ferri che studia e promuove da anni il "digital learning".</p>
<p>I bambini cresciuti con consolle e cellulare sono "abituati a vedere la risoluzione di compiti cognitivi come un problema pragmatico", aggiunge. Lynn Clark direttrice dell' Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media dell'Università di Denver ha condotto un progetto di ricerca su 300 famiglie americane per capire come se la cavano con i media digitali.</p>
<p>"Grazie ai videogiochi, il sapere dei bambini si nutre di simboli, sfide e modelli sempre diversi di narrazione", spiega Clark che aggiunge: "quando le modalità di apprendimento scolastico sono simili a quelle di un gioco ci sono maggiori chances che gli alunni apprendano volentieri e in fretta". "Se qualcosa può essere visto, ascoltato, suonato, perché dovrebbe essere raccontato a parole?", si chiede Paolo Ferri.</p>
<p>Nishant Shah, che a 26 anni dirige il Center for Internet and Society di Bangalore in India, lo spiega così via Skype: "La tecnologia dei nostri padri è quella televisiva: un modello analogico che stabilisce ruoli, responsabilità e struttura della produzione, diffusione e consumo di conoscenza. Con l'esplosione del p2p - l'idea di una rete dove non esiste gerarchia e tutto viene condiviso- i ruoli sono messi in discussione dallo studente, che si considera parte attiva nella produzione di sapere e vede i libri come una fonte tra le tante".</p>
<p>Se è vero che il "l'ha detto Internet" ha assunto tra i bambini l'autorevolezza di una sentenza della Cassazione, è innegabile che la rete sia la patria del vero-simile. "Internet sta ridisegnando i confini della verità - continua Shah - e questo pone grandi sfide per gli educatori del XXI secolo: come si fa a imparare utilizzando fonti che non hanno approvazione istituzionale? Come si può riconoscere un valido provider di conoscenza nel caos online?".</p>
<p>Anche il professore della Bicocca ammette che "la cut-and-paste culture e la presunzione di veridicità della Rete" tendono ad abbassare la percezione critica degli utenti: "Internet diventa per i bambini "la fonte" a prescindere dall'autorevolezza del sito e da chi scrive", dice.</p>
<p>Se passa il modello Wikipedia, crolla l'importanza dell'autore. O, come ha scritto l'antropologa Susan D. Blum sul New York Times, "se per lo studente non è fondamentale essere unico, va bene usare parole di altri. Dice cose a cui non crede? Allora è ok scrivere testi su argomenti sconosciuti con l'unico scopo di prendere un buon voto: conoscere è diventato un mezzo per ottenere consensi e socialità".</p>
<p>Per il momento le iniziative più interessanti di digital learning riguardano i fratelli più grandi. Dal prossimo anno in 2500 campus universitari americani arriverà un software per pc, iPad e telefonini (il costo va dai 30 ai 70 dollari e il maggiore produttore è la Turning Technologies) chiamato "clickers", che permette all'insegnante di verificare il livello di attenzione dello studente - immerso nella navigazione internet - chiedendo feedback sulla tastiera ogni 15 minuti. Il professore di Harvard Charles Nesson ha tenuto un corso virtuale su Second Life, mentre il progetto di educazione civica "YouMedia", sponsorizzato dall'amministrazione di Chicago, promuove l'apprendimento attraverso video-racconti pubblici di libri.</p>
<p>Nella Woodside High School, in California, gli studenti hanno borse di studio per comprare l'iPad, un centro multimediale da tre milioni di dollari e lezioni su come registrare la musica e usare Internet in maniera responsabile. Grazie ai computer economici del guru informatico Nicholas Negroponte, tutti i bambini uruguaiani delle elementari hanno un pc.</p>
<p>In Europa - che ha messo la competenza digitale al quarto posto (dopo prima lingua, lingua straniera e matematica e scienze) tra le competenze chiave per l'educazione degli stati membri dell'Unione - il paese più "nativi digitali oriented" è l'Inghilterra, dove la riforma del sistema scolastico voluta dal governo Blair ha ridotto drasticamente il numero degli studenti per classi, favorendo così la personalizzazione dell'insegnamento, e tagliato il numero delle materie. "Sono passati- sottolinea Paolo Ferri - da un modello disciplinare basato sui contenuti a quello per competenze che si regge su un principio: imparare ad imparare". Ferri ricorda che la lavagna interattiva è presente nel 100% delle classi primarie e secondarie inglesi mentre in Italia si punta ad averne una su dieci entro il 2011. Qui la strada è ancora tutta in salita.</p>
<p>Il ministero dell'Istruzione porta avanti il progetto LIM, che riguarda l'introduzione di lavagne interattive nelle aule, e quello Cl@ssi 2.0 che punta a finanziare con 30mila euro 156 classi (in Italia ci sono circa 25mila scuole) delle scuole medie inferiori per lo sviluppo di progetti innovativi. "C'è una grande carenza di investimenti dall'alto - denuncia Ferri - arginata da qualche dirigente di buona volontà". Per il professore della Bicocca è a livello territoriale, grazie all'autonomia scolastica e alle capacità manageriali e creative di qualche preside, che si vedono i migliori esperimenti.</p>
<p>A Bollate, un comune di 37 mila abitanti alle porte di Milano, per imparare a usare l'iPad basta chiedere aiuto a un bambino. Nelle aule dell'Istituto di via Brianza - due scuole elementari e due medie inferiori - al posto di quadernetti e matite, da settembre gli alunni usano il tablet computer prodotto dalla Apple.</p>
<p>Qualche centinaia di chilometri più a Sud, a Reggio Emilia - la città dove tutti vorrebbero avere 3 anni per quel "Reggio Approach", lodato dal New York Times (parole d'ordine: arte, assemblee di classe e respiro globale), che ha fatto guadagnare al capoluogo emiliano il titolo di capitale mondiale degli asili nido - software, dispositivi elettronici e lavagne interattive hanno ormai sostituito seggioloni e orsacchiotti.</p>
<p>Bollate e Reggio non sono residui di una bizzarra avanguardia pedagogica, il cui simbolo cinematografico è ancora "Bianca" di Nanni Moretti, con le vicende della scuola "Marylin Monroe" dove al posto della foto del presidente della Repubblica c'e' Dino Zoff e i professori giocano alle slot machines e al flipper. Dimostrano piuttosto che ci sono, anche in Italia, presidi e maestri che hanno capito chi sono e come si educano i nativi digitali.</p>
<p>"Ma il risultato è quella di una cartina dell'innovazione a macchia di leopardo", dichiara Ferri, che tuttavia si dice ottimista. Da un lato perché "nel 2013 andrà in pensione la metà degli insegnanti italiani", dall'altro perché crede nel contagio positivo: "In 10 anni le scuole al passo con le trasformazioni sociali e tecnologiche, e per questo premiate con finanziamenti e alto numero di iscrizioni, avranno costretto le altre ad adeguarsi". Una speranza? No, un dovere. Perché "innovare innovare innovare", il famoso mantra di Hal Varian di Google News, è l'unica chance di sopravvivenza anche per la scuola italiana.</p>
<p>Read the original article <a class="external-link" href="http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2011-01-01/nativi-digitali-151924.shtml?uuid=AYcB4RwC">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/nel-suk'>https://cis-india.org/news/nel-suk</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:31:15ZNews ItemA Tweet and a poke from the CEO
https://cis-india.org/news/tweet-and-poke
<b>The official grapevine has moved online, and Twitter is the new water-cooler.</b>
<p>The office grapevine has moved online, and Twitter is the new water cooler. Social media may be all the rage, and every company may want in, but for the majority of Indian companies grappling with the phenomenon, it is proving too tempestuous a beast to control.</p>
<p>From India alone, for instance, 18 million unique visitors logged on to Facebook in May, each of them posting multiple status messages that often dealt with their places of work. Ban these practices all you like, experts say, but employees will still find ways to log on to social media. Better, then, to ride the wave rather than risk going down with it.</p>
<p>Some Indian companies have already begun to learn this the hard way. When Infosys Technologies Ltd announced its IRace (Infosys Role and Career Enchancement) programme in April, changing the company’s hierarchy drastically, disgruntled employees lashed out at their company on blogs and Facebook.</p>
<p>“The company couldn’t do much then, because they didn’t have a social media policy in place,” says Mahesh Murthy, CEO of Pinstorm Consulting and a social media expert. Murthy mentions another large financial services firm that fired employees for commenting on Orkut about internal incentive programmes.</p>
<p>The time has arrived, then, for companies to institute social media policies—to define, in a sense, what sort of tweet is appropriate and what will earn a black mark. But Indian firms trying to do just this are emerging with very mixed results.</p>
<p>There are, on the one hand, the fast adopters. Technology and media companies that were the first to run head-on into social media were also, not surprisingly, the first to put basic guidelines in place.</p>
<p>Wipro Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd not only have social media policies, they also promote communication and events for their employees on these media. A couple of months ago, the Spirit of Wipro run was promoted in real-time on Twitter and on its official Facebook page. “Wipro became one of the first companies to hold a Twitter conference, for our joint CEO to discuss our diversity initiatives,” says Rajan Kohli, Wipro’s chief marketing officer.</p>
<p>Also Read The Future of the Internet (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/articles/keywords.aspx?kw=India%20Internet">Complete Series</a>)</p>
<p>HCL has named digital ambassadors who use their social networks and online personas to share ideas and help the company reach out. In HCL’s annual exercise to articulate the company’s vision, employees communicate with the CEO through Facebook. Infosys has formulated its own social media policy now, and is preparing to roll it out over the next six months.</p>
<p>The other early adopter has been the media sector. As traditional media houses have started to build digital presences, conglomerates such as HT Media Ltd and Bennet, Coleman and Co. Ltd specify what a journalist’s digital avatar can and cannot say online. (Mint has an extensive social media policy for its employees.) Print journalists typically cannot reveal their employer on their Facebook or Twitter pages, or post original opinions.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But here’s the catch with such a strategy: The Internet is a hard place to be anonymous. “If you are a well-known writer, even if you don’t identify yourself, people can easily put two and two together,” says Nishant Shah, of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). “Policies like that are hard to implement and don’t really make sense.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To be sure, there are exceptions; Open, the weekly magazine, looks at Facebook and Twitter as channels to direct traffic to its online content. “We have no policy of employees not identifying themselves on social media or associating themselves with the magazine,” says Rajesh Jha, a deputy editor at <em>Open</em>.</p>
<p>Another surprisingly prompt responder to social media trends has been the education sector. While most institutions don’t have restrictive policies for public platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, some have gone in a different direction and created closed networks. Shah argues that a closed network has the same features—and issues—as open social media.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“These are again peer-to-peer platforms, where teachers and students interact with each other, and any communication has a large audience and gets recorded for posterity,” he says. “This makes it as much of a social medium as Facebook or Twitter.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bangalore’s Christ University has created an institutional repository for every single submission made by students and faculty. Test grades and lesson plans are posted online, and students and teachers communicate through the system. The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has completely digitized its classrooms, so that write-ups on every lesson are available online. Students and teachers co-develop curricula through its platform as well.</p>
<p>One sector that has been slow to respond to these trends is the outsourcing sector. With annual attrition rates of 50-60%, these firms focus more on turnaround than on investment. Social media websites are typically banned altogether in call centres.</p>
<p>As social media evolves, ways to leverage it do as well. Large telecom firms such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Alcatel-Lucent use Facebook for research and development. Supriya Dhanda, Alcatel-Lucent’s head of human resources, says that her firm encourages “senior leaders...to keep blogs active and use them to promote key messages on strategy, people and operating mechanisms”.</p>
<p>In the US, a couple of smaller firms have been able to harness social media in innovative ways. Best Buy, an electronics retail chain, aggregates employee activity online, whether on blogs or Twitter, onto a platform called Best Buy Connect. Zappos, which sells shoes and bags online, has a similar Twitter aggregation tool that pulls any tweet mentioning the company. Employees are encouraged to post on the firm’s Facebook and YouTube pages, and its CEO, Tony Hsieh, has at least a million followers on Twitter.</p>
<p>But Murthy doesn’t necessarily think that Indian firms need to follow in the wake of US firms such as Intel, IBM and CNN, which have clearly defined social media policies. “First, the US is a litigious country and most social media policies there are circumscribed by what corporate lawyers allow employees to say and not say,” he says. “Two, Indian firms can actively use social media as a global marketing tool, especially because it involves no media costs. In the US, firms still look at it largely as a...customer-service function.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shah adds that India doesn’t have a clearly installed legal privacy framework, unlike the US or Australia. “What is public space and what is private is still largely a subject of interpretation,” Shah says. “So we will evolve our own path.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read the original in Livemint <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2010/12/30212513/A-Tweet-and-a-poke-from-the-CE.html?h=B">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/tweet-and-poke'>https://cis-india.org/news/tweet-and-poke</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:30:17ZNews ItemDecember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs arising from these projects are now online for public review:</p>
<p><b>Pornography & the Law</b><br />This monograph attempts to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/f1sQsi"><br />http://bit.ly/f1sQsi</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Re:wiring Bodies<br /></b>Dr. Asha Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/gYCP1C"><br />http://bit.ly/gYCP1C</a></p>
<p><b>The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem — An Inquiry into Technology and Governance</b><br />The project has fed into many different activities in teaching, in examining processes of governance and in looking at user behaviour. The deadline for peer review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/iiYJp1"><br />http://bit.ly/iiYJp1</a></p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<p><b>Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h3lWzS">From the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hU6GTL">Transforming Urbanscapes: ATM in cities</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Queer Histories of the Internet</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hqrjqc">A Detour: The Internet and Forms of Narration: A Short Note</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.</p>
<h3>Columns on Digital Natives</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following articles were published in the Indian Express recently:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ig08Dr">Make a Wish</a> [published on 19 December 2010]</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hRHUYu">Play Station</a> [published on 5 December 2010]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/emKslL">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – An Open Call</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eCu2it">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – Some FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Publication</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Position papers from the Thinkathon conference held at Hague from 6 to 8 December have been published:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eVYR2h">Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3><b>National Award</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nirmita Narasimhan got a National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The event was telecast live on Doordarshan.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fKG9MH">Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Conference Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An international conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT was held in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The full report of the conference is published online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eDHXyq">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/ddMBN">Accessibility at CIS – Looking back at 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/igUi8H">G3ict-GW Global Policy Forum: "ICT Accessibility: A New Frontier for Disability Rights"</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/glBYTS">Problems Remain with Standing Committee's Report on Copyright Amendments</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hq9OZO">CIS Submission on Draft Patent Manual 2010</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software, its latest involvement have yielded these results:</p>
<h3>Reports</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eKUKIY">Call for Comments for Report on the Online Video Environment in India</a></li>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/wr8Td">Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hQAUkg">Wikipedia Meetup in Bangalore, This time in TERI</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Privacy</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing a couple of projects, one Privacy in Asia which is supported by Privacy International, UK and the other on Privacy and Identity which is funded by Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like <i>Aadhar</i>.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hYUmVK">The Privacy Rights of Whistleblowers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hcP9lI">UID & Privacy - A Call for Papers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/esjtL7">Should Ratan Tata be Afforded the Right to Privacy?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h0Vdz3">DSCI Information Security Summit 2010 – A Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this.</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fNADQo">Take 'Model T' for Telecom</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/h8TJwF">An online community platform for people with different needs</a> (Sify News, 12 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fF3Y6V">Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives</a> (Indiantelevision.com, 13 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/e3gZGz">This Is All India Radia</a> (Outlook, 6 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gYrF7h">'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency</a> (Google News, 4 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gBMFzY">Intellectual Property Rights as seen in a graphic novel</a> (TimeOut Bengaluru, 1 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fa4qcy">The Niira Radia Tapes: Scrutinizing the Snoopers</a> (The Wall Street Journal, 29 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gWEkKw">Mobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS</a> (The Hindu, 28 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gjyNbF">UID elicits mixed response</a> (Deccan Herald, 23 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hcrAd2">Time to bury e-mail?</a> (DNA, 21 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis">identi.ca</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28535315687">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T11:28:02ZPagePrivacy matters
https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters
<b>Privacy India invites individuals to attend “Privacy Matters”, a one-day conference on 23 January 2011 at the WB National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. Privacy India, Society in Action Group and the Centre for Internet & Society have joined hands to organize this.</b>
<p>The 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 Banks, India does not as yet have a <em>horizontal</em> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>Who We Are</h3>
<p>Privacy India was set up in collaboration with the Centre for Internet & 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 and 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).</p>
<p>Download the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-nujs-conference" class="internal-link" title="Privacy Conference at NUJS">poster</a></p>
<h3>" Privacy Matters" Conference Agenda</h3>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Time <br /></th>
<th>Item</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>10:30 <br />11:00<br /></td>
<td>Welcome: Rajan Gandhi<br />a. Who is PI <br />b. What are our objectives <br />c. Why is privacy important in India <br /><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:00 <br />11:30<br /></td>
<td>Keynote: Sudhir Krishnaswamy<br /> <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:30 11:45<br /></td>
<td>Tea Break<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11:45 <br />1:00<br /></td>
<td>Session I: Prashant Iyengar and Elonnai Hickok <br />a. Personal privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations <br />
<blockquote>
<ul><li> Case study: Nira Radia and wiretapping </li></ul>
</blockquote>
b. Informational privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations <br />
<blockquote>
<ul><li> Case study: The proposed data protection legislation in India </li></ul>
</blockquote>
c. What is the existing vacuum in Indian legislation concerning privacy <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1:00 <br />2:00<br /></td>
<td>Lunch <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2:00<br />3:30</td>
<td>Session II: Prashant Iyengar, Deva Prasad, Amba Kak <br />a. Identity and privacy: why does it matter <br />b. International approaches to identity <br />c. The UID and privacy <br /><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3:30 <br />3:45<br /></td>
<td>Tea Break<br /><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3:45 <br />4:30<br /></td>
<td>Open discussion and opinion sharing<br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-nujs-conference" class="internal-link" title="Privacy Conference at NUJS">VIDEOS<br /></a></strong></p>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKkt04A"></embed>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKkukgA"></embed>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters'>https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-04T07:22:24ZEventDoes the UID Reflect India?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/uid-reflects-india
<b>On December 17th the Campaign for No UID held a press conference and public meeting in Bangalore. Below is a summary and analysis of the events. </b>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>Scientifically speaking, we are each unique. We have unique bodies and minds, and these give rise to unique understandings, interactions, and perceptions. Despite being unique, we can be put into different categories and classes, one of which is a culture. A culture is defined by its values, which are reflected in its legal system. Consequently legal systems are always changing – bills are constantly being amended, passed, and retracted in order to make the governing legal structure reflect the ethos of that society. Thus, when analyzing a piece of legislation it is important to ask if that bill is meaningful in a way that reflects the ideas, values, attitudes, and expectations that a society has. This is the question that Usha Ramanathan, Mathew Thomas, and others in the Campaign for No UID have been asking about the UID project, and urged the public to ask the same question in the press conference and public meeting held on the 17th of December. According to the Campaign for No UID, the project and Bill fail to reflect and meet the current needs that exist in India. The UID Bill, the proposed legislation for the project, authorizes the creation of a centralized database of unique identification numbers that are to be issued to every resident of India. The numbers will act as identity. Recently, the Bill was sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, and is scheduled to be enacted in early 2011. The UID project is attempting to create a technological solution to the identification problem in India. It is well-known that India faces challenges in identifying its citizens and residents. Individuals either have no identification – restricting their access to society and benefits -- or, in some cases, they have multiple identities, therefore taking advantage of society at the expense of others, or a person does not have any identification – therefore escaping civil duties. The confusing identity system that exists in India has many negative drawbacks including the facilitation of corruption, illegal immigration, and possible security threats. The UID project attempts to provide a system of identity that is based on individuals’ biometrics, and that places the whole of India on a grid through the issuance of 12 digit <em>Aadhaar</em> numbers. The Campaign for NO UID does not deny the need for an efficient identity system, is not against technology, and does not deny that the current identity system has problems. Instead, it believes that the project does not adequately address the issues at hand, while at the same time creating a real prospect of harmful ramifications. </p>
<h3>Benefits for the Poor</h3>
<p>Though the UID project only gives identity to an individual, it has been envisioned as a means of ensuring the delivery of benefits to the poor. According to the World Bank, within India 41% of the population lives below the poverty line, and targeting the need to ensure benefits for the poor is an appropriate vision. Furthermore, as reflected in the Right to Food Act, there is a cultural understanding and expectation that the State needs to work to bring benefits to the poor. The point that Ms. Ramanathan draws attention to, though, is that the goal of bringing benefits to the poor is just a vision. The project and the Bill are not structured in a way that guarantee benefits to the poor. Instead, by trying to include the perception of this benefit, the language of the Bill has become too broad. The wide-sweeping language allows room for abuse of how information that is collected will be used.</p>
<h3>Appropriate Methodology</h3>
<p>Ms. Ramanathan also questions the methodology of the UID project. The collection of biometrics is not an absolute insurer of identity, in the way that DNA would be. A person’s biometrics are in fact very public. They are left on anything one touches, and can easily be reproduced for use by others. Identity theft is thus easily accomplished if biometrics are the only safeguard. Realistically, the vast majority of India’s population would not know what to do or how to seek redress if identities were stolen – indeed, many would not even be aware of the fact that their identity had been stolen. Thus, the project establishes a hierarchy of vulnerability. Those who understand and have access to technology and the legal system are better able to protect their identity (or abuse another’s), and the rest of the population is at the mercy of the people who possess that knowledge and those connections.</p>
<h3>Legal Questions</h3>
<p>Ms. Ramanathan also brought up a few legal issues with the UID Bill. Most importantly she pointed out that the UID project is not legal, yet enrollment of individuals has been taking place. Not only is this action undemocratic, but it is presumptuous of the UIDAI to assume that their project will have legal validity. Another legal issue raised by Ms. Ramanathan was in concern with the compulsory nature of the <em>Aadhaar</em> number. Legally the UID Bill does not make the <em>Aadhaar</em> number compulsory. Instead, the project is structured in such a way that the UID number is socially compulsory. Ms. Ramanathan argues that this is unfair of the UIDAI. If the number were to be truly voluntary, the UID would need to include clauses that prohibit the denial of goods, services, entitlements and benefits for lack of a UID number. An individual would need to be able to access benefits with alternative forms of identification before the <em>Aadhaar</em> number would be truly voluntary.</p>
<h3>Does India Comprehend what the UID Could Bring?</h3>
<p>Another fear voiced by Mrs. Ramanathan in her presentation was the level of public comprehension. Even though the project will touch the lives of every human being who comes to India, the majority of the Indian population has not thought through why they support or do not support the project, and most do not comprehend the dangerous implications of the UID project. Connections are not being made and clearly publicized about how the project could be used in the future. For example, once everyone has a set of personal data that is uploaded on a centralized database, there is a new concern over that data. What is happening to it, who is using it, what is it being used for, who is seeing it, who is analyzing it, what happens if that data is lost? One of the serious implications of the project is its’ threat to anonymity. Anonymity results when the personal identity, or personally identifiable information of a person is not known. Anonymity already exists today in Indian society by default.. This will change, though, with the UID. One’s body will become a traceable marker that will be readily identifiable to law enforcement and other agencies. By issuing numbers to each person, that will be used for every transaction – it will be possible to create a map of the population and tag information about individuals in a way that changes the relationship between the state and the people. Though it is true India could benefit from a lesser degree of anonymity. For instance corruption might be easier to control. The Bill takes no steps, though, to ensure under what conditions anonymity will be preserved. Thus, the project has the potential to be widely misused for intensive surveillance and the policing of populations – not just for illegal activity but for disfavored or unpopular activity as well.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>One way to avoid the misuse of data is through the adherence to privacy standards such as how data should be processed, transferred etc. India does not of yet have such a privacy law, and such principles are not reflected in the text of the Bill itself. The fact that the UID bill and project bring into focus principles that are not yet fully reflected in the social and legal framework of society can be problematic. On one hand this Bill can push India to adopt those principles, in which case a data protection and privacy bill must be enacted, and awareness must be raised. On the other hand, the Bill can simply overshadow the populace, allowing significant violations of privacy and anonymity to take place with no assurance of redress. As Ms. Ramanathan noted, even though the project is not reflective of Indian society, the way in which the project is being marketed is. The project has been tied to the image of Nandan Nilekani, and the message is clear: the project must be good. The Campaign for No UID is asking the public to look beyond the face of the project, and consider whether or not this is the India they imagine.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/uid-reflects-india'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/uid-reflects-india</a>
</p>
No publisherelonnaiInternet Governance2012-03-22T05:45:32ZBlog EntryMothers discuss kids, music, fashions, on Net
https://cis-india.org/news/kids-music-fashion-on-net
<b>Among the many conversations about behavioural problems seen among teenage children and the benefits of organic foods, there is one that raves about a baby-sitter who takes care of pets too, and one that reviews newly opened art classes in the city. These are not the usual face-to-face discussions among women at a gathering, but threads that run on parenting websites and ‘mommy' blogs that have captured the imagination of many mothers in Chennai.
</b>
<p>Many parenting forums register more than a thousand threads of interaction each every day from the city alone, with a variety of localised pages on Yahoo, Facebook, and netlog dedicated to facilitate communication between mothers.</p>
<p>Baby growth charts, immunisation schedules, home-made remedies, reviews of schools, summer camps, information on doctors and a collection of articles from the mothers themselves — these forums have it all.</p>
<p>Many mothers feel that going through related threads on various parenting sites before attending the PTA meetings helps to know what rest of the parents feel about issues.</p>
<p>“My daughter does not like me talking to her classmates' parents at meetings; discussing online helps to talk to parents without the interference of children,” says Shobana Mahadevan, a blogger and a mother.</p>
<p>Discussing concerns, especially those regarding increase in fees, change in examination patterns, homework, and school announcements with hundreds of other mothers on the internet helps them understand matters at hand and form opinions, she says.</p>
<p>Many of these forums have threads on car-pooling in selected areas where parents decide on turns to drop children at schools.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Subbiah Arunachalam, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, says that with the computer finding its way into many urban households, an increasing number of mothers are focussing more on their children's performance in school.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>The social network they form on the net provides the mothers a platform to be “collectively enlightened” about everything from culinary innovations to popular music and fashion trends, he says.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On “Babycentre”, a forum that monitors child's growth and gives regular inputs on expected child behaviour, Sangeetha Vijay (38), mother of a two-year-old says,</p>
<p>“It is like an elderly person helping you get prepared for everything from teething problems to allergies in children.”<br /><br />Many mothers say that though communication on parenting forums starts out as a medium to interact with those who share similar concerns, it soon goes beyond the confines of the internet. “We have groups of ‘internet mothers' who often meet, hold competitions and spend time together,” says Penithia Selvi (32), mother of a five year old girl.</p>
<p>“These sites and blogs give mothers a platform to write, discuss their interests and talk openly, which is a priceless experience,” she adds.</p>
<p>“It is very much an urban phenomenon,” says Savithri. J., child counsellor with schools, “Since many working mothers have access to the internet for more hours, they try tracking their children's activities, and also explore the net in their own way,” she says. Many concerns such as addiction to gaming seen among children, are better discussed with mothers who experience similar problems, says Ranjitha Kumaran (32).</p>
<p>“Since mothers as young as 23 to those in their sixties share their experiences on these sites, the issues are approached with a lot of sensitivity and understanding,” she says. </p>
<p>Read the original in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article979462.ece">Hindu</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/kids-music-fashion-on-net'>https://cis-india.org/news/kids-music-fashion-on-net</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:25:28ZNews ItemThe Privacy Rights of Whistleblowers
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-wikilileaks-whistleblowers
<b>The recent disclosures from Wikileaks have shown that the right to information, whistle-blowing, and privacy are interconnected. This note looks at the different ways in which the three are related, as well as looking at the benefits and drawbacks to Wikileaks in terms of privacy. </b>
<h3>Introduction<br /></h3>
<p>In a recent interview, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner was quoted as saying “Information and the manipulation of information is the key to power. Those who can control the information can influence society enormously.” History and present-day society have both proven the truth in this statement. It is one among many reasons that the right to information is important to uphold. In India, and in other countries, there are statutes – in India, the Right To Information Act – that entitles the public to request and receive information that pertains to public bodies and their conduct, information that is publicly available because it is intrinsically related to the public interest. An entirely separate but equally critical way in which the public is kept informed is through whistle-blowing. Traditionally, whistle-blowing is any disclosure made in the name of public interest. Recent events such as the Ratan Tata case and the leaks of US diplomatic cables have brought to light the relationship between the public’s right to information, the rights of whistleblowers, and the rights of individuals to privacy. These recent cases have shown that the right to information, whistle-blowing, and the right to privacy are interconnected, because privacy can provide individuals with the means to sustain autonomy against potentially overwhelming forces of government and persons who might have mixed motivations. The right to information and whistle-blowing are means by which the government is held accountable to the public if they violate the law or the public trust. The Wikileaks case and the Ratan Tata case raise important questions about when those two interests need to give way to private interests. One of the key questions that Wikileaks raises is: if whistleblowing is supposed to be disclosure in the public interest -- i.e., to protect the public – should disclosure of personal information be permissible only if a person can demonstrate that he/she is trying to remedy or avoid actual wrongdoing rather than simply publishing information that is "interesting to the public?"</p>
<h3>What is a Whistleblower and how does a Whistleblower Benefit from Wikileaks? <br /></h3>
<p>Whistleblowing is the modern counterpart to “informers” – people who reveal others’ wrongdoing. Much whistleblowing occurs by going "up the chain" in a person's own department or agency or company. If the person is reporting wrongdoing and the person ultimately goes to the authorities about illegal activity, the individual reporting the leak can sometimes get immunity for his or her own actions, can sometimes collect part of the penalties, and can under certain statutes in some countries even bring suit if the company retaliates against him -- for example, by firing him. In this way traditional whistleblowing places the responsibility for legal and ethical conduct on employees who are better situated to see wrongdoing than outsiders would be. In many countries, a person may present information of a whistleblowing nature to a judicial body. The judicial body then determines the validity of the information, the degree of public interest involved, and the proper form of redress to be taken. The judicial body offers legal protection to the whistleblower. Another method of whistleblowing is to leak information to the press. Once information is in the public domain – at least if there is freedom of press -- the information can no longer be covered up. Neither the right to free press, nor the right to protection as a whistleblower is universal. The current critique of the Indian Whistle Blowing Bill is that the right to protection will not be ensured. A Times of India article issued in September 2010 pointed out that the Whistle Blowing Act’s biggest weakness is that the Bill’s Central Vigilance Commission is designated to play both the role as competent authority to deal with complaints file by whistleblowers and as the tribunal to protect whistleblowers. Structuring the power to allow one body to fulfil both functions runs the risk of bias and could breed distrust that would cause people to avoid the system altogether. The article complained that the Bill has no teeth, and that even if the Commission believes that the whistleblowing is valid, it is able only to give advice rather than actually to prosecute individuals. The article recites extreme instances in which individuals have blown the whistle and paid for it with their lives. For example: in 2005 a manager of the Indian Oil Corporation was killed after exposing a scheme in adulterated petrol, and in 2010 an RTI activist was killed after exposing land scams in Mahrashtra. In these situations, Wikileaks is an interesting and powerful tool for individuals who either do not want to leak their information to a judicial body or are not protected if they do so in their own country. Leaking information to Wikileaks is in one sense analogous to leaking information to the press, but it is not precisely the same because it is not a news media outlet, but instead is a way for a person to post information on a mass media outlet. It should be noted, however, that informants who leak to Wikileaks are not afforded the same immunity that individuals who leak to authorities are granted. When an individual shares documents or information with Wikileaks, the site in turn acts as a platform to publish the information on the web and with the press. Being an independent entity that is neither tied down to a certain territory, government, or entity – Wikileaks has the pull of non-bias. But the strength of Wikileaks is also its weakness. When 250,000 diplomatic cables were posted, there was no one who understood the context of the content to monitor to ensure that everything was appropriate to post. As a result, the information was transmitted to an audience who normally would not be entitled to it. By doing so, the leaked information placed individual diplomats in precarious positions that could potentially put them in harm’s way and unnecessarily damage their reputations, as well as putting the reputation of the United States on the line.</p>
<h3>Privacy and Whistleblowing</h3>
<p>As a result the United States is looking to press charges against Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, for espionage. The way in which Wikileaks leaked information and the nature of the leak has brought privacy into the picture. When looking at the act of whistleblowing through the lens of privacy, there are obvious privacy concerns for the whistleblower, for the person or entity whose information has been leaked, and for possible third parties involved. Paul Chadwick, the Victorian Privacy Commissioner, pointed out that for the whistleblower the main privacy concerns include the individual’s identity, safety, and reputation. For the alleged wrongdoer the privacy concerns include: identity, safety, employment, and liberty (where sanctions may include imprisonment). For third parties, reputation and safety can both be jeopardized by disclosures by whistleblowers. The Wikileaks leaks squarely present the question whether intent should be brought into the analysis of privacy and whistleblowers. If a whistleblower is disclosing with the intent protect the public, the protections afforded to this person should weigh differently against the privacy interests of alleged wrongdoers and third parties than for someone who is simply defining the public interest as “interesting to the public,” or, worse, as seen in the false leak by Pakistan against India, is looking to leak information to disrupt public interest. Even though Wikileaks works to protect the anonymity of individuals who leak information, it is not bound by any law to protect the privacy of individuals involved in the leak. The concept behind Wikileaks is important. By interacting with government information, it has the ability to bring accountability and transparency to governments, but the only regulation over Wikileaks is internal (and thus inherently subjective). Wikileaks needs to change its structure to take into account leaks shared without the intent of protecting the public interest and even then needs to monitor to prevent leaks that could place individuals in precarious situations or damage reputations with no validating information.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Sources:</h3>
<ul><li> http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article1833688.html</li></ul>
<ul><li> Chadwick, Paul. Whistleblowing, Transparency, and Privacy: Aspects of the relationship between Victoria’s Whistleblowers Protection Act and the Information Privacy Act. </li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-wikilileaks-whistleblowers'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy-wikilileaks-whistleblowers</a>
</p>
No publisherelonnaiInternet GovernancePrivacy2012-03-22T05:47:16ZBlog Entry'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency
https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted
<b>Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the "Pakistan Cyber Army" have hacked the website of India's top police agency, officials said on Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: "Long Live Pakistan."</b>
<p>CBI authorities said they were working to restore the site, which offered information to the public.</p>
<p>The spokeswoman said she could not comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by Pakistani hackers.</p>
<p>"We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night," the spokeswoman told AFP, asking not to be named. "It will take us a couple of days to restore the site."</p>
<p>She said she could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack.</p>
<p>The CBI has "registered a case" and is investigating the attack, she said.</p>
<p>The message posted on the CBI site said the attack was "in response to the Pakistani websites hacked by 'Indian Cyber Army'," the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.</p>
<p>"Hacked hahaa funny," the message said. "Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do" (sic).</p>
<p>Hackers had also infiltrated the server of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains most of the government's websites, PTI reported.</p>
<p>In August, a group also calling itself the "Pakistan Cyber Army" hacked into the website of independent Indian MP Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant liquor baron, who is also head of Kingfisher Airlines.</p>
<p>The group claims to have hacked a number of Indian websites in recent years, including India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, in retaliation for Indian hackers accessing Pakistan sites.</p>
<p>Indian IT specialists have long lamented what they say is a lack of awareness about Internet security across the country, including in the corridors of power.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said it would have been easy for attackers to get into the CBI public site as it was "not a particularly sensitive" one.</p>
<p>The Indian government "has a very low level of cyber awareness and cyber security. We don't take cyber security as seriously as the rest of the world," he said.</p>
<p>He added that the government needed to "make at least 10 times the current level of investment to get their standards to match the rest of the world."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, a government agency that tracks IT security issues, more than 3,600 Indian websites were hacked in the first six months of this year.</p>
<p>Read the original news <a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jFVJWh2e2-i7-ll6pAuGUOsETcbQ?docId=CNG.eb6f793d7e091dc5315bb6b6cbcea713.551">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted'>https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:26:57ZNews ItemSelf-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives
https://cis-india.org/news/self-regulation
<b>With electronic media generally expressing its opposition to government imposed regulations, a two-day workshop is being organised here from tomorrow on 'Comparative Perspectives on Media Self-Regulation and Society'.</b>
<p>The workshop will explore international and comparative perspectives on media regulation as it affects current and the future role of information in society, Star India said in a statement.</p>
<p>The workshop will explore contemporary issues around media self-regulation in India from the differing perspectives of academics, bureaucrats and politicians, industry leaders, civil society and legal experts. In light of the current controversies in the media, including growing demands for content regulation on India's entertainment channels, as well as debates over media ethics, this will be a highly relevant and contemporary workshop.</p>
<p>The University of Oxford's Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) in collaboration with the National Law University- New Delhi, the National University of Juridical Sciences- Kolkata, and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, with support from Star India .</p>
<p>Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Ministry Joint Secretary Arvind Kumar, and National Commission for Women member Secretary Zohra Chatterjee will be speaking at the workshop.</p>
<p>Among other expected speakers are ex-chief justice of India JS Verma who had drawn up a code for the electronic media on behalf of the News Broadcasters Association, academician Professor Satish Deshpande, former Central Board of Film Certification chairperson Anupam Kher, Centre for Internet and Society's Sunil Abraham, senior columnist Sevanti Ninan, BAG Films and Media CMD and President of the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI) Anurradha Prasad, senior advocates Prashant Bhushanand Siddharth Luthra, TV Today Executive Director and CEO and IBF Vice President G Krishnan and NDTV CEO KVL Narayan Rao.</p>
<p>Leading international researchers and experts in media regulation, Professor Monroe E Price from the University of Pennsylvania, Jonathan Blake of Covington and Burling, and Professor Wolfgang Shulz from the Hans Bredow Institute will be a part of this Seminar.</p>
<p>Star India will be represented by COO Sanjay Gupta, EVP and General Counsel Deepak Jacob and EVP (Marketing and Communications) Anupam Vasudev.</p>
<p>The workshop is aimed at bringing together diverse views of academics, bureaucrats, policy makers, industry leaders, civil society and legal experts.</p>
<p>"In light of the current controversies in the media fraternity around the world, this workshop will deal with increased demands for content regulation on entertainment channels in India, as well as current debates on media ethics," the Star India release said.</p>
<p>Read the original news <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k10/dec/dec105.php">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/self-regulation'>https://cis-india.org/news/self-regulation</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:22:15ZNews Item UID & Privacy - A Call for Papers
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy_callforpapers
<b>Privacy India is inviting individuals to author short papers focused on Unique Identity (UID) and Privacy. Selected candidates will have their papers published on the CIS website, and their transportation and accommodation provided for the “Privacy Matters” conference being held in Kolkata on 22 January 2010. </b>
<h3>Topic<br /></h3>
<p>Privacy and the UID</p>
<h3>Submission Deadline</h3>
<p> By 15 January 2010 to admin@privacyindia.org</p>
<h3>Word Length</h3>
<p> 3,000-5,000 words</p>
<h3>Topic Summary</h3>
<p>The <em>Aadhaar</em> scheme, or Unique Identity (UID) scheme is a plan to provide citizens identity cards that are tied to their unique biometric data – such as their fingerprints or retinal scans. Although the most frequently cited justification for this project is to ensure the secure delivery of relief to beneficiaries of government aid schemes, it is clear that the uses to which it will be put exceed this narrow mandate. </p>
<p>As India embarks on one of its most ambitious techno-administrative projects to date, there is surprisingly little clarity or introspection into the implications of having such a concentrated identity locked into a single card. In particular it appears that the grave threats to privacy the scheme poses have not received due attention. Although the final draft UID Bill circulated by the UIDAI in October 2010 contains some provisions that reference privacy, there seems to be a tacit assumption that privacy is an expendable or at least a less-desirable privilege that can be attended to fully once the scheme is in fully in place.</p>
<p>We invite individuals to author short inter-disciplinary papers that engage various topics on the theme of Privacy and the UID, including but not limited to the following:</p>
<ul><li> Comparative studies on privacy and national identity card schemes in other countries</li></ul>
<ul><li> Privacy and the UID Bill </li></ul>
<ul><li> How will a project such as the UID change the relationship between the state, the individual, and the market? </li></ul>
<p>Selected candidates will have their papers published on the CIS website, and their transportation and accommodation provided for the “Privacy Matters” conference being held in Kolkata on January 22nd 2010.</p>
<h3>Who We Are</h3>
<p> Privacy India was set up with the collaboration of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) 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 <a class="external-link" href="http://www.privacyinternational.org/">www.privacyinternational.org</a>). Privacy India's objective is to raise awareness, spark civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. In furtherance of this goal we aim to draft and promote an over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy_callforpapers'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy/privacy_callforpapers</a>
</p>
No publisherelonnaiInternet GovernancePrivacy2012-03-21T10:03:44ZBlog Entry