Information and communication technology (ICT) has
brought many novel challenges before governments, international
organisations and individuals in one form or another. ICT has also
introduced many challenges that require an appraisal of the rights
and obligations of those using ICT in general and Internet in
particular.
Human
rights protection in Indian cyberspace is an ignored
world. Very few are aware of the importance of this issues and even
the mainstream media is ignorant about the importance of safeguarding
human rights in cyberspace. This is the reason why the traditional
mainstream media is occasionally defeated by social media websites
these days.
The position of United
Nations and human Rights in cyberspace is still not clear.
Naturally, human
rights protection in cyberspace is still in the process of
contemplation alone. UN must realise that protecting
human rights in cyberspace is its solemn duty that it has
failed to discharge so far.
In the past as well suggestions
have been given by many techno legal experts to UN to ensure
protection of human rights in cyberspace. However, this issue seems
to be a complicated one as UN is taking lots of time to protect human
rights in cyberspace.
The World community on Human Rights, Cyber Law and
Cyber
Security must start thinking in this direction as issues
like Cyber Warfare, Cyber Terrorism, Cyber Espionage, Cyber Crimes,
E-Surveillance, Unlawful Interceptions, etc are “Transnational”
in nature, says Praveen
Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi based law firm
Perry4Law
and CEO of PTLB
and the exclusive Cyberspace
Human Rights Protection Centre of India.
Clearly, the United
Nations must protect human rights in cyberspace and keep a
close watch upon Internet censorship, e-surveillance, human rights
violations in cyberspace and similar activities.
Take the example of India. The lawful
interception law is needed in India and the same is still
missing despite contrary governmental claims. Till now, phone
tapping in India is not constitutionally performed. The
truth is that big
brother in India is violating Indian constitution and even
courts are silent on this aspect.
Indian government has been taking many steps that
are strengthening its e-surveillance and censorship capabilities
without meeting the constitutional requirements. For instance, the
central
monitoring system project of India, national
cyber coordination centre (NCCC) of India, national
intelligence grid (Natgrid), national
counter terrorism centre (NCTC) of India, Aadhar
project of India, etc are all proposed without any legal
framework supervising and justifying their functioning.
It is high time that UN must take notice of such developments
worldwide.
