Techno-Legal ICT Centre For Parliament Of India

Use of technology has benefited many individuals and organisations. The technology has even benefited governments and governmental functioning. However, the true use of technology is still awaiting a signal from Indian government and its agencies. One such pillar of Indian sovereign is Parliament of India that has to be more technology enabled and technology guided.

Information and communication technology (ICT) related issues have always been taken lightly by Indian parliament. For instance, the IT Amendment Bill, 2008 was passed by both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha without even a discussion or debate. This shows the indifferent attitude of Indian government/parliament towards ICT related laws in India.

There is an emergent need to streamline Indian parliament through use of ICT for all purposes, including law making. Perry4Law has launched a centre that intends to assist parliament of India and parliaments of other nations to effectively use ICT for valuable legislative functions and law making.

This is the first initiative of its kind in India and is of tremendous importance. It would extend its expertise for matters like cyber law, cyber forensics, e-governance, etc.

Now at least we can have reasonable and effective cyber law and technology laws that may be formulated in future. The centre has many objectives in mind and protecting human rights in cyberspace is one of them.

SOURCE: GROUND REPORT

Haste Is Spoiling Projects Like Natgrid

India is presently going through a storm of quandary and unpredictability. In order to streamline and strengthen its internal security, India is taking haste decisions that would ultimately prove wastage of public money and violation of their valuable civil liberties, says Praveen Dalal.

India has been at unrest due to internal security breaches in the form of terrorist attacks and other similar activities. India responded quickly, though wrongly, by planning an endemic e-surveillance model for strengthening its internal security. However, the real beginning of e-police State in India started only after the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 (IT Act 2008) was notified by the central government. It is really surprising that instead of strengthening and improving the sole cyber law of India, i.e. Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act 2000) the Indian government preferred to make it further weaker and making it an instrumentality of e-surveillance in India.

The problem is more severe as issues pertaining to data protection law in India, privacy rights protection in India, etc would arise in the very near future. We need to protect human rights in cyberspace as well as in real world while implementing various governmental projects.

Experts have been questioning the inadequacy of safeguards for prevention of abuses and violation of civil liberties by projects like unique identification (UID), national intelligence grid (NATGRID), etc.

The project executors, however, did no pay much heed to the same. The results were not difficult to anticipate. The Natgrid project has been stalled due to inadequate privacy safeguards and possibility of political misuse after experts like Praveen Dalal suggested inclusion of the same. According to him India must understand thoroughly that “Haste is a Waste” for UIDAI, NATGRID, CCTNS, and other similar important projects. The truth is that projects like UID, Natgrid, etc must comply with civil liberties protection in cyberspace and real world., says Praveen Dalal.

The sooner this fact is realised by Indian government the better it would be for all concerned, especially for the Indian citizens whose civil liberties are at great peril.

SOURCE: GROUND REPORT