Cabinet Committee on Security Is Taking Natgrid Casually

Natgrid Project Of India does not safeguard civil liberties violations in India.

It has been reported that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has cleared the setting up of the highly controversial National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) project, which will allow investigating, enforcement and intelligence agencies to access real-time information easily. What is surprising is that the issues that makes Natgrid project violative of civil liberties of Indians have not yet been resolved. Even the CCS has not yet gone through the detailed project report prepared by Home Ministry that claims that privacy violations issues have been resolved.

Interestingly, the detailed report has to be finalised and then only it will be shown to home minister P. Chidambaram before being sent back to CCS. If this is the procedure then there is no question of getting a clearance from CCS at this stage unless both Home Ministry and CCS considers the “safeguards exercise” a formality and redundant exercise.

SOURCE: CIO

Indian Government Is Implementing Projects Without Laws

India prefers projects ignoring the human rights of Indians especially privacy rights in India.

India is looking forward for some very crucial and significant projects and history seems to be repeating. For instance, aadhar project of India, Natgrid project of India, etc are once again in limelight. The former intends to provide a unique identification number to every citizen whereas the latter empowers the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of India with informational inputs.

Needless to mention that database collected by a single authority like census authority of India or aadhar project can be used by Indian government for as many projects as it likes. Here comes the importance of a good data protection and privacy law of India. In the absence of procedural safeguards the data and information can be misused. The government of India is ignoring and avoiding this much needed exercise.

SOURCE: CIO