India Must Deal With Digital Issues Sensibly

The blackberry dilemma has shown that India does not understand and apply technology properly. Instead of properly understanding the technology, the Indian government is making absurd decisions of banning the same.

This show that the ill informed politicians and bureaucrats of India can be easily misguided about technology as there is no one to understand the same. In such a situation the only option these politicians and bureaucrats exercise is to ban the technology and justifying the thumb rule that if we do not understand the technology, we ban it.

Naturally, the privacy rights in India and other civil liberties are at great peril. In fact, they are already dead as there is no law or safeguards subject to which the unreasonable, illegal and unconstitutional e-surveillance powers in India are exercised. This also means that if rights are outlawed, only outlaws would have rights in India.

According to Praveen Dalal, Managing partner of Perrry4Law and leading techno legal expert of India, India has tackled the digital issues with great immaturity and lack of knowledge. The dictates to Blackberry, Skype, Gmail, etc are nothing but sheer lack of understanding about technology. Encryption and cyber security cannot be controlled and compromised in the manner Indian government is trying to do, says Dalal. It would be a good idea if the Indian government stops this immaturity as soon as possible, suggests Dalal.

In fact, as a result of unlimited and unregulated e-surveillance powers, Internet censorship powers and website blocking powers in the hands of Indian government, the things have already been very complicated. This is the main reason why initiatives like human rights protection in cyberspace (HRPIC) were launched by Praveen Dalal.

Indian government must clear its head regarding digital issues and get itself acquainted with information technology. Merely blocking Blackberry’s services or Gmail would not kill the strong encryption technology already in the hands of users, informs Dalal. It would only change the mode of encryption from Blackberry/Gmail to some other software or platform, claims Dalal.

Ultimately, how much civil liberties Indians would have depend upon how much they are willing to fight for the same.

Scrap Aadhar Project And Dissolve UIDAI

Privacy rights in India do not exist. Instead of strengthening the civil liberties and privacy rights in India, the Indian government has preferred to impose unconstitutional and civil liberty violative projects like National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) Project, Aadhar Project/UID Project, Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) Project, etc.

The worst civil liberty violative project is Aadhar project managed by Nandan Nilekani who is presently acting as the chairman of the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI). The biometric identification initiative has already attracted major opposition from almost all the segments of the society.

Indian government has openly and in an unambiguous manner declared that it does not care about civil liberties in general and privacy and data protection laws in particular. All its promises regarding privacy rights have proved to be just a façade to gain time and subsequently do nothing. The truth is that India is forcibly implementing “unconstitutional projects” like NATGRID Project, Aadhar Project/UID Project, Crime and CCTNS Project, etc.

Another truth is that under the garb of welfare schemes the Indian government is gaining illegal, unconstitutional and unreasonable e-surveillance, Internet censorship and other draconian powers. It is trying to get a complete control over information pertaining to Indians.

The government is not satisfied even with this and now they are planning to introduce the most stupid amendments in the IT laws or cyber law of India.

Although all the projects recently introduced by Indian government are illegal, unconstitutional and outrageous, one project requires special mention. This is the Aadhar project or UID project of India. The same is managed by Nandan Nilekani as the chairman of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI).

What is surprising is that Indian government is wasting crores of public money upon an authority (UIDAI) that does not exist in the eyes of law. This wastage of public money is not only violating many laws of India, including criminal laws, but also against the democratic and Parliamentary scheme of Indian Constitution.

The constitutional analysis of the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010 produced by the UIDAI clearly shows that UIDAI is an illegal authority and aadhar project is an unconstitutional project.

The Indian government is still pushing hard this project under pressure of industrial lobbying and the only purpose of this project seems to be to serve private interests.

Time has come to scrap these unconstitutional projects till they are duly supported by constitutionally sound legislations.

SOURCE: CIO