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Dear all,<br>
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<font face="Gentium Basic"> SFLC.in released a report titled
“India's Surveillance State” at the Internet Governance Forum
which commenced on September 2, 2014 at Istanbul, Turkey.</font>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%" align="JUSTIFY"><font
face="Gentium Basic">The report delves into communications
surveillance in India and takes an in-depth look at various
aspects of India's surveillance machinery, including
enabling provisions of law, service provider obligations,
and known mechanisms. It examines compliance of India's
legal provisions on surveillance with the International
Principles on the Application of Human Rights to
Communications Surveillance that were formulated after a
global consultation with civil society groups, industry, and
international experts in communications surveillance law,
policy, and technology.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%" align="JUSTIFY"><font
face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Talking about the report
and the importance of privacy, Mishi Choudhary, Executive
Director of SFLC.in said “We are delighted to release the
first in a series of reports on India's communications
surveillance and are hopeful that it will kick start a
constructive dialogue on online privacy in the country. We
are also very optimistic about the new Indian Government
who unlike its predecessor has taken up the issue of state
surveillance seriously. We look forward to working with
them towards building a more equal internet. We are
thankful to the Web We Want Initiative for their guidance
and support”</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><font
face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Some major points
brought out in this report:</font></font></p>
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<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"
align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">An
application under the Right to Information Act filed
by SFLC.in revealed a list of 26 companies, including
foreign companies, that had expressed interest in
placing bids on a tender floated for Internet
monitoring systems clearly evincing a large number of
firms active in selling surveillance equipment in
India. Several of these companies have incidentally
been included in the list disclosed as part of </font></font><font
face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3"><i>the Spy Files </i></font></font><font
face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3"><span
style="font-style: normal">project of Wikileaks.</span></font></font></p>
</li>
<li>
<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Another revelation was that on an average more than a lakh (100,000) of telephone interception orders are issued by the Central government alone every year. On adding the surveillance orders issued by the State Governments to this, it becomes clear that India routinely surveills her citizens’ communications on a truly staggering scale.</font></font></pre>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"
align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">State
surveillance of citizens’ private communications is
authorized by legislative enactments such as the
Indian Telegraph Act and the Information Technology
Act, which allow Indian law enforcement agencies to
closely monitor phone calls, texts, e-mails and
general Internet activity on a number of broadly
worded grounds. They establish an opaque surveillance
regime that is run solely by the Executive arm of the
Government, and make no provisions for independent
oversight of the surveillance process.</font></font></p>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">An unknown number of Lawful Interception and Monitoring (LIM) systems tasked with the collection and analysis of citizens’ communications data and meta-data are already installed into India’s communication networks. On top of these, capability-enhancing technologies and databases such as the Central Monitoring System (CMS), Network Traffic Analysis (NETRA) and National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) are in varying stages of deployment. The Government of India is also known to outsource surveillance initiatives to private third parties, some of which go so far as to infect target devices using malicious software in order to gain access to information stored within.</font></font></pre>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">It was revealed by a source that NETRA storage servers will be installed at more than 1000 locations across India, each with a storage capacity of 300 GB totaling to 300 TB of storage initially.</font></font></pre>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 imposes an obligation by which Internet Service Providers are to provide all assistance to the government agencies to intercept any communication and a failure to comply with it may result in imprisonment for upto 7 years and fines.</font></font></pre>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">The Controller of Certifying Authorities uses Section 28 of the IT Act, an ambiguous provision, to collect user data from technology companies. An RTI request revealed that they have made 73 requests under this provision in 2011. </font></font></pre>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Indian laws, policies and practices with respect to surveillance are not in conformity with International human rights law as evinced by the report of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights released on June 30, 2014.</font></font></pre>
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<pre class="western" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify"><font face="Gentium Basic"><font size="3">Considering how all the above takes place in a framework that has yet to accord legislative recognition to the existence of a Right to Privacy, no concerns over undue State surveillance can be termed as unfounded.</font></font>
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</li>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><font
face="Gentium Basic">A copy of the report can be downloaded
here :<br>
</font> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://sflc.in/indias-surveillance-state-our-report-on-communications-surveillance-in-india/">http://sflc.in/indias-surveillance-state-our-report-on-communications-surveillance-in-india/</a>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><font
face="Gentium Basic">About SFLC.in : </font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%" align="JUSTIFY"><font
face="Gentium Basic"><i>SFLC.IN is a donor supported legal
services organization that brings together lawyers, policy
analysts, technologists, and students to protect freedom
in the digital world. SFLC.IN promotes innovation and open
access to knowledge by helping developers make great Free
and Open Source Software, protect privacy and civil
liberties for citizens in the digital world by educating
and providing free legal advice and help policy makers
make informed and just decisions with the use and adoption
of technology.</i></font></p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Prasanth Sugathan
Counsel,
sflc.in,
K-9, Birbal Road, Second Floor,
Jangpura Extension,
New Delhi-110014
Phone# +91-11-43587126
Cell: +91 9013585902
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.sflc.in">www.sflc.in</a>
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