Saturday, November 21, 2015

Indian Department Of Telecommunications Would Investigate Govt Snooping Allegations By Vodafone

It is no more a secret that Governments across the world are indulging in e-surveillance and eavesdropping using technology and telecom infrastructures. India is no exception to this practice. Rather India is one of the most endemic e-surveillance nations in the world. The draconian laws like Telegraph Law and Indian Cyber Law are helping Indian government and intelligence agencies to indulge in unreasonable and unfettered e-surveillance at anytime and at any place. There is also an urgent need to bring intelligence agencies reforms in India as the intelligence infrastructure of India is in big mess.

Recently, the telecom giant Vodafone revealed existence of secret wires to facilitate e-surveillance by various Governments. It has been reported that even India has been using this service to indulge in e-surveillance. We have no constitutionally sound e-surveillance laws in India (PDF) as on date. Even e-surveillance policy of India is missing and there is a complete chaos in this regard. We have no telecom security policy of India as well that can prevent unauthorised e-surveillance and security threats against telecom infrastructure of India.

India has become notoriously infamous for her e-surveillance exercises and India cannot afford to maintain this negative image any further. This is the reason why Narendra Modi Government may be analysing the e-surveillance projects like The Central Monitoring System (CMS) Project of India and Internet Spy System Network and Traffic Analysis System (NETRA) of India.

In line of this approach, the Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) would look into allegations made by Vodafone regarding use of secret wires by India along with other countries.

The Congress led Government was well known for its “Anti Constitutional and Pro Surveillance” approach. Only time would tell whether Narendra Modi led Government would continue this approach or bring order in the chaos created by the Congress led Government.

Whatever the case may be, we need to ensure Civil Liberty Protection in Cyberspace for Indian Citizens “At All Costs and By All Means”. The digital life of Indian citizens is not at all safe and is open to various forms of e-surveillance and eavesdropping. In the absence of support form Indian Government, Self Defence is the only viable option left before Indian Citizens to safeguard their digital lives. The initiatives titled PRISM Break and Reset the Net are worth exploring in this regard as a “Starting Point”.