Instead of bringing data protection laws and surveillance reforms the Government of India is busy building the infrastructure needed to turn the country into a state of mass surveillance.
For the first time, powers of scanning data at rest have been given to various agencies. Earlier, only data in motion could be intercepted. But now data revived, stored and generated can also be intercepted as powers of seizure have been given," a senior bureaucrat explained to NDTV.
While this was provisioned in the IT Act of 2000 and only home ministry had the power to scan your calls or emails. But now appointed agencies have been given these power and a lot more.
The signed order issued yesterday, Dec 20, by the Ministry of Home Affairs authorises India's 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor, and decrypt "any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer."
All the 10 agencies listed in the order are as follows: Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, CBI, National Investigation Agency, Cabinet Secretariat (R&AW), Directorate of Signal Intelligence (for service areas in Jammu and Kashmir, North-East and Assam only) and the Delhi Police Commissioner. - Indiatimes
It's also important to note that the Delhi Police is under the control of the central government and not the state of Delhi.
From a cryptocurrency standpoint also this is quite bad. If India were to ban cryptocurrencies this will basically allow the government to confiscate your computers at their whim and fancy. Not to forget they are building the systems to monitor people at scale as well.
It's almost as if the Indian government is busy trying to match up to NSA's state of the art surveillance systems!
Can things get any worse?
I hope we can fight to bring a pro-citizens policy for data protection and reforms in surveillance in the years to come.
If you were wondering about the foray of JIO and cheap internet into the Indian market, look no further. All this including the deal with Atos which will become the backbone for active monitoring capabilities.
I spent the last couple of hours debating with some people the ramifications of such laws. Yet, I can't understand why some people find this OK. It's not the same as opting into using Google or Facebook. It's the complete disregard and total invasion of our life and privacy by the government. It's totally unconstitutional!
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