The US Department of State’s 2015 country report on human rights practices in India has raised concerns over the central monitoring system (CMS), which provides for authorised interception of voice calls and emails of all phone/internet subscribers in India, highlighting how it allowed government agencies to monitor electronic communications in real time “without informing the…
The Central government has forced the Aadhaar Bill through Parliament in a week. Aadhaar has had an invasive and controversial presence well before the government’s attempt to legitimise it. It has been challenged before the Supreme Court, and in defending it, our Attorney General (funded by our taxes) has argued that we have no right…
A lot has been spoken about Net Neutrality already. For most, the primary concern is how it will affect them while using the Internet right now. Although the principle of freedom is at the core of the whole debate, the primary concern of most consumers comes down to how the report and the debate at…
Delhi government’s controversial advisory to hospitals to not completely ban the per vaginal examination, also known as the two-finger test, of victims of sexual assault has put on hold. “Since there is scope for misinterpretation of the advisory, the chief minister has asked for a review. We would be reviewing the matter in the afternoon…
Unauthorised phone tapping is a constitutional wrong Phone tapping is surely an interference with the civil liberty of citizens. This was questioned by People’s Union of Civil Liberties before the Supreme Court, which disapproved unguided use of power to intercept and interfere with the telephone communications of persons. However, right to privacy in the form…
A convict or a person in remand cannot have right to privacy in medical matters furnished to seek admission in a hospital if adequate public interest is involved in the case. The public can seek to know under the RTI Act if the person was genuinely admitted on medical grounds or if he faked ill-health…
Two years ago, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents…
Russian parliament gave initial approval on Tuesday to a law that would require Internet search sites to remove outdated or irrelevant personal information from search results on request from users. The bill, passed by the State Duma lower house in its first reading, seeks to emulate European Union rules on the “right to be forgotten”,…
A war of words between Reliance Industries’ Gautam Chikermane and hacker group Anonymous India broke out on Twitter on Thursday as the latter accused Jio Chat, instant messaging app rolled out by Reliance Jio, against violation of right to privacy of about 5,00,000 users of Reliance Jio Chatapp in India. Anonymous India has alleged that…
You are sitting in your cubicle busy working on a client proposal that you need to discuss with your boss in the evening. A cellphone ring interrupts your train of thought. The person in the next cubicle answers the phone in a loud voice forgetting that nearly everything he says can be heard from 10…