NEW DELHI: On the heels of 10 agencies last Thursday empowered surveillance on your computers, the government is ready with new draft rules to watch all you write on Google, WhatsApp or any other Internet services in the guise of removing the “unlawful” flooding the net.
The draft Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Amendment Rules, 2018 that may come into force any moment is for the extra-constitutional spying to let all Indians live in fear of the “Big Brother’s Jasoos,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed at a Press conference here.
“Inspector Raj” is a too small word for it as it’s rather a “Big Brother Raj” to dread anyone communicate or exchange messages, he said, asserting that the intent of Prime Minister Modi is crystal clear that “all are criminals and only I am the Great.” He said Modi wants to rule by fear in introducing this type of dictatorial model to silence all Internet chatter.
The draft rules impose the duty on all online platforms, referred as ‘intermediaries,’ to disclose, within 72 hours, all messages, their senders and recipients and remove all “unlawful information.” Who will decide what is unlawful? Singhvi said: “Of course the Big Brother and his Jasoos (spies) will decide.”
He said these draft rules, the surveillance order, NaMo App and the DNA Technology Bill pending in Parliament should be all seen holistically to understand how Modi look all with suspicion to rule by fear.
The draft rules were discussed by the officials of the Information Technology and Home Ministries on Friday with the representatives of Google, WhatsApp, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, ShareChat and the internet Service Providers Association. The discussions were not made public, but for lawyer Apar Gupta, co-founder of The Internet Freedom Foundation, going public with a copy of the draft rules shared with his outfit.
He said: “All these proposals are being discussed secretly without any public consultation. I worry that these are taking us very close to a Chinese model of censorship.” Singhvi said: “It’s Gujarat Model, Modi Model and Amit Shah Model.”
The online platforms have to not only remove access to the “unlawful information” from their sites, but they have to keep its record for a period of 180 days. In the 2011 rules, this period of keeping full record was 90 days.
The intent of the draft rules is basically to make it mandatory for the Internet platforms to weed out content seen as “unlawful,” without specifying what is lawful or unlawful.
In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had talked of amending the IT Act and its rules to curb spread of “fake news” on the Internet. He had said that the government cannot allow “misuse of the (online) platforms on a large scale to spread incorrect facts projected as news and designated to instigate people to commit crime.”
The draft rules require all Online platforms to “deploy technology based automated tools or appropriate mechanisms, with appropriate controls, for proactively identifying or removing or disabling access to unlawful information or content.”
They mandate that the chat Apps like WhatsApp break encryption and trace origins of a message, no matter that it violates the privacy protection they offer to the users through encryption as the government wants access to all messages, images, videos, etc. sent through the Apps.
The draft rules say: “When required by a lawful order, the intermediary shall, within 72 hours of communication, provide such information or assistance as asked for by any government agency or assistance concerning security of the State or cyber security; or investigation or detection or prosecution or prevention of offence(s); protective or cyber security and matters connected with or incidental thereto.”
It further mandates that “the intermediary shall enable tracing out of such originator of information on its platform as may be required by government agencies who are legally authorised.” Last Thursday’s gazette notification by the Home Ministry was to list 10 central agencies, include Delhi Police governed by the Home Ministry, as these authorised agencies.
The draft rules were clearly intended to immediately implement the gazette notification as can be seen from the following details, but there was no clarity why they were held back even after discussing them on Friday, the very next day after the gazette was issued Thursday night. The link of the gazette notification and the draft rules becomes clear from the following:
“The intermediary upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of a court order, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency under Section 79(3)(b) of Act shall remove or disable access to that unlawful acts relatable to Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India such as in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence, on its computer resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner, as far as possible immediately, but in no case later than twenty-four hours in accordance with sub-rule (6) of Rule 3. Further the intermediary shall preserve such information and associated records for at least one hundred and eighty days for investigation purposes, or for such longer period as may be required by the court or by government agencies who are lawfully authorised.”
