Blogposts

Surveillance

The Government's got your number (and more) #SaveOurPrivacy

We wrote to the Department of Telecommunications warning them about the privacy implications of the extension of the retention period for call records and internet usage data to two years through recent amendments.
22 February, 2022
5 min read
Anushka JainAnushka Jain
compliance

#SocialMediaComplianceWatch: analysis of Social Media Compliance Reports for the month of December 2021

Google (including YouTube), Facebook, Instagram (now Meta), ShareChat, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp have released their reports under Rule 4(1)(d) of the IT Rules 2021 for the month of Dec '21. The latest of these was published by Meta and was made available in late Jan '22. We've analysed them.
18 February, 2022
10 min read
Anandita MishraAnandita Mishra
MeitY

Summary of India Digital Ecosystem Architecture (InDEA) 2.0

In this post, we have presented a non-opinionated summary of MeitY's InDEA 2.0 paper, focussing on the data-rights-centric parts of the document. Through this summary, we hope to better inform public awareness and increase public participation on the issue.
16 February, 2022
3 min read
Gyan TripathiGyan Tripathi, Tejasi PanjiarTejasi Panjiar & Rohin GargRohin Garg
NIXI

NIXI’s justification for 2 domains per person? National Security

In December 2021, NIXI published an undated notice stating that if any entity wants to register for more than two [dot]in domains, they'll have to seek written permission from the NIXI CEO. In our RTI request, NIXI responded stating that the notice was issued for "national security".
15 February, 2022
5 min read
Gyan TripathiGyan Tripathi
Net Neutrality

Comments to the TRAI for the, "Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Promoting Data Economy Through Establishment of Data Centres, Content Delivery Networks, and Interconnect Exchanges"

IFF responded to TRAI’s consultation paper which sought the establishment of Data Centres, Content Delivery Networks, and Interconnect Exchanges. We submitted our comments as obvious issues of innovation that serve users, net neutrality and data protection emerge for consideration.
14 February, 2022
6 min read
Tejasi PanjiarTejasi Panjiar, Shivangani MisraShivangani Misra & Apar GuptaApar Gupta
accesstointernet

IFF provides inputs to UN on Internet Shutdowns

The submission to United Nations analyses the legal basis of internet shutdowns in India, the instances of disruptions, their impact on human rights and the efforts by the Indian Government to improve internet connectivity.
11 February, 2022
4 min read
Krishnesh BapatKrishnesh Bapat
SocialMediaComplianceWatch

#SocialMediaComplianceWatch: analysis of Social Media Compliance Reports of November, 2021

Google (including YouTube), Facebook, Instagram, ShareChat, Snap, Twitter and WhatsApp have released their reports in compliance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the IT Rules 2021 for the month of November, 2021.
09 February, 2022
10 min read
VarshaVarsha & Anandita MishraAnandita Mishra
Data Breach

Student data exposed on Andhra Pradesh Government Examination website!

> > > > tl;dr Sai Sravan Prabhala, a cyber-security researcher, informed us of a critical vulnerability exposing the sensitive personal information of minors. This existed on the website of the Directorate of Government Examinations, Government of Andhra Pradesh’s for the 2021 examinations. While this functionality itself has been removed, to prevent it from occurring again assisted by Sai, we have written to them and CERT-In. Background On 22nd December 2021, cyber-security researche
04 February, 2022
5 min read
Tejasi PanjiarTejasi Panjiar
electronicsurveillance

CIC admonishes the MHA and seeks confirmation on affidavit of destruction of surveillance data

IFF had filed six RTIs with the MHA seeking data on the e-surveillance. MHA first denied information on grounds of national security and later claimed that the data did not exist. CIC has admonished the CPIO for changing its stance and sought confirmation on non-availability of data on affidavit.
04 February, 2022
4 min read
VarshaVarsha & Anandita MishraAnandita Mishra
Budget2022

Conflicted sentiments: Analysing Budget 2022-23 trends

Budget 2022-2023 evokes conflicted sentiments. IFF attempts to analyse the highs and lows of the Union Budget, with a special focus on DoT, MeitY and MIB.
03 February, 2022
8 min read
Tejasi PanjiarTejasi Panjiar, Simrandeep SinghSimrandeep Singh & Gyan TripathiGyan Tripathi

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