The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi is known to introduce regulations on the sly, but this one comes across as sinister. The new Information Technology Rules Act 2011 seeks to regulate Web content that is deemed to be “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful.”
The Department of Information Technology (DIT) can now block any website that displays disparaging content based on a list of criteria defined by the new rules. Any official or private citizen can demand the removal of content that they consider objectionable. The task of doing the dirty job will lie squarely with the internet service providers and websites that carry user-generated content. The websites would be responsible for removing objectionable content within 36 hours of being notified by authorities.
The new rules have been notified by the Ministry of IT and Communications under Section 79 of the Indian IT Act. The sweeping rules say that websites shall inform users not to publish any posts that are blasphemous, incite hatred, are ethnically objectionable, infringe patents, threaten India's unity or public order. Websites will have to censor content if a complainant terms it as blasphemous, inciting violence, harming him or national security in any way.
Legal or police action can be taken against the website owner if the content is not removed within the specified timeframe. Non-compliance can lead to imprisonment up to three years. The complainant can send his or her complaint via electronically-signed email or a registered post. All websites will also have to compulsorily appoint a grievance officer, and publish his or her contact details on the website. The officer will have to address the complaints within a month of receiving the complaint by email or post.
It took Internet companies almost a month to respond, and none of them did so openly. Google Inc, which has always adopted a strident on the issue of Web censorship in China, appeared to be much more muted in the Indian context. All that it told the Indian government in a private memo was that the restrictions “could hamper the company and others in a promising market by exposing them to liability for a broad swath of material published by third parties.”
Google went on to say that regulations "play a crucial role in determining how free a medium of communication the Internet will be for the world's peoples, especially the millions of Indians who are increasingly making use of it in their everyday lives." That was all. The company has not yet climbed up to the same high moral ground that it had in China where it even threatened to pull out.
Between January and June 2010, Google had received 125 requests for content to removed from a number of its products, including search engine results and YouTube. The company had complied with 53 per cent of the requests, seven of which were court orders.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said that the new rules were detrimental to the growth of social media in India. It has voiced the concerns of the Internet industry for the new rules can be used to regulate reader's comments on articles, user-posted videos, blogs, and photos, besides comments on wall posts on online social networks.
The DIT came up with a clarification, and passed on the buck to companies. It said, “The Intermediaries Guidelines Rules, 2011 prescribe that due diligence need to be observed by the Intermediaries to enjoy exemption from liability for hosting any third party information under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. These due diligence practices are the best practices followed internationally by well-known mega corporations operating on the Internet.” It asserted that the terms were in accordance with the terms used by most of the Intermediaries as part of their existing practices, policies and terms of service which they have published on their website.
The department underlined the government’s commitment to freedom of expression, but went to the extent of saying that “None of the Industry Associations and other stakeholders objected to the formulation which is now being cited in some section of media.” That was a white lie.
The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society promptly issued a point-by-point rebuttal. Summing up, it said, “If the government is serious about creating a conducive environment for innovation, privacy and free expression on the Internet, then it wouldn’t be passing Rules that curb down on them, and it definitely will not be doing so in such a non-transparent fashion.”
While on one hand the Indian government is attempting to rein in dissent and free speech, on the other it is taking privacy intrusion to a point that would put even the KGB to shame.
The government wants to know everything about its citizens. New rules allow the government to demand and get “sensitive personal data or information” of consumers from companies. This includes sexual orientation, medical records and history, biometric information, passwords, physical and mental health. Worse, no one can be held liable if the information is leaked out.
The DIT tried to allay fears by insisting that “any agency receiving such information has to give an undertaking that the information won’t be published or shared with any other person.”
Add to this the fact that the government is all set to spend Rs 450 crore on a phone tracking system that can not only listen to phone conversation, but also track down one’s precise location on a map and match the voice with known suspects before one can complete the call. This mechanism would be in place by April 2012.
If that is not all, the Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011 will now require cyber cafe owners to keep a one-year log of all sites accessed by customers and compel customers to produce an identity card prior to use. The rules insist that "all the computers in the cyber café shall be equipped with the safety/filtering software so as to the avoid access to the websites relating to pornography, obscenity, terrorism and other objectionable materials."
The rules have been flayed by nonprofit Privacy India, which says that the guidelines may make cafe owners vulnerable to liability for the actions of their users and blocking internet access to children from "poorer classes, (since they are most likely to routinely access internet through cyber cafes) and denies them the opportunity of developing their computer skills which are crucial for the growth of the “knowledge economy” that India is trying to head towards."
