Nikhil Pahwa Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Q's you have to ask about the IE story on Zenhua and Chinese profiling of significant Indian folks is:
1. is profiling illegal?
It isn't. Not even as per the personal data protection bill. Twitter does it. Facebook does it. LinkedIn does it. Political parties do it.
1/n
2. Is collecting public data off social media illegal?
It isn't. Much of ad industry is exactly that. Collect data, classify people, target them. But it is surveillance. SC said about Indian govts social media tender: blanket montioring of social media is mass surveillance.
2/n
3. Is identifying/documenting relationships between people using publicly available data illegal?
It isn't. Journalists do this for stories. LinkedIn does it, quite publicly. Social media = behavioral and relational info
3/n
4. Is this something new? Is it surprising?
Tell me a country that doesn't have a dossier on significant actors in a significant country. India probably has this on the Chinese as well. Probably not of this scale, but every country has it.
4/n
5. Is it worrying?
Of course it is. Digital enables profiling and targeting at a population scale. Profiling can be harmful and misused by intelligence agencies. (Even by us on our own citizens. Look up NATGRID, btw).

5/n
6. How can this be used? To run targeted disinformation campaigns. In some cases, to run honeypot traps. Can be used for further operations and blackmail. Spy thriller stuff.
7. How will the hawks play this?
They'll demand data localisation, when it really doesn't help here.
6/n
8. What can we do? One thing the PDP bill must have, is to enable us to know who is collecting what info about is, and for us to be able to delete that info. If companies like Zenhua don't comply, then we need to mandate that platforms block their access. Not sure what else.
9. Is this why India banned Chinese apps: data gathering? I think that's just a ruse they're using. In my opinion, they've banned because of the armed forces standoff, as a political response. Risk of cyber attacks is real. Data collection is not a believable reason for ban. 9/n
Oh and here's the IE story, which to my mind, is making too much of this data collection.
indianexpress.com/article/expres…
Every TV show I've gone on, people who don't understand how the internet works have suggested data localisation as a solution for preventing Chinese firms from scraping publicly available data (tweets, follows, fb posts etc) from social networks.

This is beyond ridiculous.

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More from @nixxin

Dec 18, 2023
So #TelecomBill is being unexpectedly tabled in Parliament today. There was discontent abt treating several online services as telecom services. Telcos liked it: they’ve argued that online services = telecom services & should be treated as same.
Some things to look out for:
1/n
1. Are online services all telecom? Will the definition of “telecommunications” go beyond telecom operator services and include online, like broadcast, cloud, email, video, data communications etc? Remember that the Broadcast Bill from Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
2/n
is a mechanism for them to retain jurisdiction over this regulatory land-grab from telecom ministry.
2. If not other things, will online messaging = telecom? Telcos have argued that there should be same service same rules, even though online messaging and calling are not the
3/n
Read 18 tweets
Oct 31, 2023
Multiple opposition MPs (Priyanka Chaturvedi, Shashi Tharoor, Mahua Moitra, Pawan Khera +) have disclosed that they received messages from Apple about state sponsored attackers compromising their Apple devices. We will probably hear about more MPs soon. A few things:

1/n
1. Sophisticated attacks, multiple vectors: such attacks are virtually impossible to guard against, because they could get you to click on a link via any medium: email, sms, WhatsApp message etc. It could be a message posing as a credit card statement, ecommerce package

2/n
delivery link, anything. It's social engineering. It could happen to anyone.

2. Android vs Apple: a cybersecurity expert I know said that it's likely that we won't know about Android devices being compromised in a similar manner. How does Apple know it's a state

3/n
Read 16 tweets
Sep 5, 2023
It's 2023 and I'm not sure if anyone cares for #netneutrality in India anymore, but Jio, Vi and Airtel are coming for it.

Don't take my word for it. Here are excerpts from their submissions to @TRAI (uploaded last night) :
Jio wants Internet companies to "contribute" towards telecom network costs, based on volume of traffic, turnover threshold, number of users etc. Basically, apps should pay telcos because users want to use an app.

On by the way, guess what... Image
Airtel wants this too. They want this to be traffic based, so only large startups will be impacted. It's not just them...
Image
Image
Read 11 tweets
Jul 19, 2023
India's Data Protection Bill is set to
be released soon, maybe even tomorrow or Friday. I thought I'd make a list of things to keep an eye out for, in terms of how the bill deals with them. A thread on what to look for in the Bill:
#DataProtectionBill #India
1/n
1. Look for "Deemed Consent" in the bill: Can someone take your data without your permission or even knowing...train facial recognition tools using your social media photos? Critical when you look at training AI datasets. Probably one of the most
2/n #dataprotectionbill
problematic parts of the bill.
2. Right to information & erasure: Shouldn't you have the right to know what all data big tech firms like Google, Facebook, Paytm, Reliance Jio, Flipkart, Ola have on you? Shouldn't you be allowed to delete it?
3. Purpose limitation: Shouldn't
3/n
Read 15 tweets
Mar 10, 2023
My recommendation to journalists interested in tech policy is to always attend government consultations, especially TRAI ones. I've learned so much from them.

Attended my first in 2006. Didn't speak at one for years (because I wasn't confident about my knowledge of the...
domain). There was one on VAS in Bangalore where I first spoke because the person there from Voda was misrepresenting something. A TRAI person came over to me after the session and thanked me, and said I should participate more.

Yesterdays was the first that I attended after...
... a few years. The last that I remember attending virtually was on Net Neutrality. Physical was on Telecom Pricing. Since then, people from my team have.

Yesterday was reminder that I should attend more TRAI open houses. What's great abt them is that they are open: anyone...
Read 7 tweets
Mar 9, 2023
I'm on a @TRAI call right now. They're considering forcing the display of our name& other info to whoever we are calling on basis of telco KYC.

I told them this is a terrible idea (privacy). They've asked me to do a written filing.

Tell me why you think its a good/bad idea.
Yikes. Someone is suggesting a govt owned app which people can search.

This is what happens when you leave telecom discussions to telecom uncles.
The folks pushing for this on the @TRAI call: Airtel, Vi (Vodafone Idea), MNP service providers (more business for them).

Those who are opposing: Reliance Jio, consumer organizations, think tanks...and me.
Read 4 tweets

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