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
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
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
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
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
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
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…
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.
This is beyond ridiculous.
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