In the month of December, we have till now filed 24 RTI requests with various Central and State level public authorities digitally and through physical filing. Read about them in detail above!
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The RTI Act is one of the most important tools at the disposal of the public to engage with and demand transparency and accountability from the Govt. We use the Act to routinely extract information about various ongoing policies and projects that the Government launches.
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Given the debate over the contentious nature of Airtel’s updated privacy policy, we thought it would be a good time to analyse the privacy policies of the four major telecom service providers. 1/n
We analysed the privacy policies in the context of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, while also drawing on the Puttaswamy judgement of the Supreme Court as well as the terms of the Unified Access License agreement signed by these TSPs.
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Despite its recent revision, Airtel's privacy policy still contained significant issues: 3/n
Spurred by recent happenings we've created an explainer on the 'AgriStack' proposed by the Centre. Through this explainer we wish to provide an introduction to the 'Agristack' and its potential benefits and drawbacks and start a public conversation. 1/n
The AgriStack is a collection of technologies and digital databases proposed by the Central Government. Its ostensible aim is to collect certain data about farmers and their land and use this data to address issues such a lack of formal credit, pest prevention, and wastage.
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Here’s a quick graphic intro explaining AgriStack that can be easily shared with friends and people who might find this useful. Please feel free to forward within relevant groups! #SaveOurPrivacy 3/n
Minutes of meetings of the 9th Empowered Group responsible for technology and data management during the COVID-19 crisis provide a picture of how data from Aarogya Setu is being integrated with different systems. 1/n
The documents suggest there is two-way sharing of data between Aarogya Setu and other databases which include the COVID India Portal and the Ayushman Bharat System. 2/n
During the meetings, concerns were raised about sharing of health data between so many databases. Govt officials also seem to be aware of the problem of false positives being reported by Aarogya Setu. 3/n
Read our proposal to the Govt of Kerala in light of the repeal of S.118A to help avoid any overbroad or unnecessary criminalisation of online speech while also ensuring abuse, threats or any of the harms that emerge on social media can be checked.
The repeal of the much criticised provision does not mean such proposals may not arise in future. Thus, we wrote to @vijayanpinarayi with recommendations on the process that may be followed to meet the objectives of checking online abuse, threats and misinformation.
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1. Adoption of a public, deliberative process in drafting any provision to regulate online speech 2. Positive acknowledgment of the role of digital media 3. Seek clear legal opinion 4. Put any proposal to legislative scrutiny.
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Following reports that the UP Govt has illegally carried out the phone-tapping of India Today reporter @TanushreePande and the relatives of the Hathras rape victim, IFF has filed a RTI request with the UP Govt.
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In our RTI request, we asked the UP Govt to provide: 1. information with regard to whether the reported phone-tapping was ordered by the UP Govt and a copy of the order or direction authorising the phone-tapping.
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2. information with regard to the duration of the phone-tapping including the date it started and the date till which it is authorised to continue. 3. an exhaustive list of officials who are authorised to access the information obtained through the phone-tapping.
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Read our comments to the AI Standardisation Committee constituted by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on their paper for the Development of an Indian Artificial Intelligence Stack released on September 2, 2020. 1/n
On September 2, 2020, the AI Standardisation Committee constituted by the DoT released the paper for the Development of an Indian Artificial Intelligence Stack. 2/n
The paper states that the Government of India has recognised that an AI driven economy, can transform the lives of millions, i.e., AI is the main driver for the desired socio- economic transformation of India.
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