Thread: India's #WelfareMachines Part1
The Indian state of Telangana used an algorithmic system, initially built to identify criminals, to ascertain eligibility of welfare claimants. But its predictions deprived thousands of poor of their rightful food. aljazeera.com/economy/2024/1… Was anyone accountable? Read on.
India spends 13% of its GDP (close to $256bn) per year on providing welfare benefits to the poor. Worried that the benefits were usurped by ineligible claimants, governments have increasingly relied on technology to eliminate "fraud”. (2)

If you missed reading our @AJEnglish reports on Facebook India investigation, here is a short video for you by @neintara and me. Please watch till the end. reporters-collective.in/videos/eyeball… You can also read the series now in seven Indian languages here. reporters-collective.in/projects/eyeba… (2)

This is a thread on how Facebook's ad platform undercut political competition in the world's largest democracy. By giving a leg up to the ruling BJP. I explain here the findings of our year-long investigation. Please stay with me. I promise some entertainment too in the end. (1) First, some context. Reports in the past have suggested Facebook's top executives in India helped BJP during elections. But nobody really knew the scale and impact of influence that Facebook's platforms and policies have on Indian election campaigns. (2)

Thread: Surveillance with no accountability is dangerous #PegasusProject has shown. Judges can be blackmailed, politician dethroned & journalists killed. But its not just high-profile targets, ordinary citizens are at risk too. We reported this before. Stay with me as I explain 1. Surveillance can be targeted on individuals, like in #Pegasus. It can also be deployed on masses and may not be so explicit. A wide net can be cast to observe everyone's behaviour, often in the name of govt functions like social welfare. Modern data-collection systems allow it

Thread: Indian govt will soon launch world's biggest face recognition system. A tool that can source citizens' images from multiple govt databases, CCTV feeds. Can identify a person by facial features and tag them. And what will it do to safeguard citizens' privacy, consent? Read 2. The Home Ministry of India, in July this year, floated a tender to procure software and services for a National-level Automated Facial Recognition System. On November 7, it extended the deadline to accept bids from private firms up till January 3, 2020.

Thread: Friends, I have a short story to tell. About the functioning of the Indian Judiciary. It has characters, plots and subplots. Also a climax. Stay with me till the end. (1/n) In 2005, India's richest corporation, Reliance Industries wanted to develop a special economic zone (SEZ) in Gujarat's Jamnagar. The state began to acquire 25 sq km land for it but some farmers refused to give up. The land acquisition got stalled — for nearly a decade.(2/n)

This is a thread on how govt agencies have been monitoring social media accounts of citizens. I am putting together at one place all that has been reported so far. Stay with me. (1/n) In April 2018, the Union I&B Ministry floated a tender to contract an agency to monitor social media posts of citizens, including their "emails" and "historical communications", to gauge their opinions about government policies, and create "360-degree view of people." (2/n)

This is a thread on the free-mobile schemes by the Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan governments. Ahead of the state elections, the schemes would influence more than three-fourths of the states' populations and would give big benefits to one company. In Chhattisgarh, where Reliance Jio has won the bidding to bring network to 5 mn families, the govt will give the company free land for 10 yrs to establish 1000 new towers. See the bit from the RFP