Internet Democracy Project

The Internet Democracy Project has joined a global coalition of civil society and technology experts that sent a joint letter to the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on 15 March, asking the Government of India to withdraw the draft amendments proposed to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules. The coalition warns that the government’s proposed amendments on intermediary liability will harm digital security and human rights, and calls on the government to withdraw the proposed amendments and start a fresh consultation process. A press release can be found here. The full text of the letter can be found below.   More

At the end of December 2018, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of the Government of India invited stakeholders to provide their comments and suggestions on the Draft Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules, 2018 by 31 January 2019. The Draft Rules seek to amend existing guidelines that lay out the conditions online intermediaries need to fulfil in order to qualify for safe-harbour protection. Unfortunately, many of the proposed amendments pose severe risks for freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet in India. The Internet Democracy Project has joined a coalition of organisations and concerned citizens in India in submitting a joint letter to MeitY that draws attention to these concerns. You can find the full text of the letter below.   More

Freedom of expression and opinion online is increasingly criminalised with the aid of penal and internet-specific legislation. This special issue of the Association of Progressive Communication’s Global Information Society Watch brings to light the problematic trends in the use of laws against freedom of expression in online spaces in Asia. The India chapter of the report has been authored by the Internet Democracy Project. Find the full report here. Our chapter on India has also been excerpted below.   More

Will the final Aadhaar hearings that started this week, on 17 Janiuary, bring some relief where the privacy concerns of India’s people are concerned? Will our future world be one in which citizens’ autonomy, decision-making capacity and bodily integrity are further fostered or will we be saddled with architectures and ecosystems that fundamentally and continuously undermine these? Taking gender and the body as starting point, Dr. Anja Kovacs explains what is at stake in the Supreme Court case on Aadhaar and why there is no reason to be too hopeful yet, in this article first published in India Today.   More

On 24 August, the Supreme Court of India ruled that, contrary to what the government had argued, Indians do have a fundamental right to privacy. For women, sexual minorities and other marginalised people in India, this judgement has potentially far-reaching consequences. This is especially because the Supreme Court has noted repeatedly that the right to privacy doesn’t only include the right to be left alone, but also to decision-making about personal life and to control information about oneself. Read on to find out more about our views on this important ruling. This post was first published in the Hindustan Times, on 30 August.   More

The Internet Democracy Project’s recently released work on gender and surveillance in India was featured in this week’s episode of the NDTV documentary program ​‘India Matters’, which looked at online websites with feminist content. From Pinjra Tod and Agents of Ishq – an online multimedia project on love, sex and desire – to stories of women scientists who are pushing boundaries to produce important works on the field of science, these feminist sites act not just as influencers but also as agents of change.   More

In two theoretical pieces and three case studies combined on one new website, gen​der​ing​sur​veil​lance​.in, we highlight a range of different ways in which gender, technology and surveillance intersect.   More

Following Deep Dives’ piece on one woman’s experience with ​‘revenge porn’ by Neha Dixit, our colleagues at Deep Dives invited Anja Kovacs for a tweet chat about our digital rights. That tweet chat has now been storified. What are our digital rights? What laws come into play in cases of digital violence against women? Read the entire chat here.   More

Dr. Anja Kovacs from the Internet Democracy Project attended the Internet Governance Forum, 2016, at Guagalajara, Mexico, with the support of the Association for Progressive Communications. This post details highlights of the forum for her: there have been important gains in the debate with regards to gender and economic, social and cultural rights, but is the space for civil society at the cybersecurity table shrinking? Read on for more. This post was originally published on Association for Progressive Communications’ blog.   More