Freedom of expression and opinion online is increasingly criminalised with the aid of penal and internet-specific legislation. With this report, the 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 Government of India constituted a committee of experts to draft a data protection bill that would be put in place the data protection framework for India. The committee published a white paper and invited comments and feedback. The Internet Democracy Project made recommendations to the committee, drawing from the Report of the Committee of Experts headed by Justice AP Shah, and highlighting the need to center the data subjects, incorporate new articulation of rights and have strong implementation mechanisms. Read our submission here.
(Originally published on Asia Times. Link here.) While the US seems to be busy unraveling progressive net neutrality protections passed during the Obama administration, India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is putting down roots for one of the strongest net neutrality frameworks in the world. In a detailed set of recommendations released earlier this … More
“Break it down.” “Lose the jargon.” “No, you may not borrow any more salt and pepper shakers and move them around!” Sound familiar? As digital rights advocates and activists, there are many occasions where we discuss networks — how the internet works, who are the entities involved in the delivery of a message, what’s the problem with … More
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) invited comments for consultation paper no. 09/2017 on Privacy, Security and Ownership of User Data in the Telecom Sector. The Internet Democracy Project submitted comments to TRAI, asking the regulator to centre users’ rights over their data as part of the fundamental right to privacy, while balancing these rights with innovation in uses of data and also innovation in regulation. We also submitted that TRAI should not go as far as to recommend data protection requirements for ‘all players in the ecosystem’, as this goes beyond the TRAI’s mandate.
As the Internet Democracy Project’s research on women’s safety apps has shown, many such apps fail to measure up to the promises they make. But does that mean mobile phone apps have no role to play in making spaces safer for women? Some developers believe taking a different approach in designing one can lead to … More
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India issued a consultation on Network Neutrality covering traffic management practices, transparency requirements, policy framework, appropriate regulatory mechanism and more. The Internet Democracy Project made a submission in support of brightline rules of network neutrality with exceptions for reasonable traffic management. Read the full report here.
Recent efforts by Verisign at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in response to China’s new draft Internet Domain Name Management Rules present a serious threat to the right to privacy and freedom of expression online. By facilitating the implementation of real name policies for domain name registration in China, the rules risk seriously encroaching on Internet users’ rights, and Verisign’s technical and policy proposals to comply with them don’t include any consideration of potential human rights impacts. There is a whole constellation of actors involved in making this policy possible, all of whom have a responsibility to respect human rights. More
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a United Nations Human Rights Council mechanism to assess how member States fare on their human rights record. Every 4.5 years, each member state of the UN is reviewed by the UPR Working Group for the State’s performance under international human rights obligations. The review is based on (a) a national report submitted by the State under review (b) reports of independent human rights experts and treaty bodies (c) reports from other stakeholders including non-governmental organisations. In this report, the Internet Democracy Project has highlighted the challenges to realising human rights on the Internet, in India. More information on the UPR process can be found here.
A coalition of organisations submitted a report towards the Universal Periodic Review of India for consideration at the 27th Session of United Nations Working Group to take place in 2017. The coalition includes Digital Empowerment Foundation, the Internet Democracy Project, Point of View, Nazdeek and Association of Progressive Communications. More information about the Universal Periodic Review process can be found here.