Internet Democracy Project

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India issued a consultation on Internet Telephony, and invited comments from stakeholders. The Internet Democracy Project made a submission in support of interconnections between circuit and packet switched technologies- with an eye towards trends of convergence and stock-taking of relevance of the category of telephony as a distinct service in the age of IP-based networks. We examine the consequences for network neutrality in the longer term.