Big Brother watching

The recent order by the Cyber and Information Security Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs giving 10 Central agencies the power to intercept and monitor information on computer devices has rightly been criticised by a cross-section of society. The order would empower such agencies to access computers of any individual or organisation, giving them the power of ‘interception, monitoring and decryption of any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer’.  Computers are the fulcrum of day-to-day lives and activities of individuals, and allowing any agency unbridled power to snoop over them smacks of an Orwellian overreach. There should be judicial oversight to any situation that requires a security agency to infringe on an individual’s privacy. Due process should never be threatened by the possibility of subversion due to expedience or for any other reason.

The country has started setting boundaries for international companies by asking them aggressively to locate their data centres in India, and thus curb the flow of information on Indian citizens internationally. Indeed, even financial services like Mastercard have now started purging data on Indian credit card holders from international servers, and there has been some movement in social media sites locating data centres in India. All this is to safeguard the privacy of Indian citizens and save their information from being traded by apps and cyber companies. Any encroachment of privacy is a matter of concern, be it from international conglomerates or the government. Indian citizens have a right to privacy and this must be respected.

The government’s defence that it has basically modified an earlier order to the same effect is a weak one. The language of this order allows any of these agencies to demand access to data stored in computers of any kind. Not only that, they can ask for the data to be decrypted and monitor data that is transmitted from computers. ‘Surveillance state’ fears expressed by Opposition leaders are real, and it is up to the state and its agencies to reassure the citizens.