Technology, Media & Telecommunications

Press release: Report on ‘Online Harassment: A form of Censorship’

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | December 3, 2016 Free speech should not be restrained, unless it is transcending from talk to action: MP Baijayant Panda at SFLC.IN report launch New Delhi, 30th November: Mindless abuse and threats of violence are commonplace on online speech platforms like social media websites now...

SFLC.in at IGF 2016 [Dec 6-9, Mexico]

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | December 3, 2016 The Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a multi-stakeholder public policy dialogue initiated by the United Nations Secretary-General, has been an annual affair for more than a decade. The 11th IGF is set to take place from 6th to 9th December at Guadalajara, Mexico with...

Internet Shutdown Trends in India

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | December 2, 2016 Over the past few years, the number of instances in which Internet access was blocked for entire regions by the Indian Government has been steadily climbing. These “Internet shutdowns” are usually instituted as responses to conflict situations i.e. to prevent rumor-d...

Digital Citizen Summit by Digital Empowerment Foundation (November 11)

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | December 1, 2016 Our Counsel, Prasanth Sugathan was part of a panel on privacy at the Digital Citizen Summit organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in Bangalore on 11th November, 2016. This session focused on digital privacy and other related concepts that have been brough...

Google Faces Legal Hurdles Under Brazilian Internet Law

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
By Raissa Campagnaro [1] The Brazilian Federal Prosecution Ministry has brought civil proceedings against Google for flouting its data protection law. The suit challenges Google’s access to the content of emails exchanged by Gmail users on multiple grounds, including Google’s failure to obtain expre...

Privacy Concerns Under the HIV Bill 2014

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Prevention and Control) Bill , 2014 (the HIV Bill) is likely to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha in the current winter session. The HIV Bill is aimed at preventing and controlling the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) a...

Intermediary Liability Again: Google India. vs. Visaka Industries

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
A Brief Background In 2009, a defamation case was filed by Visaka Industries Ltd. (the ‘Company’) against a group called Ban Asbestos Network India (‘BANI’), its coordinator Mr. Gopal Krishna and Google India. The Company is involved in the manufacturing and selling of asbestos cement sheets and all...

Report: Online Harassment – A Form of Censorship

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | November 24, 2016 We at SFLC.in have grown increasingly concerned of late by the appreciable spike in instances of online harassment across platforms. Whereas online speech platforms like social media websites, blogs, and discussion forums set the stage for unprecedented levels of pu...
by sflc_admin | November 19, 2016 SFLC.in is pleased to announce the release our report titled “Online Harassment: A Form of Censorship” on November 22, 2016 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM at Lecture Hall 1, India International Centre (Annexe), New Delhi , at an event we are organizing in association with ...

NDTV India ban: A case of regulatory overreach and insidious censorship?

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
In a highly contentious move, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (‘MIB’) issued an order banning the telecast of the Hindi news channel ‘NDTV India’ on 9th November, 2016. The MIB imposed this ‘token penalty’ on NDTV India following the recommendation of an Inter-Ministerial Committee (‘IM...

Equal Rating High Tea (November 18; New Delhi)

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | November 17, 2016 It is our pleasure to invite you to an event hosted by Mozilla and SFLC.in on November 18, 2016 from 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM at The Lalit, New Delhi , where we will explore the challenges and solutions of bringing all people online through a panel discussion. We have gat...

CCWG ploughs on with WS2: ICANN57

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
With 3141 participants in attendance , ICANN57 (held from 3-9 November 2016) was the largest public meeting in its history. It was also the first meeting to be held after the successful completion of the IANA Transition . The transition greenlit the enforcement of the provisions of the IANA Stewards...

Evaluating the Risks of the Internet of Things

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
By Dhruv Somayajula [1] Introduction On 21st October 2016, multiple cyber-attacks on the Internet infrastructure company Dyn shut down web browsing across America and Europe for hours. Over 100,000 devices were reportedly connected via a malware botnet named Mirai for this attack. The attack was a D...

Protecting Critical Information Infrastructures in India

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
Last month, around thirty two lakh debit cards of various banks in India were compromised through a large scale cyber malware attack . As the biggest security breach ever experienced by the financial sector in India, this attack has also been described as the “first major successful attack on a crit...

Timeline for India’s MOOC platform- SWAYAM

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | November 10, 2016 2014 : SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is announced by the Ministry of Human Rights Development (MHRD), as a national platform for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for the country in 2014 under its National Mission on Education thr...

SWAYAM: From Open Source to Proprietary Software for India’s MOOCs

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | November 10, 2016 The Ministry of Human Rights Development (MHRD) commenced the development of a national platform for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for the country in 2014 under its National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NME-ICT). Th...

‘Putting all Aadhaar data in one big box is ill advised’: Mishi Choudhary

by SFLC India on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
by sflc_admin | November 9, 2016 Mishi Choudhary, in an interview with Business Standard, published on 3rd October, 2016 talks about the lack of privacy, data protection and the impediment it causes thereto in light of the government’s ambitious Digital India initiative, and the recent case in the D...
by sflc_admin | November 9, 2016 The UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, is conducting a study on Freedom of Expression in Telecommunications and Internet Access as part of his multi-year study on freedom of expression ...

Response to Online Extremism: Beyond India

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
In our previous posts , we traced the Indian response to online extremism as well as the alternate regulatory methods adopted worldwide to counter extremist narratives spread via the internet. At the international level, the United Nations has emphasised upon the need to counter extremists who use t...

Reviewing Telangana’s Cybersecurity Framework: Part II of II

by CCG NLU Delhi on in Technology, Media & Telecommunications
The Telangana IT industry has been facing hostilities recently, with news reports suggesting that over fifty technology companies have been faced with cyberattacks over the past month. This has been subsequent to the surgical strikes carried out near the Pakistan border by the Indian Army. The Socie...