Inside Google Rail Wi-Fi in India and how it is connecting millions to the web: As a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative, the Indian Railways have partnered with Google to provide Wi-Fi Broadband facility to passengers at major railway stations across the country. The Google RailTel initiative was launched in January…
Hamid Ansari Talks About Freedom of Speech in Farewell Address: Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari lectured the Central government once again about the importance of Freedom of Speech. Without directly naming anyone, he stressed on the need to protect Parliamentary minority’s right to express dissent against the policies of the government. He made these comments in the…
Privacy and the ‘nothing to hide’ argument: The right to privacy hearings before the nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court ended recently. During the conclusion, it was argued on behalf of the state of Gujarat that privacy claims are only made by those who have done something wrong. Read More
Privacy in the digital age: The current focus on the right to privacy is based on some new realities of the digital age. Personal spaces and safeties that were previously granted simply by physical separation are no longer protected. The digital network enters the most proximate spaces and challenges the normally accepted notions of the private. It…
Is Facebook Censoring Us Without Our Permission?: In the age of the Internet, it may seem as though we have nearly unlimited access to information, but exactly how trustworthy is the information we find on places like Facebook and other social media sites? Are the sources we consider unbiased and reliable really untouched by outside…
Fundamental Right For Digital Indians: My criticism of Aadhaar isn’t new. The biometric ID system has a flawed design and verification procedures are weak, I had noticed way back in 2010. Aadhaar during the UPA-2 days involved thousands of crores of rupees (public money) being spent on a project that had no discourse or legislative…
Bengaluru techie held for illegally accessing Aadhaar database: A Bengaluru-based software developer was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly accessing the Aadhaar database through a mobile application he had developed, city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar told mediapersons on Thursday. Abhinav Shrivastav (31), an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. The app used for…
Why a pro-privacy approach is crucial to Digital India: After over two years of the government maintaining that Indian citizens don’t have a fundamental right to privacy, a nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of cases on the matter. Read More
IIT graduate, his firm booked for hacking Aadhaar data: The Unique Identity Development Authority of India (UIDAI) has lodged a complaint against an IIT-Kharagpur graduate and his mobile-payment company for allegedly accessing its central information depository to create and operate a private app called Aadhaar ‘eKYC Verification’. Read More
How Fundamental are Privacy Rights?: India’s Supreme Court has constituted a nine-member bench to decide on whether the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right. This decision will be an important landmark in the advocacy of privacy rights in our country. The hearing has commenced and a judgement is expected in the near future. Read…