Civil
liberties in India and technological revolution
are
sharing an adverse relationship in India. The more technology India
is using the greater are civil liberties violations in India. For
instance, e-surveillance
in India is openly done without any
constitutionally sound
legal framework.
The civil
liberties protection in cyberspace in India are
totally
absent and Indian government is introducing laws, regulations
and rules that clearly violate the freedoms guaranteed by Indian
constitution. Now Indian government has extended its e-surveillance
activities to Internet and mobile infrastructure as well.
According to Praveen Dalal, leading
techno legal
expert of Asia and managing partner of Perry4Law
and CEO of PTLB,
Surveillance
of Internet Traffic in India is one of the top
priorities
of Indian Government. Now E-Surveillance is proposed to be expanded
to even mobile infrastructure. The cell
site location based e-surveillance in India is
also in
contemplation. Cell
site data location laws in India and privacy issues
are
once again bypassed for this proposal. Even the E-Surveillance
Policy of India is missing that can provide some
safeguards against Illegal and Unconstitutional E-Surveillance in
India, informs Praveen Dalal.
Similarly projects like Aadhar project of India, central monitoring system project of India, etc are also intended to strengthen the e-surveillance capabilities of India without and constitutional safeguards.
ICT
policies and strategies of India are grossly
defective and
clearly violating human
rights in cyberspace. In fact, there is a
dedicated
resource titled websites,
blogs and news censorship by Google and Indian government
that is making a database of various censorship and results
manipulation activities in India.
Indian government must ensure civil liberties protection in Indian cyberspace as that is its constitutional as well as human right objective.
