Surfers in Karnataka's cyber cafés may have to surf under the supervision of a camera and after submitting a proof of identity. That is if the state manages to implement a set of privacy trashing rules that it has proposed.
Legal opinion says that the rules violate the Information Technology Act 2000. Surfers are miffed at prospect of being watched. And cyber café owners are dreading the dramatic loss of business that will follow these moves.
It is clear that nobody involved wants these rules to be implemented. Yet the Karnataka government is going ahead full steam. According to this report, the guidelines have been sent to the Law Department and a formal framework will be announced soon.
The guidelines also make it necessary for café owners to apply for a license.
Amith Narayan, an advocate with Mumbai's Crawford Bayley & Co, feels, "There was a (similar) provision in the draft of the Information Technology Bill earlier where the government had the power to mandate the people visiting cyber cafés and maintain a log of all the sites visited by them… However, this provision was specifically excluded from the Act after much discussion by members of Parliament."
For surfers, the main issue with the new system of regulation is the invasion of their privacy: "I'm concerned that with the closed-circuit cameras there's a possibility of my username and password being found out, recorded and misused, especially for financial sites that I might access," says Asif M, a weekly visitor to a Bangalore café.
Narayan believes that the users' fundamental right to privacy is violated by these regulations. "The right to privacy comes out of the recognition of a person's right to be alone and to have his or her own personal space in society," he says, "Therefore, the right to privacy of a person cannot be intruded on or violated by the state if the person acts in accordance with law. But the actions of the Karnataka police are not in accordance with procedure established by law and so would be a violation of the right."
Ravi Iyer of Bangalore is aghast: "This is big brother mentality and should not be condoned… It's a total intrusion of an individual's privacy. Next thing, they'll have cameras in everyone's houses!"
The regulations could make a greater impact on the city's cyber café business. "The plan to issue licenses to all cafés is bound to result in people paying bribes and will definitely increase corruption," claims Prakash Chand, who owns three cafés under the name Saran Computers, "Right now, business in Bangalore is very bad. Surfing charges have come down to Rs15 per hour and if owners have to incur an additional expense of cameras and license fee, half of the 5,000 to 6,000 cyber cafés here may close down."
Ketan Vora, who operates Cyber Arcade, shares his views: "It's a very bad move and will definitely spoil business. Once a customer doesn't like the monitoring, he won't come back. I foresee a tremendous decrease in business."
Even the few, who initially supported the move, have changed their opinion. Ismail Chalil, who has operated Cyber Cool for the last three years, had previously considered this to be a good initiative to prevent pornographic access. "But when I thought again, I realised that it invades privacy. ID cards are okay, but I'm totally against closed circuit cameras," he says.
Most owners already have systems to thwart porn. "We've installed a firewall to deny access to such sites. Our staffers also ensures that nothing illegal goes on… Another measure I consider important is to contact big companies to make sure their search engines don't throw up pornographic links, no matter what you search for."
Chand notes down names of people who enter his cyber cafés. "However, most give false names and many women don't want to give any name at all. I've shouted at many people and even thrown them out for accessing porn." What's his suggestion for curbing such content? "If the government claims that 50 per cent of all material on the Internet is pornographic, why can't they block it at the gateway?
Then even if it comes through email, the pages will not open."
For the moment, however, Bangalore cyber café owners are watching and waiting for the police to take action. Some like Vora are sceptical about the effectiveness of these regulations: "We're currently doing nothing to monitor surfing. Let's see what the police come up with."
Chand, who was actively involved with the now-defunct Bangalore Cyber Association, believes the police should have discussions with café owners about the implications of enforcing such rules. "I was planning to go to the cyber crime police cell but I'm going to wait and see what laws they enforce."
According to reports, while Karnataka's cyber cafés are the first target, policing the Web will soon be done on an all-India basis. Earlier there were reports that Mumbai would also keep a check on surfers by having them swipe police-issued ID cards every time they enter a café.
But Bangalore's cyber community remains cynical. "I don't think anything will work out," says Vora, "Even the move to monitor cafés here will fade away."
"People all over India are not going to accept this invasion of privacy," declares Chalil. He takes a pragmatic view: "There are very few cases of cyber crimes and most users avoid pornography that comes to them through spam. For just a few people, why trouble the entire cyber community?"