Elon Musk's Starlink has got licence for satcom services in India, according to sources.
The matter came up before Justice Subramonium Prasad who listed it for hearing on October 16.
More than 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including of two serving ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and one sitting judge besides scores of business persons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking through an Israeli spyware sold only to government agencies, an international media consortium reported on Sunday.
Justice Yashwant Varma took on record and accepted the statement made by CIC counsel that all endeavour shall be made to decide the appeal expeditiously and in any case within 8 weeks.
With the approaching deadline to offer complete solution for monitoring of its contents by January 31, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has offered lawful interception in its security architecture through cloud computing from Indian operators.
Operators, including Tata Teleservices, have submitted the compliance report for messenger services to the department of telecommunications.
Faced with August 31 deadline to address the country's security concerns, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion on Friday said it was "optimistic" of resolving with the government the issue of lawful interception of its services.
India has now around one billion mobile subscribers, he added.
Reliance Jio had proposed that besides satellite connectivity, In-Flight Connectivity can be provided using cellular network as well.
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
A barrage of requests by security agencies to a leading telecom company for telephone tapping led it to say a polite no even to the country's premier external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing.
After much controversy, BlackBerry has finally set up its server in Mumbai following intense pressure from the government to provide a mechanism for lawful interception of its messenger services and Nokia has been asked to follow suit.
After Research In Motion (owners of BlackBerry), the home ministry will now turn the screws on Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle. These companies provide technology and services for the virtual private networks (VPNs) run by various operators in India. The government will ask them to conform to regulation that allows intelligence agencies to lawfully intercept data. Failure to do so could result in the termination of VPN services by operators using their technology.
Canadian firm Research in Motion is installing and testing a new service, to be made available before January 31, which will automatically render lawfully intercepted BlackBerry messenger messages in a format readable by Indian agencies.
Nokia on Thursday announced installation of a server in India to enable security agencies lawfully intercept its email and messenger services, a move which may force BlackBerry to follow suite.
Admitting that the controversy over security has impacted its business in India, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion on Tuesday said it will provide a final solution for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services by January next year.
The government is believed to have issued instructions to mobile service providers like Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone not to route certain Blackberry services unless the required monitoring system was put in place.According to officials in the Department of Telecom (DoT), Blackberry licensor Research-in-Motion (RIM) has sought time till April 18 to address issues raised by it relating to lawful interception of content sent through Blackberry device.
In a communication to the ministry of electronics and information technology, the messaging service said it was committed to protecting the privacy of its over 400 million users in India.
The RTI reply also stated that the interception of communication was being carried out in accordance with the Telegraph Act of 1885 and Telegraph (Amendment) Rule of 2007, a clause that finds a mention in the clarification issued by the government over the December 20 order.
Like China, India needs to encourage 'hacker clubs' in view of the challenges of virtual terrorism, says Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd)
Availability of Wi-Fi is also expected to provide local airlines an additional source of revenues amid stiff competition in the fast growing Indian aviation market.
ISI sought to intercept all communications passing through the country in 2013, the most significant expansion of its capacity to conduct mass surveillance to date and rivalling that of the United States and UK.
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