The proposed law seeks bars on storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual. It, however, provides for exemptions for "reasonable purposes" such as "prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud, whistle-blowing, merger and acquisitions, network and information security, credit scoring, recovery of debt, processing of publicly available personal data and the operation of search engines".
The parliamentary committee on IT has recently been in the news for asking global representatives of Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to present their views on misuse of social media platforms and its impact on citizens.
The Congress claimed that Facebook has different rules for different countries and "that is not acceptable".
While the government's recent moves may have been necessary in some cases, these would have an adverse impact on the investment cycles of some of these companies. The marquee global names are suddenly finding themselves out of favour as local flavour is gaining currency in the run up to 2019 elections.
Digital campaigns compared to billboards or even print ads not only have the power to reach wider audiences but also reduce the campaign costs. The focus on social media by political parties at election time, therefore, is hardly misplaced.
For FY16, MTNL's standalone net loss was over Rs 2,000 crore.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
It emerges that not only does the CIDR project fails the test of fairness, justness and reasonableness besides the test of not being fanciful, oppressive or arbitrary; it also fails the test of Arthashastra, Hadith and the Bible.
Biometric authentication is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
'Biometric Aadhaar-based surveillance is not only about violation of privacy, but also about the treasure hunt for unprecedented financial surveillance and economic intelligence in the economic history of mankind,' asks Gopal Krishna.
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