After BlackBerry, govt to snoop on WWW
NEW DELHI: After BlackBerry, the government is now targeting internet traffic in the country, to enable it to monitor completely all international and domestic data.
The trigger is the rapidly escalating threat posed by terrorist and criminal elements using data communication, which has brought into sharp focus BlackBerry services, Skype and Googlemail over the last few weeks.
According to department of telecom (DoT) sources, an inter-ministerial group meeting has been called on August 20 and will be attended by senior officials from DRDO, the Cabinet secretariat, security agencies, National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and DoT, to review the internet monitoring systems deployed nationwide by C-DOT.
It seems there are new requests from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) for internet monitoring systems.
Internet traffic in India is monitored at international internet gateways using C-DOT systems. Unlike mobile voice and data traffic, the government does not issue specific warrants for intercepting and monitoring messages on specific targets in case of internet services. The government has access to these through C-DOT-deployed systems and can use them to access messages based on the needs of security agencies.
Internet traffic monitoring also raises some serious issues of consumer privacy, because unlike mobile telephones, the operator has no role in carrying out specific interceptions.
The government will need to get a clear policy mandate both with respect to increasing its surveillance and monitoring of internet traffic on one hand and responding to privacy questions on another.
After BlackBerry, govt to snoop on WWW - India - The Times of India
NEW DELHI: After BlackBerry, the government is now targeting internet traffic in the country, to enable it to monitor completely all international and domestic data.
The trigger is the rapidly escalating threat posed by terrorist and criminal elements using data communication, which has brought into sharp focus BlackBerry services, Skype and Googlemail over the last few weeks.
According to department of telecom (DoT) sources, an inter-ministerial group meeting has been called on August 20 and will be attended by senior officials from DRDO, the Cabinet secretariat, security agencies, National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and DoT, to review the internet monitoring systems deployed nationwide by C-DOT.
It seems there are new requests from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) for internet monitoring systems.
Internet traffic in India is monitored at international internet gateways using C-DOT systems. Unlike mobile voice and data traffic, the government does not issue specific warrants for intercepting and monitoring messages on specific targets in case of internet services. The government has access to these through C-DOT-deployed systems and can use them to access messages based on the needs of security agencies.
Internet traffic monitoring also raises some serious issues of consumer privacy, because unlike mobile telephones, the operator has no role in carrying out specific interceptions.
The government will need to get a clear policy mandate both with respect to increasing its surveillance and monitoring of internet traffic on one hand and responding to privacy questions on another.
After BlackBerry, govt to snoop on WWW - India - The Times of India
regulating it is a strict no-no..
Security is paramount to our interests.
