Internet under watch ; New rules allow the Government to snoop on Internet users in the garb of national security.

The Internet's Big Brother has arrived, armed with leg chains anda whip. The draft rules to give effect to the Information Technology(Amendment) Act 2008, notified in April 2011, are draconian -guaranteed to make things difficult for service providers and users.The amended Act itself was a knee-jerk reaction, meant to"safeguard" India's interests in the wake of the November 2008attacks on Mumbai. Terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, intelligencereports suggested, used the Net to plan a substantial part of theattacks.

From content generators, cyber cafes and wi-fi spots to endusers, the new rules border on the absurd, the monitoring andimplementation of which will be impossible, say experts. In acountry with 100 million users and a rapidly expanding informationtechnology sector, the move has raised hackles and eyebrows.

The Information Technology Act, though well-intentioned hassomewhere along the way become a reflection of a paranoidgovernment. Ostensibly, the law is meant to safeguard its citizensand their privacy, but the new rules notified last month are, atbest, half-baked notions of how the Internet should be policed.Under the garb of national security the government seems to haveoverplayed its hand. The rules do nothing more than legalise thegovernment's snooping by imposing severe restrictions on the abilityof information providers to distribute content that may be contraryto the establishment's views.

Netizens fear that with the government arming itself with a killswitch to shut down the Internet during "national emergencies",there is little room to manoeuvre. Analysing the new rules,information technology experts say that their concerns are centredon the vagueness of provisions, which will give the government thepower to choke the flow of information to maintain "public order" orprotect the "integrity" of India. In the recent civil uprisings inEgypt and Libya, governments couldn't block websites and socialnetworking sites fast enough.

Categories such as "threatens friendly relations with foreignstates" or "is insulting any other nation" have now become part ofthe rule book and clearly hand power to the government to come downheavily under vague circumstances. Digital media analyst NikhilPahwa says, "The danger lies in implementation of these rules and inthe exception rather than rule. My concern is that if tomorrow asite like WikiLeaks is perceived as impacting India's relations withother countries, will a ban be put in place?"

The new rules also try and redefine the person generating webcontent. The "intermediary", which includes cyber cafe owners, webhosts and service providers, will now be responsible for what theirusers choose to consume online. The rule also makes it mandatory forthese individuals to provide personal details about users if soughtby any government agency. This would appear to be a provision toforce service providers to reveal customers' confidential details ifit is felt that a crime has been committed. The new rules requireintermediaries to stop users from putting out information that is"grossly harmful", "harassing" or "blasphemous". But who decideswhat is grossly harmful and what constitutes blasphemy?

You might have to provide a photo and identity proof even if youwant to surf YouTube on your smartphone. According to the new rules,any facility from where access to the Internet is offered by anyperson in the ordinary course of business to the members of thepublic is a cyber cafe. This would include facilities at airports,restaurants, cafes or conferences. These cyber cafes will not onlyhave to register with an agency, they will also need to maintaindetailed logs of each user, what they did and whether they didanything illegal.

How will the owner know what a user of a wi-fi connection isdoing on his phone or laptop is questionable. It doesn't end here.Each such caf will have to submit the logs to the agency.

Shamnad Basheer, professor of law at National University ofJuridical Sciences, Kolkata, says, "It will be a huge enforcementnightmare. Legal norms are different from social norms. If peoplethink this is ridiculous, they won't conform. This is an example ofsuboptimal policy and bad use of resources. Given the level ofintelligent usage of the Internet and wireless networks, it will benext to impossible to find out who did what. Cost-benefit analysiswill be very absurd. It has to be more intelligent than this."

The other big concern is that anyone can complain about contentand use this rule to settle personal scores. Shubho Ray, presidentof the Internet and Mobile Association of India, says, "Theabsurdity of some of these rules lies in the fact that it is leadingto anarchy. Anyone who feels aggrieved can take down anything fromany site-badmouthing the boss on a social networking site may belibellous; praising a lady may be obscene or criticising a politicalleader can be disparaging."

There are no provisions for review or appeal, no systems of priorjudicial permission or subsequent supervision. The new rules nowstretch to make all platforms, even search engines, liable for usercontent. Within 36 hours of being informed, such offending materialwill have to be removed. Ray adds, "This rule gives power to anyaffected party to ask an intermediary to take down any content thatis offending to him/her, bypassing the courts."

Basheer raises another point about how the government is lookingat cyber security the wrong way. "Put the onus on technology thatcan intercept and investment in technology. You won't even have tointerfere at the level of small businesses and liberty of people.The government needs to develop software continuously. Security(cyber) will be never be a static issue. Strengthen your ownprotection. That is the best defence."