Hand Me the Paper #6
A newsletter that chomps through PDFs and brings you the hottest content from the very niche world of tech-academia. Bite-sized.
I do a fair bit of reading. I read 52 books last year and am doing it again this year.
Starting this year, I also plan on reading more academic papers around tech and policy. Recording my readings and (sometimes, observations + annotated copies on this newsletter). Please do recommend papers and share your insights!
What I Read This Week:
Cross-Border Data Access for Law Enforcement: What Are India’s Strategic Options? by Smriti Parsheera and Prateek Jha for Carnegie India. [Link]
Here is a link to the document with my comments in the margins. [Link]
What You Should Know:
The Government needs access to electronic evidence and personal data for a lot of criminal investigations. The mechanism to enable that access is broken.
The police rely on three instruments to access data: Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the IT Act (2000), and the Telegraph Act (1885). All of these lack oversight and safeguards.
The Union government alone issued between 7500-9000 telephone interception orders monthly (not counting requests made to social media companies or internet service providers).
Unauthorised access is common. In 2013, we found out that 1371 phones were tapped in Himachal Pradesh, of which only 171 were authorised.
What needs fixing:
We need amendments (and new laws) to have requirements of lawful purpose, proportionality, and safeguards.
Law enforcement agencies need to be efficient (and accountable) when they are accessing this data. For example, they should collect the least amount of personal data necessary and destroy it once it has served its purpose.
India needs to form/be part of an international system that makes data access easier and fair. Right now, we seem to be missing the bus.
Data Sufficiency (from the source):
A detailed table that looks at how current international agreements that enable data sharing are different. TL;DR, there are a few models that make direct access to data easy and there are trade-offs in scope and due process.
What I Have Been Reading:
Music to My Ears:
These two episodes featuring Rahul Matthan talking about privacy and how it has evolved over the years in an Indian context. Rahul is India’s leading thinker when it comes to privacy. Fortunately for us, he is also very good at making decades of legal literature accessible to the average person.