In order to further safeguard national
security, Government of India has launched
a wide-ranging surveillance program that
will allow security agencies and income tax
officials to tap into e-mails and phone calls
without oversight by courts or parliament
(According to a report by Reuters).
The
government introduced Central Monitoring
System (CMS) in the parliament in 2011 that
will facilitate and prevent misuse of lawful
interception facility, however very little was
said then about how it will work or how it
will ensure that the system is not abused. It
was finally in April this year, that
government started to quietly roll out the
CMS state by state, according to government
officials. As a result, state bodies like the
National Investigation Agency will now be
free to monitor any of India’s 900 million
landline and mobile phone subscribers and
120 million Internet users.
According to the officials involved in setting
up the new surveillance programme, human
rights activists and cyber experts, the new
system will also allow the government to
read text messages, monitor conversations
and posts on Social networking sites like
Facebook, LinkedIn or twitter and track
searches on Google. Moreover, the agencies
will no longer need to seek a court order
and depend on service providers to
intercept the user data.
Nine government agencies will be
authorised to make intercept requests,
including the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI), India’s elite policy agency, the
Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic spy
agency, and the income tax department.
Comments from the service providers –
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular
and others on this new surveillance
program are still awaited.
security, Government of India has launched
a wide-ranging surveillance program that
will allow security agencies and income tax
officials to tap into e-mails and phone calls
without oversight by courts or parliament
(According to a report by Reuters).
The
government introduced Central Monitoring
System (CMS) in the parliament in 2011 that
will facilitate and prevent misuse of lawful
interception facility, however very little was
said then about how it will work or how it
will ensure that the system is not abused. It
was finally in April this year, that
government started to quietly roll out the
CMS state by state, according to government
officials. As a result, state bodies like the
National Investigation Agency will now be
free to monitor any of India’s 900 million
landline and mobile phone subscribers and
120 million Internet users.
According to the officials involved in setting
up the new surveillance programme, human
rights activists and cyber experts, the new
system will also allow the government to
read text messages, monitor conversations
and posts on Social networking sites like
Facebook, LinkedIn or twitter and track
searches on Google. Moreover, the agencies
will no longer need to seek a court order
and depend on service providers to
intercept the user data.
Nine government agencies will be
authorised to make intercept requests,
including the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI), India’s elite policy agency, the
Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic spy
agency, and the income tax department.
Comments from the service providers –
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular
and others on this new surveillance
program are still awaited.