The tussle between government agencies’ need for a better, faster and real-time interception, surveillance and monitoring mechanism through the Central Monitoring System (CMS), on the one hand, and demands by privacy, civil rights and free speech activists, for ensuring higher privacy for citizens in view of CMS, on the other, is gaining ground. India today has nearly 900 million mobile subscribers, 160 million Internet users and close to 85 million citizens on social media. Internet and social media users are expected to double by 2015.

The discussions have been coloured by the startling revelation relating to the PRISM project which, if true, may have meant that the privacy of millions of Indian Internet users could have been compromised, in varying degrees.

Meanwhile, closer home, the CMS project, aimed at improving the capability of security agencies to protect national security and fight crime, including terrorism, has also raised serious privacy issues.

Shrouded in Secrecy

First, very little real information is available about the CMS working procedure, technical capabilities and privacy safeguards in the public domain. While governments worldwide remain reluctant to share information about their surveillance and monitoring systems, successive governments in India have fared no better.

Key unanswered issues include the uncontrolled use of technical capability and intrusive technologies, which are capable of “instant, real time and deep search” surveillance. There has been no debate in Parliament or outside about the level of surveillance citizens should be put through or whether there should be red lines when using intrusive surveillance mechanisms, even when technology presents an option.

Further, there is no information about whether there are additional safeguards against interception by political authorities, of potential “targets” carrying out sensitive assignments such as judges, opposition leaders, editors, regulators, advocates, vigilance officials, corporate CEOs, etc. Should there be? How far should the spy agencies take lethal technological capability against their own citizens? Can all technological prowesses be used against any category of citizen, regardless of the level of security clearance they are entitled to? Who decides the correctness and propriety of such authorisations, especially since these are approved by bureaucrats who, in turn, report to political authorities?

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Promotion and Protection of Right to Freedom, in his report of April 17, 2013, has concluded that apart from increasing public awareness of threats to privacy, States must “regulate the commercialization of surveillance technology”.