Clandestine Lessons

Started in 2007, and officially known as US-984XN, we now come to know that the US government and the US companies, which leave no opportunity to teach India about citizens privacy and data protection, have been violating the rules of the game for so many years. Whistle blower Edward Snowden, who shocked the world with his revelations, also informs us that several leading technology companies are active participants in PRISM, the clandestine electronic surveillance program of the US government's National Security Agency.

Same surprise comes from hearing the names of those companies who have actively supported this government program. The names are all marquee-Microsoft, which joined the program in 2007, Yahoo (2008), Google, Facebook and Paltalk in 2009, Youtube (2010), AOL and Skype (2011), and Apple (2012). These companies are alleged to have allowed governments' security agencies to monitor phone, emails, and other communications for up to a week without obtaining a warrant. One always thought these companies would sacrifice everything to hold on to their values.

Am not sure why they call it PRISM,but it has thrown up a lot of questions. Very serious questions. The Indian IT and telecom industry, enterprise users as well as consumers, and the government need to take a deep and hard look at this program and chalk out their own path.

Keeping in mind that India is one of the biggest victims of terrorism, no security agencies, unless aided by the government, should be allowed to track information related to a company, whether foreign or Indian, that has business in India. Citizen's security is government responsibility, and whether the government has to snoop or snatch information to ensure security, it must be done, no matter how much hue and cry they raise.

Obviously, the guidelines of what kind of information is sharable, on whose authorization, etc, must be clearly worked out, with the active involvement of human rights, privacy, and data security experts. Lack of clear guidelines is one big reason, these companies are very uncomfortable in sharing information with Indian law enforcers. Perhaps an international level task force needs to be set up to work out some universal guidelines (that are acceptable to most nations) for this, so that a Google or a Microsoft have the same rules to follow.

Dataquest has also been writing about the need for promoting NIXI so that emails from one point in India to another point in India, go directly, rather than travel all over the world before coming back to India. There are thousands of instances where ministers, senior bureaucrats, judges, and defense personnel in India are using gmail, yahoo, and hotmail. One can only imagine how much strategically secret information of Indian governments, organizations, and people is the US sitting with.

Am not sure how many of are aware, but there is every possibility that there were governments from other nations also participating in the PRISM program. I think that is a good idea-terrorism should be everyone's worry. And if not just superman US, but other nations are also part of it, I am sure it will have higher effect and acceptability all across.