Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights body, has questioned the Indian government’s move to ban 59 Chinese applications, stating that any opaqueness in blocking rules affects the citizens’ digital rights.
The foundation, whose goal is to ensure that citizens can use the internet with guarantees ensured by the constitution, also filed a Right To Information in order to seek reasons behind the ban.
“Such secrecy and opacity in the Blocking Rules is a systemic issue and affects the digital rights of every citizen. We need the govt to cease such opaque blocking and introduce regulatory reforms to increase the transparency and accountability of the govt authorities involved,” said the advisory body.
Take a look at the tweets:
On 29.7.2020, we received the following reply from them. As can be seen from their reply, they have failed to answer our queries and make the relevant information available to us.
2/n pic.twitter.com/EaQL0rdQ5m— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 30, 2020
…and WeTransfer.
4/n https://t.co/9OuUdiWEH4— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 30, 2020
Such secrecy and opacity in the Blocking Rules is a systemic issue and affects the digital rights of every citizen. We need the govt to cease such opaque blocking and introduce regulatory reforms to increase the transparency and accountability of the govt authorities involved
6/n— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 30, 2020
The government, in its response, stated the information sought by the applicant is “restricted and prohibited” under section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act, 2005. Accordingly, it is “not permissible” for this CPIO (Central Public Information Officer) to disclose the same.
The government also detailed out various authorities that looked into the banning of the apps but didn’t divulge details of the grounds on which the apps were banned. The government last week also banned 47 clones of the 59 Chinese mobile apps that India had banned last month, on grounds of “national security and privacy concerns.”
Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority have parent Chinese companies ANI reported.