This is just a show of power by poorly informed people and a gimmick to distract people. Don’t read too much into this as the government caring about privacy.
The central government in India has no interest in the privacy of residents or citizens. This government argued in the Supreme Court that Indians do not have the right to privacy in the constitutional case about it a few years ago (fortunately, the Supreme Court disagreed and declared that privacy as a fundamental right is read in/through a few articles in the constitution). This government also sold vehicle registration and related data to several entities for money.
It has pushed the poorly designed and poorly implemented Aadhaar biometric identity for residents for almost everything, resulting in denial of service and also deaths (including starvation deaths of kids) due to people not getting their entitlements.
This government hurriedly got a couple of private companies (Make My Trip and 1mg) to develop a “contact tracing app” called Aarogya Setu for COVID-19 that requires 24/7 location access and Bluetooth to be on as well. The data from the apps is stored in central servers that these private companies have access to (a right to information request showed that the government isn’t really aware who engaged the companies or what the relationship with the government is). The application was declared to be open source but the sources have been old versions released a long time after, and have little bearing to what’s in the app stores.
India still doesn’t have a privacy law (personal data protection law). It has been in the works for a very long time, though broad reasoning in the draft gives the government the power to compel anyone to provide data.
The recent suspensions of prominent politicians in the U.S. by major tech companies has triggered the ruling party and the central government to worry about the “control” that these companies wield. The government is worried that its own propaganda troll armies (called “IT cell” locally) will start facing such issues.
The ministry that wrote to WhatsApp to not implement the new policy wouldn’t even know that WhatsApp has been sharing information with Facebook since 2016 (when it temporarily allowed some users to opt out, which most didn’t because they didn’t understand or care about the implications).
The government, faced with farmers agitating against recent laws and unwilling to accept anything but a repeal of those, seems to consider this as a time to gather some goodwill by making WhatsApp kneel to show who’s the boss in the country (both the carrot and the stick here are WhatsApp Pay’s sustainability and future).
P.S.: I haven’t listed sources for the claims made above, because all of them, except for the personal speculation about why the government is doing this, can be verified from authentic news sources online.
I always hear out this mythical IT army. But then you see more of anti govt especially anti modi comments everywhere. Like the one above and some other in this very list. If they exist it seems that are very bad or the opposition has very good IT army.
The BJP IT cell is bigger, better and more organized. It's India's state of the art. Dismissing the work being done here is a bit insulting to people working very hard to make it seem they do no work at all.
n for bjp accounts analyzed = 2,71,579 accounts
n for congress = 1,22,023 accounts.
Its fascinating stuff.
Also what you find is that internet forums usually get the people who are unhappy. The happy people aren't online. During the congress' tenure you had EVERYONE crying against the congress and everyone was a BJP supporter.
Today the roles have reversed. I bet it switches if the BJP drops from power.
If the roles reveres when power changes then the IT army is useless or non existenting. I can in my group the people supporting the govt have not changed when they were in opposition. You don't need an army when many are religious aligned.
Because this is hacker news, no Indian aunty uncle are here. To see it go to local twitter, fb, whatsapp local groups. That "IT army" can be seen everywhere and whoever says it's mythical clearly belongs to that army or don't live in India.
Ha so if someone disagree then they belong to that army. Very convenient indeed. What abt persons who keep saying there exist a army. Who are they? Well-wishers or the opposite army?
so it can either be that it is a fundamental right, in which case my rights have been trampled and there is no recourse or it is not a fundamental right, and i can go fuck myself for being born here because i have to suffer because the govt gets a boner talking about the land because it gets them votes.
search for "temporary". this is from the govt. What fearmongering is this?
students have been unable to attend schools since 5 august 2019 and you make 8 million humans suffer because of a boogeyman which doesnt exist?
hasn't the recent arnab leaks suggested that pulwama was a false flag along with arnab getting prior info about something like balakot? if this is true and factually it does look like it, so who is the boogeyman? if allegedly india did pulwama attack on its own people and blamed kashmiri militants for it and pakistan for aiding them which has led to the crackdown on militancy in kashmir and this supposedly "anti-national" elements which in reality don't exist so why are we suffering?
if modi wants to fuck himself over the blood of indians to stay in power, do it but why am i suffering?
The central government in India has no interest in the privacy of residents or citizens. This government argued in the Supreme Court that Indians do not have the right to privacy in the constitutional case about it a few years ago (fortunately, the Supreme Court disagreed and declared that privacy as a fundamental right is read in/through a few articles in the constitution). This government also sold vehicle registration and related data to several entities for money.
It has pushed the poorly designed and poorly implemented Aadhaar biometric identity for residents for almost everything, resulting in denial of service and also deaths (including starvation deaths of kids) due to people not getting their entitlements.
This government hurriedly got a couple of private companies (Make My Trip and 1mg) to develop a “contact tracing app” called Aarogya Setu for COVID-19 that requires 24/7 location access and Bluetooth to be on as well. The data from the apps is stored in central servers that these private companies have access to (a right to information request showed that the government isn’t really aware who engaged the companies or what the relationship with the government is). The application was declared to be open source but the sources have been old versions released a long time after, and have little bearing to what’s in the app stores.
India still doesn’t have a privacy law (personal data protection law). It has been in the works for a very long time, though broad reasoning in the draft gives the government the power to compel anyone to provide data.
The recent suspensions of prominent politicians in the U.S. by major tech companies has triggered the ruling party and the central government to worry about the “control” that these companies wield. The government is worried that its own propaganda troll armies (called “IT cell” locally) will start facing such issues.
The ministry that wrote to WhatsApp to not implement the new policy wouldn’t even know that WhatsApp has been sharing information with Facebook since 2016 (when it temporarily allowed some users to opt out, which most didn’t because they didn’t understand or care about the implications).
The government, faced with farmers agitating against recent laws and unwilling to accept anything but a repeal of those, seems to consider this as a time to gather some goodwill by making WhatsApp kneel to show who’s the boss in the country (both the carrot and the stick here are WhatsApp Pay’s sustainability and future).
P.S.: I haven’t listed sources for the claims made above, because all of them, except for the personal speculation about why the government is doing this, can be verified from authentic news sources online.