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"KOLKATA: The government has set an August 15 deadline for Canada's Research In Motion to provide the country's intelligence agencies with the interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular BlackBerry messenger and corporate email services in readable format. The ultimatum comes after recent talks between the government and RIM over a satisfactory interception solution proved inconclusive. Ongoing talks have failed to throw up a solution for interception of Blackberry messenger, chat and corporate email services. "Since RIM had missed its earlier May 15, 2011 deadline, the company has been told to come up with an interception solution by August 15, failing which the government may have to consider suspension of the service," a top official privy to the talks said."

The government will soon issue guidelines to address security concerns over 3G video calls. "3G issue is almost resolved. Soon you will have new guidelines," communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal said. Yesterday, home minister P Chidambaram had said that telecom service providers neeed to work out the modalities to provide interception facilities to the security agencies, and only after that can the 3G mobile services be rolled out. The department of telecommunications (DoT) had asked Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications to stop commercial launch of 3G mobile services, including video calling facility. The law enforcement agencies were not able to intercept the video calls on a real time basis. The contents of video calls were displayed only after five minutes. The operators had offered to provide an interception solution in the next six months.

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police is in the process of acquiring its own internet monitoring system, capable of directly accessing emails, chats and other web content posted by a suspect as well as tapping into net communications through mobile phones. The new interception system would be a parallel tapping mechanism, doing away with the need to approach an Internet service provider for access to specific email and other content, as is the case at present.

The Union government on Thursday permitted carriage of video calls on 3G mobile networks subject to an undertaking by the operators that they would provide interception capability by July 31. The Tatas and the RCom have already launched the 3G service across various circles, while others, including Bharti and Vodafone, are likely to start the service soon. Those offering the service were asked to stop the service as security agencies were not able to intercept the video calls on real-time basis.

NEW DELHI: Security agencies will soon be equipped to intercept emails and cyber chats in real time through the Centralised Monitoring System (CMS). The high-tech CMS, expected to be operational in a year, will be set up in 30 locations across the country, including Delhi and state capitals.

For those agitated over the big brother snooping on their lives, there is more bad news in store as India's external intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) has been notified by the UPA government as an "authorised agen-cy" to legally intercept phone calls, e-mails and all forms of data, voice and electronic communications with immediate effect. This is the first time in R&AW's history since its inception in 1967 that it has been allowed to snoop on Indian citizens in addition to its espionage activities abroad.

Amid a debate over phone-tapping and making conversations public without authorisation, the Telecom Ministry has proposed a penalty of up to Rs 2 crore on unlawfully tapping, as against the prevailing Rs 500. In a communique to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the Department of Telecom (DoT) has proposed a penalty between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 crore for breaches under different sections of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. For breaching Section 26 of the Act, which prohibits telegraph officers or other officials from making away with or altering, unlawfully intercepting or disclosing messages, or divulging the purport of signals, maximum penalty has been proposed.

Nineteen Eighty-Four may arrive sooner than you think. And, it will be the income-tax department that could take on the role of an Orwellian Big Brother should the government clear a far-reaching proposal to create a directorate of criminal investigation on the lines of a similar wing of the internal revenue service in the US. Under a blueprint currently being vetted by the I-T department, the directorate will house a centralised repository of data culled from telephone and Internet intercepts, banking and market transactions, cross-border deals and even your friendly neighbourhood ATM. To analyse this data and red-flag suspicious activities, the department will also acquire state-of-the-art forensic tools, including software to follow cash trails, track money laundering, conduct forensic audits, mine books and other texts, as well as plug into overseas servers and social networking sites.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and the Telecom Ministry on a petition for a direction to frame guidelines for telephone tapping without infringing on the right to privacy of citizens. A Bench of Justice G. S. Singhvi and Justice A. K. Ganguly issued notice on the public interest litigation petition filed by advocate Ravinder Kumar, seeking direction that interceptions which were purely private in nature should be kept out of the ambit of tapping. The Bench directed the matter to be tagged with the petition filed by industrialist Ratan Tata, which alleged that publication of his private conversations with corporate lobbyist Nira Radia tapes had infringed his right to privacy.

In the season of phonetaps, comes a startling admission by the Enforcement Directorate that while probing charges of money laundering, it intercepted phone conversations between members of the Singhania group, that runs Kanpur-based LML, and their lawyers. The tap was done just days before a court order was due in the case. The recorded conversations, said ED's counsel additional solicitor general Harin Rawal, raise questions regarding the Allahabad High Court order that stayed the ED probe. In their order, on June 9 last year, a vacation bench of Justice Rakesh Sharma and Justice Shyam Shankar Tiwari had called the ED's investigation "wholly without jurisdiction and contrary to the mandate of FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act)". In the first of his two opinions, on June 21, 2010 - which form the basis of the government's Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court last September challenging the HC stay - Rawal said: "To put it briefly, a couple of days prior to the interim order being rendered by the Honourable Division Bench, a conversation is recorded that would clearly be a reasonable basis to believe that the Honourable Division Bench has passed an interim order on considerations which are other than legal or judicial."

"Worried about the negative impact of the leakage of intercepted conversations, the Centre has begun working on codifying privacy laws in the country. The new law will frame rules for monitoring phone and the Internet and for providing a redressal mechanism in case of breach of privacy. "

NEW DELHI: Responding to concerns about breach of privacy due to intercepted phone calls being made public, government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it has taken steps to devise ways to destroy taped conversations that are private

As the government tries to put a legal framework in place for phone-tapping, a 126-year-old law has come to its rescue. Sources in the law ministry say, thanks to a provision in the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 that allows government in public interest to intercept messages, a new law may not be required at all. However, a directive - instead of a new law - may not take care of some of issues on tapping that have constantly been raised by experts. For instance, India is one the few countries, where tapping can be carried out without a court warrant.

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that its order gagging the media from publishing and telecasting the tapped conversation of former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh with top political leaders and Bollywood stars may be lifted. "We don't have to vacate the injunction as there is nothing surviving in your petition since it was done on forged documents," observed a Bench comprising Justice G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly. "Your incursion of privacy is established but your cure lies against Reliance which intercepted your calls. You have other remedy." "

"LONDON: Britain's internal spy agency MI5 tapped innocent people's phone numbers in secret surveillance mix-up, according to a government report. Officers from the Security Service -- mainly concerned with the UK's internal security -- and Serious Organised Crime Agency mistakenly tapped the wrong telephones in as many as 30 cases, says the report. However, on grounds of national security, none of the victims have been identified or told their phones were wrongly intercepted, the 'Daily Mail' reported. "

A government panel set up to examine security threats regarding 15 forms of communications, including Google's Gmail, Research in Motion's BlackBerry services, Nokia's email offerings and internet telephony among others, that cannot be tracked by law enforcement agencies here, has recommended that no service be banned purely on the grounds that it cannot be monitored. It has recommended that in the short term, India can force operators who offer such services to either locate their servers in the country or share encryption keys with security agencies and assist security agencies here in monitoring these services.