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With allegations of misuse as well as fears of breach of privacy mounting, authorities are working to ban phone tapping in cases of tax evasion, except when the matter may have a bearing on national security. Even in cases concerning national security, only Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) or Enforcement Directorate (ED) will do phone-tapping after additional scrutiny of its request is done in consultation with both home and finance ministries. CBDT, another agency under the finance ministry which is empowered to tap phones, is being taken off the list.

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.

Kolkata The recent order by the Criminal Investigation Department to its units to stop phone tapping as part of monitoring of crimes has caused a concern among a section of the CID investigators. It may be noted that when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took over the office, she had said that police tapped phones indiscriminately and that it had to stop. The CID order is seen as a follow up action, sources said.

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.

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.

"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. "

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.

Law enforcement agencies can tap anyone's phone for security/operational reasons for 72 hours even without getting permission from the Union home secretary or principal secretary (home) of states. An inspector general-rank officer can give orders to do so. But if they don't get a nod from the top on the fourth day, they will have to destroy the call records within 48 hours of getting the response from the designated authority.

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."

Industrialist Ratan Tata on Thursday accused the government of adopting a "lackadaisical" manner in protecting the right to privacy, citing his case as an apt example. "Today my concern is that government is not giving serious consideration and attention to the issue. There may be other CDs which can be leaked and brought into public domain. There is a lackadaisical approach on the part of the government," senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Tata in the Supreme Court, contended. Tata's concerns prompted the Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly to remark that though the government " have the right to tap but they also have the duty to protect it and ensure that it is not leaked". "They have to safeguard it (the tapes) effectively. In the fast-changing time and developing technology, privacy is virtually disappearing and is being diluted," the court observed.

The Supreme Court today said it will hold final hearing on a day-to-day basis from April 19 on Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata's plea to bar online portals and electronic media from airing his phone conversation with corporate lobbyist Nira Radia tapped by the income tax department. A bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly will examine the issues raised by Tata including the questions of right to privacy and right to freedom of speech and expression as envisaged under the Constitution.

"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." "

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) said today the network data analysis system (NDAS) was a tool to gain lawful access only to its consumer services including BlackBerry Messenger, and does not enable access to highly secure corporate emails on its devices. RIM, in a statement, reiterated that there would be no change to its security model for corporate emails, clarifying after a newspaper earlier reported RIM had offered to install the tool at its premises in India to help tap data. RIM has said it was cooperating with the Indian government and was enabling mobile carriers to lawfully access data on BlackBerry Messenger. India had threatened to shut off BlackBerry Messenger and corporate email services unless it gains access to them, in a campaign driven by fears that unmonitored communication puts the country's security at risk.

o not be surprised if you are asked to furnish information under more than eight mandatory heads - demographic and biometric - when you go for registration under the Unique Identification (UID) number project in Himachal Pradesh. The state has tapped the UID project at its initial stage and combined it with its own food and civil supplies department project aimed for better delivery of services in future. Along with the eight mandatory questions under the UID project - name, residence, date of birth, photo, all 10 finger prints and iris image - the citizens will now also be asked to provide information about their status on ration cards, PAN cards, LPG connection and bank accounts. This additional information would be used exclusively by the state government for future planning and eliminating duplication in delivery of services by the food and civil supplies and consumer affairs department. The department is the nodal agency for monitoring the UID project in Himachal.

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

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a writ petition for a direction to the Centre to release all 5,800 conversations of Niira Radia tapped by government agencies. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.S. Nijjar was hearing the petition filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and posted the matter for further hearing on February 2, along with the petition filed by industrialist Ratan Tata on the same issue. The CPIL also wanted the court "to frame guidelines that protect public whistle-blowers." The petitioner said: "Public interest requires that the conversations in the Radia tapes be brought into the public domain so that the citizens' right to know is effectuated by informing them how every aspect of their government as well as institutions such as the media, are being subverted.

"The Supreme Court will take up on Tuesday Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata's plea on the right to privacy after the leakage of his telephonic conversations with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia tapped by the Income Tax Department. A bench headed by Justices G S Singhvi will examine the issues raised by Tata, including the questions of right to privacy and right to freedom of speech and expression as envisaged under the Constitution. Tata, in his petition, has said that several parts of the conversations were purely private in nature which were spoken casually and could not be taken seriously. He pleaded the online portals and the news media should be restrained from making his conversations public. "