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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.

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.

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.

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, obtained phone records of a whistleblower professor's conversations with journalists without his consent or the sanction of a court or investigative agencies, to charge the faculty member with violating service rules. IIT Kharagpur obtained call details of conversations between computer science professor Rajeev Kumar and journalists from two leading English dailies, drawing allegations of violation of both law and privacy. Other than a customer, only government probe agencies and courts - and not employers in general - can demand call details or records from telecom service providers in India. Service providers also swear to ensure customer privacy in their license agreement with the government.

The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday lifted its gag order on the media that restrained the latter from broadcasting and publishing former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's taped conversations with top politicians and Bollywood stars. File photo of Amar Singh (Pic: BCCL) A two-judge bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly dismissed Amar Singh's petition to prevent the broadcasting and publishing of his taped conversations, and vacated its interim order passed on February 27, 2006 restraining the media from making contents of the conversation public.

"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. "

"Scotland Yard on Thursday night admitted that almost 4,000 people may have had their phones hacked by the News of the World's private investigator, placing further strain on the testimony of senior officers to Parliament that there were only a handful of victims. In a statement, deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, indicated that the new investigation into the illegal eavesdropping of mobile phone messages was struggling to deal with the mass of evidence of wrongdoing contained in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks."

"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. "

"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."