PrivacyIndia

"Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will soon establish data entry centres in all villages to collect details of citizens so that it can issue Aadhar cards with unique identification number. Officials of UIDAI and the Planning Commission conducted a review meeting in the Zilla Parishad conference hall over the progress of the Aadhar card programme in the district. They have urged public representatives including ZPTC and MPTC members to create awareness among the public over Aadhar cards which would provide unique identification number to every citizen of the country. UIDAI director Mr. Ravindra said applications for the cards would be available at all the ration shops and AP Online centres. According to him, people above 5 years of age were eligible to get the cards. "The scheme is very important for the downtrodden sections as Aadhar cards will enable them to get many benefits from the government," he said. "Corrections in the existing ration cards will also be possible with the entry of new data which is essential for issuing Aadhar cards," he added."

NEW DELHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) wants all mobile phone companies to store call data records, or details of all phone calls made by their customers, for a period of five years-a move that is set to be vehemently opposed by companies citing operational costs. At present, telcos store call records only for six months. This marks the second time in the recent months that the IB has asked the telecom ministry to increase the tenure of storing communication details of customers.

In a setback to veteran Congress leader and former governor of Andhra Pradesh N D Tiwari, the Supreme Court on Monday held that he has to undergo DNA test in a paternity case. However, it maintained that the test findings would not be made public until it is required to do so. A Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha refused to stay the Delhi High Court order asking the 85-year-old leader to undergo DNA test and directed him to suggest by Friday the procedure preferred by him for the DNA test. Tiwari who has held the post of chief minister of undivided Uttar Pradesh and later of Uttarakhand contended that it would be a violation of his Right to Privacy and would cause him public humiliation if he is directed to undergo the DNA test.

KOLKATA: The Indian government will shortly impose hefty penalties on business process outsourcing (BPO) firms that compromise on the data privacy of individual customers. It is likely to tighten the provisions linked to data privacy and data protection in the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, and is working closely with the US to emulate existing global best practices in the realm of data security and privacy, a senior official in the communications ministry told ET. There is a view in sections of the government that the present IT Act, 2000, does not adequately address data privacy concerns of individuals . And hence the need for more stringent legislation by way of penal provisions to effectively deal with companies passing on sensitive personal in-formation of individuals to third-parties without prior consent.

A US judge ordered Twitter to hand over data of three users in contact with the controversial website WikiLeaks, rejecting arguments the move violated freedom of speech and privacy. President Barack Obama's administration obtained a court order last year seeking information from the Twitter accounts as it considers action against WikiLeaks, which has released a flood of secret diplomatic documents. One of the accounts belongs to an Icelandic lawmaker, Birgitta Jonsdottir. Iceland's Foreign Ministry in January summoned the US ambassador to express "serious concern" about the Twitter order. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan, based in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, rejected the argument made by the three Twitter users' that the order would have a "chilling effect" on freedom of speech. Read more: http://www.zeenews.com/news692795.html#ixzz1Gx5lH0D1

The Civial Aviation Ministry has set up a committee for assessment of body scanners from the point of view of effectiveness, privacy and health, government said today. Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi told the Lok Sabha that the government has not installed non-intrusive body scanners so far and security agencies are carrying out an assessment of body scanners. "The government has not installed non-intrusive body scanner. However, assessment of the body scanners from security point of view is being carried out by security agencies," he said in a written reply.

Planning to spend the summer at a favourite getaway? Make sure you plan your travel on your own as the Income Tax (I-T) department is keeping an eye on how much you are spending. About two months after a notice by the department asking all travel agents to provide ample details of passengers planning trips worth Rs 1 lakh or more, tour operators have been busy collecting the data of passengers, who have planned a holiday since the last financial year or are making bookings now. However, operators have now decided to appeal to the department to revoke the notice, as the data collection is labour intensive, requires a lot of time, and is chasing customers away from them. In short, they claim it is bad for business.

Press Council of India (PCI) has issued revised guidelines for print and electronic media while reporting on HIV/AIDS. These guidelines, formulated in collaboration with UNAIDS and field activists, including those of Population Foundation of India and Centre for Advocacy and Research, would also enable health service providers and affected persons to interact with media persons reporting on the issue, a Haryana government spokesperson said here today.

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.

In a six-month period - from August 31, 2009, to February 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse - an unprecedented one, privacy experts say - of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones. Unlike many online services and websites that must send "cookies" to a user's computer to try to link its traffic to a specific person, cellphone companies simply have to sit back and hit "record"

Delhi High Court today issued a notice to a film producer on a plea from corporate lobbyist Niira Radia against the movie's release on the ground that it depicts her private life in a "scandalous" manner. Kush Bhargava, a Lucknow-based Congress leader, is the producer of Monica - The Politics of Murder, which stars Ashutosh Rana and includes Yashpal Sharma and Kittu Gidwani in the cast. It is scheduled to be released tomorrow.

In a move that could become controversial and be seen as an invasion of privacy, Haryana's health department has started equipping all community health centres across the state with a "Mother and Child Tracking" system that will register and track all expectant mothers for the duration of their pregnancies. Under this plan it will be mandatory for all village-based health workers and anganwadi staff to register every woman who becomes pregnant, after which the software-driven tracking system will monitor their status until the birth of a child. The tracker will then follow each mother and child through the process of inoculation.

"t whereas families with Antodaya cards get 35 kg per month, irrespective of the size of the family. The above figure of beneficiaries has been arrived at after weeding out bogus ration cards in a recent drive. "It's a difficult and time consuming process as removing the white card of a genuine beneficiary will undermine the very purpose of the scheme," said Mr B. Harikrishna, deputy director of the civil supplies department. The government is also not waiting to link Aadhaar to all the schemes until the entire population is enrolled. "We are planning to take it up fair price shop-wise. We are identifying beneficiaries yet to be enrolled under every fair price shop and mobilising them to get themselves enrolled," he maintained. By doin"

In a bid to check smuggling by air passengers of satellite phones, which could be a potential weapon for terrorist activities, the government has made it mandatory for inbound travellers to declare them. A new column has been inserted in the immigration or arrival card. The changes have been implemented following "increasing imports of satellite phones in passenger baggage" without obtaining authorisation, an official communication said. "The CBEC desires that the Commissioners in-charge of International Airports ensure that instructions are complied with and correct forms are used by the arriving passengers," a Central Board of Excise and Customs circular said.

"Compliance with FATCA's due diligence, verification and annual reporting may result in conflicts with local privacy laws and regulations of a country."

Social-networking sites such as Facebook, or search engines such as Google, may face court action if they fail to obey planned EU data privacy rules, European Union justice chief Viviane Reding has said. Reding will propose an overhaul of the EU's 16-year-old laws on data protection in the coming months to enforce more safeguards on how personal information is used.

In an attempt to end humiliation of rape victims, the Union Health Ministry has decided to make the "finger test" or the per vaginal (PV) test optional. Till now, rape victims were being subjected to forensic examinations, including the degrading "finger test". The ministry has now made it clear that the PV test would be conducted only "if medically indicated" and with the "consent of the victim". In a letter to all central government hospitals, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has asked them to follow the new format without any delay. "The word finger testing sounds rude and is not used in the format now. The PV examination will be done only if the doctor feels that it is necessary and that too with the consent of the victim," said a senior official in the ministry. Health Ministry officials along with various experts, including gynaecologists, representatives from the Law and Justice department and forensic experts finalised the format last month. While the format has been simplified, certain descriptions like behavioural symptoms (shame, grief and depression), physical symptoms (pain and discomfort while walking), family history (father being alcoholic, family discord), parental/caretaker history (negligible parental support) have all been removed.

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 Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has set an ambitious target of allotting UID numbers to two crore persons in Maharashtra by March 31. The State's population numbers over 10 crore. Early this week, the actual process of UID enrolment across the State has commenced. This process is being done by 15 companies which include IT majors such as Wipro and Spanco. State Bank of India, Union Bank, Indian Bank, and Bank of Maharashtra, have also tied up with UIDAI for issuing unique identity (UID) numbers. A UIDAI official on condition of anonymity told Business Line "For companies, the main driver for issuing maximum number of valid UIDs is a payment of Rs 50, which they will receive for every successful enrolment. Banks, through their UID drive, will get new customers whom they can sell financial products to, he said. UIDAI has also devised a system of incentives where if a company/bank manages to achieve 80 per cent of its target then it will receive 20 per cent additional payment. If the company/bank manages a 50 per cent target then they will get an additional 4 per cent payment.

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.