PrivacyIndia

Facebook has quietly expanded the availability of technology to automatically identify people in photos, renewing concerns about the privacy practices of the world's top social networking service. The feature, which Facebook automatically enabled for Facebook users, has been expanded from the US to "most countries", Facebook said on its official blog. Its "Tag Suggestions" feature uses facial recognition technology to speed up the process of labeling friends and acquaintances that appear in photos posted on Facebook.

Many Indians have raised data security and privacy issues over the ambitious UID number project. Now, even the US is concerned that the number could be issued to terrorists through fake ID

New Delhi: Indian citizens won't be shielded from prying by government agencies if the Union home ministry gets its way with the proposed privacy law. The ministry is insisting that intelligence and law enforcement agencies be kept out of the purview of the proposed Act, and allowed to continue monitoring the activities and carry out electronic surveillance of citizens, officials familiar with the situation said.

5 revelations from the Post's Monitoring America investigation

Empowering the investigating agencies, the Delhi High Court on Friday ruled that the fingerprints or specimen handwriting of an accused taken by an Investigating Officer during probe into a case was admissible as evidence even though a permission from a magistrate was not taken.

NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is looking into a complaint of misuse of personal data while issuing 'Aadhaar' numbers to individuals, its first case of breach of privacy.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) is set to become the first educational campus in the country to function through unique identification (UID) numbers. The UID-enabled campus will work towards making a cashless environment where all transactions from buying a notebook to a parantha in the canteen will be done through UID numbers and biometric (fingerprint) authentication.

NEW DELHI: The government has asked telecom operators and internet service providers (ISPs) to install indigenously developed monitoring equipment, in a move aimed at increasing surveillance of internet traffic. Post installation, the cost of which will have to be borne by operators, the equipment produced by state-owned research agency C-DoT will be manned by the government's security agencies.

MUMBAI: Teachers from schools and colleges in Thane are a worried lot. A Government Resolution (GR) dated April 18 states that all those teaching at government-aided schools and colleges need to get their Unique Identification (UID) card created before August 20, or they will not receive their salaries for the month. A notice has been pasted at the Thane Zilla Parishad Pay Unit and schools and college authorities have already informed their staff about it. "We have already informed our teachers to get their cards done as soon as possible. We haven't received any circular from the zilla parishad, but the notice has been put up at the bill submission centre and we are only following orders," said Harshida Someshwar, principal (junior college) of NKT College in Thane.

The ambitious project of one radio frequency identification (RFID) smart tag for all toll plazas across the country is likely to be tested on Delhi-Chandigarh stretch on NH-1 and this would be done on pilot basis. S The RFID based single tag for all tolled roads will be rolled out across the country by 2013. The RFID tag promises to improve vehicle clearance at toll plazas that often experience major traffic snarls since most of the vehicles use cash lanes. The new tags will come cheaper and are likely to shift most of the cash land users to tag users. "You have no option than to go for a technology that will improve traffic flow at toll plazas

The Income Tax department has decided to share it's PAN card database with the NATGRID -- a network aimed to initiate robust information sharing amongst law enforcement agencies to tackle terror threats at home and abroad. The department, after getting approval from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), has however, stopped short of sharing the 'sensitive' and '

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has sought powers to seek e-mail and call records from telecom service providers. This move, the market regulator hopes, will help it prevent black money entering the market as also keep an eye on insider trading. The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Namo Narain Meena, told the Lok Sabha in a written reply on August 12 (unstarred question no 2091) that SEBI also wants to be in the list of law enforcement/investigating agencies that includes the CBI and the IB. A formal request has been sent to the Department of Telecommunications.

"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. "

JALANDHAR: The students of Lovely Professional University, Punjab's first private university, will remain under the watchful eyes of their parents, even when they are studying in their classrooms or working in the laboratories. The university has installed 2,400 CCTV cameras in the classrooms and at other places on the campus. They university authorities are working to provide access to live footage of the CCTVs to the parents. Over 25,000 students, including 600 from foreign countries, are studying in the university.

MUMBAI: A local metropolitan magistrate's court on Tuesday restrained the media from either publishing or telecasting images related to the CCTV footage of the July 13 triple blasts. Magistrate N J Shende in his order observed, "If identity of the witnesses is disclosed to the public at large, it may hamper the smooth investigation of the case and may cause threat to such persons." "I am of the opinion, in view of the provisions enumerated under Section 44 (of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), in order to safeguard the life of the people and witnesses, the application is allowed," said Shende.

Chandigarh : "The State of Punjab is sitting over a list of around 1,600 proclaimed offenders, who are settled abroad in various countries including United States of America, United Kingdom and Canada", said Vikram Bajwa, President, Indian Overseas Congress, while addressing a press conference here today. Bajwa, along with Amarjit Kaur Bhinder, widow of bombed plane Kanishka's co-pilot SS Bhinder and his brother Kamaljit Singh Bhinder, addressed reporters in the wake of the forthcoming three-days Pravasi Divas, to be held in New Delhi from January 7. Bajwa said the Indian Overseas Congress has appealed to the Indian government and to the Government of Punjab as well, to upload the list of 1,600 proclaimed offenders on their websites, so that people who are settled abroad and are either falsely implicated in some cases or have been made POs by mistake, make seek legal remedies. "In absence of such information, what happens is that a NRI comes to India, and is detained at the airport. He receives the shock of his life, when he is told that he is a proclaimed offender in a case registered against him 10 years or 20 years ago. If the list is uploaded, at least the genuine people, who had to undergo such harassment, could seek legal remedies and come back to their motherland", Bajwa added.

"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. "

If Mr Ratan Tata, Ms Barkha Dutt, Mr Vir Singhvi and others who figured in Radia tapes and Ms Niira Radia herself feel defamed by these revelations, they can test their right to reputation by suing the publishers. Certainly they do not have Article 21 protection here. That right is available for victims of crime but not to criminals or their helpers.

Google Inc will not share the encryption keys of its email service with Indian security agencies as it would compromise the privacy rights of millions of Gmail users worldwide, a top company executive said. The Union home ministry, intelligence agencies and the telecom department are collectively exploring mandatory sharing of software by all communication service companies in India, a sensitive issue with global firms. Some firms have already been asked to comply and Canada's Research In Motion (RIM) is edging closer to January 31, 2011, deadline to hand over the encryption keys for its popular BlackBerry messaging services to intelligence agencies. "