"Subject to Surveillance"

Indian Govt shuts down the internet (a bit) to stop Farmer Protests

India: Mobile internet access has been shut down in the Indian state of Haryana, in what’s being regarded as an attempt to hinder protests by farmers against the national government of India, against deregulation that they argue will see them lose out to large corporations. The government of Harayana, which borders the Indian capital of New Delhi, had originally shut down mobile internet in most of its districts until this past Saturday (January 30th), but reports from journalists appear to indicate that the shutdown has been extended until 5pm on February 1st (Monday).

As written about in earlier newsletters, the Indian government appears to be keen on using internet shutdowns to quell dissent, in addition to physically going after journalists, bloggers et al when it comes to Kashmir etc. That an Indian state that is quite close to the country’s capital is resorting to shutting down a means of peaceful coordination and information-sharing speaks to how it perceives the farmer protests - especially as those involved have been able to get their message out via social media.

As Apar Gupta of India’s Internet Freedom Foundation tweeted,

High speed internet serves as an important tool for accountability & digital assembly. Quite often in peaceful protest it is one of the few ways how safety & documenting excessive physical force. This may not suit state or political goals but is vital for democracy.

Internet shutdowns are not a solution to disinformation or the breach of law and order. The first requires a healthy media ecology which is severely compromised even in traditional TV broadcast and the later better policing and greater trust in government.

A Guide to Internet Shutdowns in India

Sukhnidh Kaur, a Digital Literacy Fellow at IFF, has put together a brilliant explainer in regards to internet shutdowns in India, Indian-administered Kashmir etc, that looks at the legal and accountability issues linked to the Indian government’s favourite tool of suppression and censorship, and which has made it the “internet shutdown capital of the world.”

Is the PK Government actually “ready” for input on its Social Media Rules?

Pakistan: The Government of Pakistan is reportedly “ready” to review its controversial “Removal and Blocking of Online Content Rules”, introduced in 2020 and protested by digital rights activists in Pakistan and overseas, Pakistani internet service providers, and the Asia Internet Coalition – compromised of tech powerhouses that include, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, Google etc – amongst several others.

The government has been found itself in court more than once over the past year regarding the Rules (also referred to colloquially as Social Media Rules). It has has been condemned not just for incorporating overly broad language, but for also reportedly resisting constructive input from civil society and the tech industry – to the point that the aforementioned Asia Internet Coalition put out a public statement calling out the government.

This is all in the past, apparently, as the Attorney General of Pakistan, Khalid Jawed Khan, told the Islamabad High Court on January 25th that "a review will be held after consultation with [relevant] stakeholders and petitioners." The remarks by the Attorney General were made to the IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, who was hearing a petition that had been filed by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists in December 2020 and had been adjourned until this date, along with the cases of the Awami Workers Party and senior freelance journalist Ms. Amber Rahim Shamshi.

According to Dawn News, CJ Minallah raised his concerns (echoing ones he raised in the past in regards to the Social Media Rules) that “important stakeholders” had not been consulted, and that the Rules involved articles of the Pakistani Constitution that were “related to fundamental rights” - Article 19 (The Right to Freedom of Speech) and Article 19-A (Right to Information).

The AGP attempted to assure the court that the stakeholders in question would be consulted, and the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority did not plan or want a “complete restriction” (of social media platforms), and said that the government did not feel that "closing any [social media] platform” was a solution.

*Cue digital rights/civil liberties activists and the tech industry in Pakistan looking at the government:*

The Government of Pakistan and departments such as the PTA have not endeared themselves to rights activists and the the tech industry in the past, so there is justified scepticism. As the tweet above by Al Jazeera journalist Asad Hashim points out, this is not the first time that the Government of Pakistan has ostensibly and publicly requested civil society/tech sector feedback, only to ignore it almost entirely.

Prior to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act being passed in 2016, digital rights and civil liberty organisations found that their contributions - as well as that of other rights groups in Pakistan and overseas - to the consultative process were essentially dismissed, resulting in the draconian PECA today.

Though the ruling party has since changed, the suspicion and scepticism on the part of rights activists and the tech industry in Pakistan and overseas towards the Pakistani government remains.

India’s IFF seeks a court stay against WhatsApp

India: As mentioned last week, Facebook and WhatsApp found themselves in hot water over changes to the latter’s privacy and user policies- changes that will not let users opt-out of sharing data with Facebook come May 15th (when said policies come into force). In addition to Facebook/WhatsApp executives being hauled before the Indian parliament, and Signal and Telegram experiencing major downloads in India, a legal suit was filed against WhatsApp. In that instance, the Delhi High Court refused to issue legal notices to WhatsApp and Facebook, arguing that the former was a “private app” that people are free to use.

That wasn’t the end of it, however. On January 30th, the Internet Freedom Foundation filed to move the Supreme Court of India against WhatsApp, seeking an “interim stay” on WhatsApp’s privacy policy coming into force. According to LiveLaw.in, IFF argues that the incoming WhatsApp privacy policy is “highly invasive and has been unilaterally forced upon Indian internet users.” The Indian non-profit asked the Court to therefore “grant an ad-interim order, restraining the sharing of any personal data of users by Whatsapp with Facebook for marketing or other purposes.”

As for WhatsApp being a “private app”, IFF also said that not only does it cast a large shadow over messaging apps in India, but that the “indispensable nature of WhatsApp's services is also evident from the reliance placed upon it by government and public authorities" such, according to the article, “for instance service of summons through Whatsapp and sharing of links to virtual Courts via WhatsApp.”

The application by IFF also stressed the importance of metadata, and how the policy changes could put the metadata of users at risk. According to the petition:

1) Merely knowing that an individual is part of a group titled 'LGBT Delhi' can allow WhatsApp and Facebook companies to draw inferences about a person's sexual orientation, even if the messages shared between members of the group remain end-to-end encrypted.

2) Even relatively innocuous seeming categories of metadata, such as the battery level of a user's device (added in the 2021 Policy), can be weaponized in the right context. For example, if ride hailing services such as Uber or Ola gained access to information about battery levels of their customers, they can theoretically charge higher rates to customers whose battery is running low and who are desperate to find a cab as soon as possible.

The IFF petition also alleged that WhatsApp, by providing a clear statement to its users within the EU that their data would not be shared with their parent company, due to GDPR, but with no such clarity for non-EU, global south users, was being discriminatory.

It will be important to see what the outcome of this petition will turn out to be, and whether any lessons can be learned and applicable elsewhere in the global south.

In brief: A Story About Our Data

The title of this week’s newsletter comes from a visual story of the same name, about what happens to the data of millions of Pakistanis, and how the government uses it to harm, rather than protect.

"Subject to Surveillance", by the Pakistani cartoonist and activist Reem Khurshid, is a brilliantly illustrated and animated feature that dives into how the government controls that data and the numerous times its been misused, sometimes with horrific consequences. Khurshid’s work isn’t just a warning and a means of awareness, but it’s also a call to arms, so that “citizens should demand an effective legal framework to protect personal data & privacy.”

Check out “Subject to Surveillance” in its entirety here.