Indian Police Demand Internet Monitoring In Bombay

h4rm0ny writes "Both the BBC and the Houston Chronicle are running stories about planned monitoring of customers at cyber cafes in Bombay. Cafe owners have responded by organising into a group to oppose the moves.
The police want cafes to demand photo id, a home address and maintain records of access for at least a year. The Great Deamons of Justification have been invoked - Terrorism, Paedophillia, Hackers and in this case Users of Adult Sites. On the cafe owner's part - they are countering with questions of liability for verifying customer details and the issues of privacy.
India remains a country with a very low percentage of the population having their own internet connection. Bombay's 3000 cafes are used by approximately 1.5 million people so these new laws would give the police much larger scope to monitor people's online behaviour than in other countries.
Other Indian cities are watching the results closely."

Comments

Mabye this is a good thing.

[_LORAX_]

It sounds crappy but this could lead, finally, to the understanding that anything plaintext can be tapped/subpoena'ed/copied and that the only true way to protect your identity and your communications is with encryption.

Police snooping will only further legitimize encryption in your day to day communications (for the average citizen).

Police always think powers help!

[redelm]

Well of course the police want more powers. Their job is to "fight crime" and they believe that power to search will help.

On individual cases, it might. Unfortunately, the cost to greater society in terms of intimidation and abuse are higher than the benefits of solving the crime.

Freedom isn't just philosophically attractive, it is also extremely pragmatic. It increases human happiness and productivity. Unfortunately. police are seldom happy people and cannot recognize this value.

I cannot think of any major criminal activity that can be done on the Internet, still less in the restricted environment of a cybercafe. Sure, threats and extortion can be communicated, but these are accessory to the crime contemplated/committed.

Re:Police always think powers help!

[kabocox]

I cannot think of any major criminal activity that can be done on the Internet, still less in the restricted environment of a cybercafe. Sure, threats and extortion can be communicated, but these are accessory to the crime contemplated/committed.

Try Fraud and Identity Theft.

Won't happen.

[The Cydonian]

Trust me, if the cyber-cafe-owners have organised themselves, then there's no power out there who can stop them, especially the police. Not to cheer these cartel groups mind you, just pointing out how things work in India.

Incidentally, if I recall correctly, the city police in Hyderabad did try to bring in a similar move some two years back or so; the cyber-cafe-owners association there apparently resisted the measure successfully. The police now only insist that the computers be placed in cubicles with clear windows, mainly to discourage folks from browsing porn.

Personally, I think stuff like this (much like that earlier banning of that insurgent group's YahooGroups thing) is indicative of two things urgently required in India:-

a) An EFF-like group to charter and fight for maintaining the constitution's libertarian values,
b) Greater awareness among the Indian public of the issues involved, particularly, the right to privacy and other cyber-legal issues.

(Or if there already is such a group, I'd be great if someone could, perhaps, point their URL out or something.)