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After app ban, experts ask what about Chinese phones?
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SME Times News Bureau | 30 Jun, 2020
After India directed blocking of 59 Chinese apps, some of India's top
legal experts have asked what the government plans to do about hundreds
and thousands of Chinese mobile phones being used by Indians and the
CCTV cameras installed in both the corporate sector and the government
agencies, which could potentially be transmitting data of Indians
outside the country.
The IT Ministry on Monday issued an interim
order to block 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, under Section 69A of
the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The apps have been directed
to be banned on the grounds that they have been trying to impact the
"sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state
and public order".
"Banning or blocking apps is only a starting
point, not the endgame journey. A lot of steps will have to be taken.
There are a huge number of Chinese mobile phones which are being used by
Indians and they continue to transmit data outside India, particularly
to China," Pavan Duggal, one of the nation's top cyber law experts, told
IANS.
"Further a lot of Chinese CCTV cameras and other devices
are installed both in corporate sectors and also in governmental
agencies. Their use in terms of the collection of data and their
transmission of data to China need to be reconsidered," he said, adding
that India must come up with a strong cogent methodologies and process
to protect Indian sovereign interest in cyberspace.
According to
Virag Gupta, a lawyer who is arguing the case in Supreme Court for data
localisation in India, said the decision to block 59 apps will go a long
way in shaping "our future plan of action against Internet giants".
"Obviously,
there will be challenges to implement this decision, but we can call it
a digital surgical strike against global powers with colonial
mindsets," he said.
As India is a democratic country unlike
China, a party aggrieved by the government's decision can challenge the
action under the current legal framework.
Once the law provides
the remedy of an appeal to an affected party, the party will have to
show that it is not misusing the data of Indian users, and similarly,
the government will also be called upon to show what relevant material
led to the conclusion that such kinds of apps impact the sovereignty,
security and integrity of India, Duggal said.
Besides TikTok, the banned apps include SHAREit, Helo, WeChat, UC Browser and Xiaomi's Mi Community, among others.
Following the ban, TikTok said in a statement that it places "the highest importance on user privacy and integrity."
Asserting
that it has not shared any information of its users in India with any
foreign government, including the Chinese government, the
ByteDance-owned short video-sharing platform promised that even if it is
requested to share information of Indian users by the Chinese
government in the future, it would not do so.
But under the
Chinese cybersecurity law, the government has the power to ask for any
information pertaining to the sovereign interest of the country or
pertaining to public order from any company which is located in China,
Duggal said.
"The said companies are duty-bound to share that
information. If they do not share that information with the Chinese
authorities, it actually becomes an offence under the Chinese law," he
said.
"So whenever any Chinese company says that it is not
sharing any data of Indians with Chinese agencies, I think it will be
further called upon to show how it will be going ahead in complying with
applicable national laws and how it will be further ensuring that the
said information will not be shared in the future," Duggal said.
According
to Mishi Choudhary, a technology lawyer and an online civil liberties
activist, India's move to ban 59 Chinese apps underscores that the cyber
world and the Internet are part of the geopolitics and are not some
distant matter left to the techies.
"We must have a robust cyber
peace or war policy that addresses our national security concerns and
presents a well thought through, rights respecting policy in sharp
contrast to an authoritarian regime like China," she said.
As
Nagpur-based lawyer Vinod Tiwari pointed out, if the interim order is
confirmed, accessing these 59 apps will be an issue only within the
territorial boundaries of India.
Duggal also pointed out that the
government of India has got the power under Section 87 of the
Information Technology Act, 2000, to come up with specific due diligence
parameters for app developers and app service providers.
"However, no such due diligence parameters have been given to app service providers so far," he said.
(Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
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