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Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018
Why in news?
- Government on Wednesday published 609 pages of suggestions and comments from relevant parties on new set of guidelines for intermediaries.
- Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules 2018 could have far reaching impact on the way social media websites and internet operates in India.
More in the news
Intermediaries can monitor the conent:
- Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, make intermediaries such as Facebook, Google, WhatsApp responsible for actively monitoring the content they host.
- Intermediaries to allow the tracing of information on their platforms by government agencies.
- Such tracing of information could create difficulties in the India operations of global end-to-end encrypted products like WhatsApp or Signal.
- Internet companies with more than 50 lakh users will be required to register themselves in India and have an office in the country.
Changes in content:
- Rules notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on December 28, 2018.
- Intermediaries are asked for greater due diligence from intermediaries on the regulation of the content they host.
- All intermediary companies will have to deploy technology based automated tools with appropriate controls for identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content.
- Any content which threatens critical information infrastructure is not allowed under the new Rules.
Challenges faced by intermediaries:
- Open-source companies like Wikipedia, GitHub, and Mozilla have argued that it would not be possible for them to employ automated tools to monitor unlawful content.
- For startups in India, monitoring and removing content might not always be viable or possible plus, companies will have to inform their users that in case of non-compliance, their accounts and content would be removed. How to achieve it is unclear.
Question of encryption:
- End-to-end encryption on WhatsApp or Signal ensures that no one can read the messages shared between two users no government, no third-party, no cyber criminals, not even the company itself.
- Companies will have to help government agencies in locating the origin of content. This could mean breaking their end-to-end encryption in India.
- Intermediary shall within 72 hours of communication, provide such information as asked for by any government agency.
Registration in India:
- All players with more than 5 million users in India have to be incorporated under The Companies Act.
- This will touch more companies than just the well-known ones.
- Companies will need to have a permanent registered office in India with a physical address.
- SourceThe Indian Express.