Internet Democracy Project

22/04/2021

We have been tracking whether Aarogya Setu was mandatory or not during the last 10 months. The government claimed it wasn’t, but the practice seemed to play out differently.

Here is what we have found 👇🏽

The journey of has not been linear. On 17 May 2020, the MHA changed its stance on the app from ‘mandatory’ 2 ‘best efforts’ & ‘advise’. 5 days after the order, our data showed that the app was continuing to be made mandatory, in direct contradiction to the order.

At present, there are a total of hundred and fifty-five instances recorded on the tracker. This practice has continued till date. Most recent was, activist Umar Khalid being directed to download the app by the Delhi High Court as a bail condition - link in the original post below.

Over the last eleven months, the tracker has been used by various privacy activists, journalists, researchers, & concerned individuals to trace the journey of the app.

Checkout - Anivar A Aravind v. Ministry of Home Affairs, GM PIL WP (C) 7483 of 2020 - link in the original post below.

As the no. of new instances of AS being made mandatory seems to have gone down considerably this year, we have now decided to close the tracker. We have attempted to make the tracker as comprehensive as possible until 1 March 2021. However, new instances will no longer be added.

Expand the post to see the tracker 👇🏽

https://internetdemocracy.in/2021/04/aarogya-setu-mandatory-or-not-we-traced-it-for-ten-months-through-our-tracker/

19/04/2021

We are thrilled to invite you all to the 8th Data Governance Quarterly Roundtable on behalf of the . Researchers will showcase their latest work on , , , & .

Registration Link 👇🏽

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1pMDbDR8QN1JGboRA6PudVNxk-uwgxqr5PwxXsXafkBc/edit

24/03/2021

📣📣 Catch Anja Kovacs tomorrow between 13:30 to 16:45 (GMT+1) presenting her work on the session, “Digital State and Personal Data”, moderated by Luca Belli (FGV Law School).

The event is organised by the Colloquium of the Centre for Comparative Public Law (CDPC) in partnership with Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, Rio de Janeiro. Dr Anja Kovacs from the Internet Democracy Project is invited to present her research, “Data sovereignty, of whom? Limits and suitability of sovereignty frameworks for data in India”.



Check out the details here - https://cyberbrics.info/digital-state-etat-digital/

22/03/2021

Our new policy brief, “Informed Consent-Said Who?...“, by Anja Kovacs & Tripti Jain proposes, that the current data protection regimes need to move beyond the traditional consent approach based on feminist principles of consent.

Current consent regimes suffer from many weaknesses- cognitive/perception problems to systemic & structural problems that individuals can do little to address. Common to all of this is the construction of data as a ‘resource’. This construction has made it possible for data to be reduced to merely a means of exchange, enabled in contract by consent however, with the datafication of our most intimate spaces, the distinction between our physical bodies & virtual bodies is becoming irrelevant. Feminist explorations of consent in the context of sexual relations highlights that the consent in practice is fundamentally embedded in power relations that, legally and/or socially, construct some as free & equal, & others as less so. Our policy brief highlights that, rather than moving away from altogether, we need to reconceptualise the nature of data in various data protection regimes by centring the bodies back in to the debates on .

To strengthen the quality of consent & the consent qualifiers in , our policy brief proposes 3 types of changes - 1. At the time of data collection, 2. The way it’s used &, 3. Provisions to protect people who are particularly vulnerable.

Read our policy brief to know more. 👇🏽

https://internetdemocracy.in/reports/informed-consent-said-who-a-feminist-perspective-on-principles-of-consent-in-the-age-of-embodied-data-a-policy-brief/

18/03/2021

We want the consent mechanism to change in the data protection regime to promote & protect individuals’ autonomy, so it is actually empowering for, rather than exploitative of people.

How, you ask.

We will let you know soon. Stay tuned...

17/03/2021

📣📣 Only 3 hours to go.

Don’t forget to register yourself for 2nd United Nations South Asia Forum on Business & Human Rights.

Anja Kovacs will be speaking at the panel’ “Gender Bias in New Technologies”, along with Gayatri Khandhadai from Association for Progressive Communications, Nighat Dad from Digital Rights Foundation, Shubhabrata Roy, moderated by Anita Gurumurthy from IT for Change

Time : 4:30 to 6:00 PM (IST)

Date : Today


Registration link - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHsYir2kT4ov6bsxua70yT2THuzHvDI0-RfcklR-jdR8jT6Q/viewform

17/03/2021

Don’t miss out.

Catch Anja Kovacs from the Internet Democracy Project and Anita Gurumurthy from IT for Change on this webinar today.

‼️

Anita Gurumurthy will be moderating a session on Addressing Gender Bias in New Technologies at the 2nd on and , TODAY!

Tune in for an important discussion on how new depict and reinforce existing and stereotypes, how the composition of development teams plays a role, routes to addressing and remedying this, and more.

Panellists include Nighat Dad of Digital Rights Foundation, Gayatri Khandhadai of APC, Anja Kovacs of Internet Democracy Project, and Shubhabrata Roy of Behavioural Insights Architecture & Strategy Private Limited.

📅TODAY, Mar 17
🕟4:30 pm IST

REGISTER NOW: https://itforchange.net/addressing-gender-bias-in-new-technologies-un-south-asia-forum

09/03/2021

We're delighted to host a workshop at Mozilla Festival 2021 — a hands-on session where we will be playing a card game based on real stories of q***r persons. 🌈

We will walk alongside the q***r characters in it, and stop at the crossroads of their decisions to generate a larger conversation on digital violence with perspectives from around the globe. 📶

Seats for the workshop are getting filled up fast! To grab yours, visitr: bit.ly/POVmozfest

*xGenTech

08/03/2021

We are celebrating by talking about some of the issues that need to be discussed with urgency & highlighting some amazing work by noteworthy organisations that are working towards making a that is safe and accessible to all. We begin by pointing out some of the major issues such as gendered surveillance, datafication of our bodies, during -19, , question of and will move on to some of the remarkable work done by organisations working on these issues. Come join us in this conversation on twitter

25/02/2021

What are some key features of the Cybersecurity frameworks of the BRICS countries? Join us for the webinar “Cybersecurity & Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries” by Cyber BRICS at FGV in Rio De Janeiro featuring Anja Kovacs as one of the speakers.

Registration details - https://evento.fgv.br/cybersecurity_26/

23/02/2021

Thanks for highlighting the findings of our research in such a simplified way.

Through , we try to identify the takeaways and present our impressions about interesting Feminist research at the intersection of Technology, Policy and Society. This time, looks at Internet Democracy Project's "What’s S*x Got to Do with It?" authored by VrindaBhandari and anjakovacs. Sapni attempts to simplify and present her take on this interesting piece of research here.

https://rtlp.in/2021/02/23/we-break-it-down-law-and-the-non-legal-morality-in-india-towards-gender-and-sexual-minorities-in-digital-rights/

11/02/2021

For all the people who couldn’t join us today on our live. Please find the recording of the fireside chat with the authors of our latest research Vrinda Bhandari and Anja Kovacs - In the Name of Protection, A Tale of Shrinking Digital Rights, based on our latest latest research “What’s S*x Got To Do With It?” The research shows that attempts to ‘protect’ women by Indian courts often lead to a contraction of all Indians’ digital rights.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CLJvt-In0Bd/?igshid=14nzhitypl5q