NEW DELHI: There’s a distinct desi trend visible in the tech space in India. Recently, the National Informatics Centre launched Sandes, a WhatsApp-like instant messaging app for use by government servants. A little earlier there was a rush for Koo, a microblogging platform billed as the local alternative to Twitter, which got a million downloads shortly after launch.
The launch of desi alternatives appeared to roughly coincide with the Indian government locking horns with foreign providers of these services, although disagreements between foreign tech majors (Facebook, Google) and the Indian government have been evident over the last decade. It is, however, true that today there is greater awareness and concern about how these companies operate in India, which includes not being answerable to Indian laws or the courts.
Take WhatsApp for instance, which last month announced it was updating its privacy policy that would enable it to share some user data with its parent Facebook network, including Instagram. A case before a Supreme Court bench has challenged WhatsApp’s move. The petitioner, Internet Freedom Foundation, claims the new privacy norms would dilute privacy standards for Indian users and the Indian government must not allow it. Another petition says WhatsApp is violating India’s fundamental right to privacy while discharging a public function and it is a threat to national security since user data will be stored outside India.
Others say it is WhatsApp’s ‘take it or leave it’ policy which grates. One would have thought its 400 million users in India would be a good reason to back off on the new privacy policy but clearly that’s not the case.
Twitter is another instance. Recently, its India public policy head quit, citing personal reasons. It is speculated that her telling the government to align its policies with Twitter norms could be a reason. But more likely it was Twitter’s unilateral decision to unblock 250 accounts that were earlier suspended following a government request. Twitter claimed that “protecting public conversation and transparency is fundamental (to Twitter),” disregarding the Union Home Ministry’s warning that unblocking the tweets could lead to a law and order situation. This was in the context of the farmer’s agitation.
As a senior executive in a multinational technology firm told StratNews Global: “Twitter was taking sides in a domestic controversy, by unblocking the tweets Twitter had got into domestic politics and was challenging the state. This is unacceptable.”
It has brought to a head mounting concerns over how foreign tech majors operate in this country. A case in point is the morphed photo of a girl that was posted on a fake Facebook profile some years ago in Tamil Nadu. Police asked Facebook for the IP logs and other information, it took them four days to respond. In the interim, the girl committed suicide.
Officials say queries from the Indian tax authorities are invariably referred to an office in some other country, from where it is impossible to get any information. It appears whatever offices the tech majors have in India, these only handle sales and marketing or R&D. Any other request for information has to be referred to a corporate headquarters not in India. Another practice is to hire the services of a top Indian legal firm which functions as a post office, sending queries back to corporate headquarters which may or may not respond. It would seem this is a deliberate effort to avoid being answerable to Indian laws.
The MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties) India has signed with a number of countries has been found to be neither efficient nor effective when it comes to dealing with tech majors. Officials say the procedure to be followed under the MLAT is cumbersome and long winded. This applies even to countries like the U.S. where domestic law bars tech firms from sharing data with foreign governments. It requires any such request to be vetted by the department of justice and approved by a federal judge. It could take as long as a year if not more for this process to conclude.
The CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) passed in 2018, allows U.S. tech firms to deal directly with certain foreign governments. But this requires an “executive agreement” between the U.S. and the foreign country certifying that the latter has robust privacy protection, respect for due process and the rule of law. India is not yet in this category although it is expected to pass a Personal Data Protection legislation this year. But Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which empowers police to “access any document or thing”, with no provision for judicial review or independent oversight, could be a spoiler.
Clearly, India has some way to go before it is in a position to take on the tech majors. It probably accounts for the Indian government treading softly. It has preferred not to crack down on their behaviour here as that could raise the hackles of the U.S. government (these being American companies). It has preferred to get its aggrieved citizenry to challenge the tech majors in the courts, while at the same time closely monitoring the growing demand in the U.S. to break up the same tech majors. The first shot in this campaign has been fired in Australia where tech majors have to pay for aggregating content from local news providers.
At another level, the rise of the local app Koo, which has garnered four million users in the span of a few weeks, suggests the Indian government is exploring other options. The question is whether Koo will gather enough critical mass to emerge as a credible rival to twitter. Add to that DigiBoxx, a local Cloud storage and data management platform launched by the government think tank Niti Aayog. It is touted as a “potential alternative” to cloud storage apps such as Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox and even iCloud to some extent. The major impediment would be the cost involved.
[/vc_column][/vc_row][/tdc_zone]
