The Government of India, on 20 June, launched a wide-ranging surveillance programme that will enable the security agencies and even income tax officials the authority to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls of any citizen without any permission from courts or parliament. Nine government agencies will be authorised to make intercept requests, including the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s elite policy agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic spy agency, and the income tax department.
While the Government says it would help reduce crimes and other illegal activities in the country, some suppose it the greatest ever blow to the privacy and urge to revoke it. “If India doesn’t want to look like an authoritarian regime, it needs to be transparent about who will be authorised to collect data, what data will be collected, how it will be used, and how the right to privacy will be protected,” said Cynthia Wong, an Internet researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.