On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 2:37 AM, Vignesh Prabhu <li...@viggy.in> wrote:
> > 1) Can we trust the government itself? > "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" which translates to "Who will guard the > guards themselves?" > > Government itself is made up of people, even though, we can proudly say > that we democratically elected the government, can we trust the > government completely? The various scams of state governments and > central governments give us a good reason why we cant trust those > running the government. Also, a government in itself is transient, you > never know what kind of future government can come. > > 2) Security of the data collected > > Its a common knowledge that when any riot happens, the organizers easily > target people from specific communities thanks to data such as Voter's > ID Card list etc available for that region. Hence even we can blindly > trust the government, the fact that such a collated data exists, itself > makes it a honeypot to attract bad elements in society to misuse the data. > > 3) Mass Surveillance vs targetted Surveillance > > Though there may be some strong reasons for government to do > surveillance on specific individuals, there is very little rational to > do mass surveillance. The very notion that everything you do or say is > getting recorded will curtail freedom of expression. Everytime someone > wants to express something little off the beat, he/she might have to > take extreme caution and in many cases, people might not come forward at > all to express. > An analogy is imagine a light tower in central yard in a jail where > prisoners cant see who is watching from the light tower. Since they know > that there is 24 hours watch on it, the notion that someone there is > watching itself creates fear in them to try anything to escape. > > Even in case of targetted surveillance, we know how Gujrat government > 'allegedly' misused the state machinery to snoop on an individual. So > even having means to do targetted surveillance needs to have very > stringent checks and balances. > > 4) Eternity of the data collected > > The idea that the data collected will exist years later is also > something to worry about. A simple example is what happened with Sec > 377. When the high court declared it unconstitutional in 2009, many > people came forward expressing their true orientation. However when > Supreme Court overturned the HC decision, it left all the people who had > come forward openly to be sitting ducks for harassment by the authorities. > > 5) Option to opt-out > > Like in case of Aadhar which looks like will stay in India now that the > new government also seem to be comfortable with it, there is little > option for those who value their privacy to opt-out of these schemes. > > In India, since government does provide for lot of amenities, Maria > Xynou who is working on the Surveillance in India in CIS-India had > mentioned that there is a attitude amongst us to look at government like > a parent who takes care of us. Hence this attitude makes us put lot of > trust in the government which is dangerous. > > You can watch her talk at CCC on Indian Surveillance State here, > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0 > > Thank you Vignesh for your thoughts. Also, thanks for the video. -- *Regards,Sahil ModGill* _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc ILUGC Mailing List Guidelines: http://ilugc.in/mailinglist-guidelines
