The Prayas ePathshala

Exams आसान है !

07 October 2022 – The Indian Express

Facebook
LinkedIn
WhatsApp

New IT Rules of India

Important Provisions:

  • According to the Rules, pornographic photos that were taken without authorization must be deleted within 24 hours.
  • In order to improve transparency, the guidelines also mandate that compliance reports be disclosed.
  • Rules provide for the development of a procedure for resolving disputes over material removal.
  • It makes it feasible to label information, making it clear to customers if it is sponsored, owned, advertised, or otherwise exclusively controlled.

These rules have following problems:

Pertaining to the freedom of expression and speech:

  • In Life Insurance Corp. of India v. Prof. Manubhai D. Shah, the Supreme Court emphasised that “the freedom to spread one’s opinions is the lifeblood of every democratic organisation” (1992).
  • The rules must therefore be carefully examined to spot any fresh difficulties they might have brought about.

A legal infraction:

  • The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology developed the regulations (MeiTY).
  • However, the Second Schedule of the Business Rules of 1961 does not grant MeiTY the ability to create laws for digital media.
  • The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is the official owner of this authority.
  • The legal doctrine known as “colourable legislation,” which argues that the legislature cannot act directly if it is not possible to do so, is violated by this behaviour.
  • Digital media is not covered by the Information Technology Act of 2000.
  • The new IT Rules, which they refer to as their parent legislation, thus go beyond the authority granted to them by the IT Act.
  • The Act is thereby violated by the Rules.

Denies a middleman a viable route of action:

  • An intermediary is now required to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a court order.
  • In the case that the intermediary disagrees with the Government’s order owing to a short timeframe, this denies it a just remedy.

Privacy breach:

  • These Rules’ necessity for traceability is detrimental to the right to privacy.
  • End-to-end encryption gave users protection because it prevented middlemen from accessing the content of their messages.
  • This immunity will be lost if the traceability requirement is made mandatory, which will reduce the security and privacy of these communications.
  • This makes all of the information obtained from these interactions open to intrusion by malicious people.
  • In this situation, the risk goes beyond privacy invasion and access restrictions to a safe location.
  • Recent data breaches, like those that affected a number of airlines and a renowned pizza delivery service, highlight the dangers of doing this in the absence of data security legislation.
  • The Rules hurriedly remove everything that a ruling authority may perceive to be “fake news” rather than getting rid of the false information.

Operational expenses:

  • The Rules increase the operational expenses of intermediaries by requiring them to have nodal officials, compliance officers, and grievance officers who are Indian residents.
  • In addition, middlemen are required to operate offices in India.
  • As a result, international firms and emerging intermediary businesses find it difficult to turn a profit.
  • Therefore, by adding unnecessary financial barriers, these Rules not only obstruct the “marketplace of ideas,” but also the economic market for intermediaries as a whole.

Select Course