Union minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that India should reduce its reliance on international internet networks, reiterating the objective of making India self-sufficient.
The minister at the Business Today Crypto Conclave in New Delhi stated that the current situation between Ukraine and Russia has highlighted the need for internet self-reliance.
Chandrasekhar noted that one of the lessons received from the Ukraine-Russia crisis is that the internet can also be used as a weapon of war.
Additionally, he said: “And the weaponisation of the internet has become something that is, at least to me…personally I’m a little disturbed that the internet can be seen taking sides and blockades of the internet can be imposed on one nation versus the other nation, and that in my opinion is extremely disturbing.”
The current global situation indicates that India requires more champions and a much more resilient internet topology that is less reliant on international players.
“We need to minimise our dependence on international internet networks if you want to call it that. We need to be very careful about data localisation and cross-border data flows,” said Chandrasekhar, reported Business Today.
Building capacities to combat cybercrime was another topic the minister discussed. He said that one major concern is that intermediaries, particularly big tech, who have reaped so much benefit from the internet and who have frequently rallied against governments, whether Indian or foreign, have done “so little on the issue of safety on the internet” and other cyber issues.
“It is a very important focus area. We are building upon capacities and tools. Of course, we have significant capacities and tools within the government,” the minister added.
Because the perpetrator, the offence and the victim are virtually always or very often in three distinct jurisdictions on the internet, the government is looking into the necessity for global legislation.
According to Chandrasekhar, no single statute can capture the complete chain of events leading up to the occurrence.
“Having more and more global rulemaking, more and more global protocols which allow countries to interact, work together…sort of let us say Singapore and India, or India and Australia, India and the US – all collaborating within a cyber incident. It is an additional feature of the model that we are hoping to develop,” he added.
DIGITAL LAW
The over two-decade-old IT Act that regulates India’s cyberspace and internet needs to be revised with a new IT law, Chandrasekhar said.
“The basic law that today regulates cyberspace and the Indian internet is called the IT Act. And the IT Act was enacted in 2000. So it is 22 years old. 22 years in the internet age is like three centuries, five centuries. I think it is clear in our minds, and I think to any observer’s mind, that we need a new digital law,” said Chandrasekhar.
According to the minister, a new digital law should handle not only all of the opportunities and rules that go along with them, but also user harm issues and other areas of the internet for which there are presently no rules.
“For example, the openness, how do we ensure that the app store duopoly is addressed? How do we make sure that these search engine monopolies are addressed? How do we make sure that these new invasive devices like, you know, the glasses are dealt with?” he said.
“There is on the device side…and then there is this whole new emerging phenomenon of AI and algorithms and ethical use of that, Iris…use of that?” added the minister.
So all of these areas that are believed to have a direct influence on consumers need to be framed, if not regulated, at the very least with correct global standard standards, for how intermediaries or manufacturers conduct themselves in these areas, said Chandrasekhar.
According to him, “We have done some intermediary rules, we will do some cybersecurity roles, we will do some privacy rules…it’s all stop-gap bandage type of approach.”
“And if anybody has read the IT Act, you know that the word internet does not even exist in the IT Act. And so, you know, that is how vintage the Act is,” he added.
As per the minister, with over a billion Indians expected to be online and be linked to the internet in the next two to three years, the intensity of the public cloud, as well as its spread, will be extremely rapid.
“So we are going to be sitting on huge amounts of data. A data governance framework, a data management, institutional framework, new digital law, data protection law – these are to be seen as pieces of an overall overarching sort of jurisprudence that will allow both start-ups and innovation to continue to grow and prosper, as well as protect the user and the citizen from all of the risks and ills of the internet,” he added.
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