EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Big Brother rules

Whatever the intention behind them, the new rules framed last month under the Information Technology Act, 2000 are likely to have a chilling effect on the development of the Internet as a medium of communication and information in India. Apart from the unreasonable restrictions on free speech they envisage, the rules raise serious concerns about the privacy of a citizen's personal information, including medical profile, financial position, and sexual orientation. The problem lies with three sets of rules that create guidelines on “intermediaries” and cyber cafes and on the manner in which “sensitive personal data or information” can be shared, especially with government agencies. Intermediaries, defined as those who store, transmit, or provide services related to electronic messages, will henceforth be obligated to block content or information that “threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence…” This description is so vague and open-ended that it is likely to lead Internet Service Providers, webmasters, and others to play it safe and shut off access to views and opinions that they consider controversial. The rules specify a mechanism for appeal but the permissible time frame of one month is far too long to offer any meaningful redressal of grievances.

The rules on privacy represent an advance in one respect: they prohibit companies with whom an individual has shared her or his sensitive personal information from disclosing it to any third party without prior permission from that individual. But an exception is made for government agencies; they will be entitled to access that information without a court warrant simply on the basis of a written request that states that the information is required for the investigation of a crime. Although these agencies are, in turn, obligated not to share that information with anyone else, this ‘safeguard' is of little value to citizens who value their privacy vis-à-vis the state. The fact that officially sanctioned telephone intercepts have made their way into the public domain points to the danger of giving officials access to personal information. Nor is it clear how crime can be fought by police officers gathering details about a potential suspect's “physical, physiological and mental health condition; sexual orientation; and medical records and history,” as the rules partially define “sensitive personal data or information.” Such rules have no place on the statute book of a democracy that values the rights of its citizens. Parliament should insist that the government take another look.

A dark day for Europe

France and Italy are revealing the contradictions in the attitudes of European Union countries towards the popular rebellions in North Africa. In the latest episode, 61 out of 72 mainly Libyan citizens who fled Tripoli died of hunger and thirst after 16 days adrift in one of busiest areas of the Mediterranean. According to credible reports, a military helicopter dropped water and biscuits, presumably in response to a phone call they made to Eritrean priest Moses Zerai's refugee-rights NGO in Rome; and the helicopter crew gestured to the passengers to hold their position and await help — which never came. The survivors say that at one point they were very close to a French aircraft carrier, from which two jets flew low over the boat; the refugees held babies overhead for the pilots to see but were ignored. International maritime law requires all vessels to answer distress calls and offer help. With phones dead and without food or fuel, the survivors drifted back to Libya, where they were arrested and then released. This is one of many such incidents; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy cites those who reached Italian territory as saying they watched ships sinking in front of them.

In the last month alone, some 800 people fleeing the region have perished, but the two national leaders involved are showing limitless cynicism and political self-interest. President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has taken a drubbing from the left in the recent cantonal elections; Mr. Sarkozy's own ratings are at a dismal 21 per cent, and his hawkish advocacy of the U.N.-Nato intervention in Libya was widely criticised for being a re-election gambit. Italy's President Silvio Berlusconi, who faces sex-related criminal charges, was equally hawkish; but his complaints about taking 25,000 refugees are histrionic gestures in comparison with the actions of Sweden, which took 80,000 Iraqis, and Germany, which in the 1990s took 400,000 Bosnians. Sweden's population is nine million and Italy's is 60 million. The EU itself, however, has longstanding repatriation deals with despots and dictators in North Africa and West Asia; now some of its major members are trying to evade the consequences of pro-democracy uprisings they themselves have aided. The entirely separate Council of Europe, which predates the EU and is the custodian of the European Convention on Human Rights, is right in calling the abandonment of Libya's boat people a “dark day” for its own continent.