June did June, and how! 🌈| IFF’s June 2024 Newsletter

Jul 04, 2024

Reconning the representatives

- 18th Lok Sabha

The 18th Lok Sabha kicks into high gear as the election machine winds down. We have been working hard to document its parliamentary proceedings and understand their impact on our digital rights.

We reached out to the Union Ministers from MIB, MeitY, DoT, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation, and Ministry of Consumer Affairs by letters urging them to consider our suggestions on areas of focus outlined by us highlighting the role ministers can play in protecting the needs of citizens. Lady Whistledown also caught them up on some gossip swirling around in IFF-ton 👀

The partially notified Telecommunications Act 2023 was also the subject of our analysis with its colonial, outdated provisions catching our ire. With certain provisions of the act now in force, we urge the Ministry to prioritise rights-centric provisions within legislation, both current and future. Following a similar trajectory as to the Telecom Act, the new criminal law bills to reform the three foundational criminal law acts came into force on July 1 2024, retaining much of the colonial architecture of the previous criminal law acts they set out to remove and with massive repercussions for our digital rights.

Telangana Police network’s slew of data breaches

Watch | Ready…Set…Breach???

In early June, the Telangana Police Force suffered three massive data breaches by one threat actor, ‘Adm1nFr1end’. Their community policing app Hawkeye, the TSCOP platform, and their SMS delivery service suffered breaches which caused citizen and police officer data to be sold on a data leak site namely ‘BreachForums’.

The Hawkeye app caused 1.30 lakh SOS records, 70,000 incident reports, and 20,000 travel detail records to be exposed for sale. The TSCOP app, which uses Facial Recognition to help police officers was breached, leaking offender records, police gun licences, police officer names, designations, and pictures, & police station affiliations. Lastly, their SMS service was breached as well, leaking police alerts and important notices, which included police personnel’s personal data and contact information.

We wrote to the Telangana police reiterating these concerns in detail. Here’s a recap of the entire saga in a crisp video explainer format.

We are all for radical transparency! ✈

Hey DYF, open up the doors

A representative from the DigiYatra Foundation reached out to us and invited us to a closed-door meeting with the CEO, Mr Suresh Khadakbhavi and the team. While we appreciate the invite for a private conversation and will be happy to engage (with some reservations), we urge the DYF team to invite diverse civil society voices for an open conversation in the interest of instilling transparency by design, which has been one of our core asks from DigiYatra and will benefit all quarters.

We believe an open conversation with a room full of civil society voices will ultimately further core public interests including, but not limited to, transparency and accountability by inspiring meaningful dialogue which we hope becomes regular in the policymaking space.

Time for another Quarterly Members’ and Donors’ Call? YEAS!

Another quarter and another QMC! We’re back with our latest edition of our Quarterly Members’ Call on July 11, 2024, at 5:30 PM IST and we’ve been up to quite a bit and can’t wait to talk about our efforts to defend digital liberties with all of YOU.

QMC has been an IFF staple since day 0, we do these calls every quarter to address community concerns & lay down plans for the future according to community needs. You can read more about why we do them here.

Not a member (yet?), these calls are also live-streamed on YouTube and Twitter.

Become an IFF member today!

Submitted comments to the UNHRC periodic review committee for India with concerns over the state of privacy, dignity, free speech, & other constitutional guarantees to ensure compliance with ICCPR.

Wrote about the three(!!!) breaches suffered by the Telangana Police of their policing platforms.

Traced ECI’s (in)action during the 2024 General Elections to the 18th Lok Sabha.

Analysed the relevant provisions of the partially notified Telecommunications Act 2023 from a digital rights perspective.

Reached out to ministers of MeitY, MIB & DoT with suggestions following the reshuffle of the Union Cabinet.

Pondered at 2 AM…

Created a fancam for Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver following research inputs from IFF and our Executive Director on their episode on India.

Compiled a clickbait of FRT usage by Indian public authorities and police forces, jeopardising the human rights and data privacy of millions of Indian citizens.

We also engaged in advocacy on platforms beyond our own:

Answering the question of what role technology played in the 2024 elections season and the road that follows, IFF’s Executive Director Prateek Waghre appeared on the Tech Policy Podcast.

Explaining the impact influencers had on the results of the general elections, Prateek Waghre spoke to Sky News.

Supported Reporters Without Borders along with the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI); and Free Speech Collective (FSC) in calling the new government.

A monthly reminder that we can only do this because of YOU!

Internet Freedom Foundation is a small community-funded organisation and we’ve been working nonstop since 2016 to advance democratic freedoms in an increasingly digital society.

In June, we received Rs. 4,83,621. from one-time donors, recurring IFF Members and organisational donations. Our expenses for the month were Rs. 10,36,891.

We continue to struggle with a gap of Rs. 5,53,270 between our income and expenses for the month of June. With the Telecommunications Act, the Criminal Reform Acts and the soon-to-be-released DPDPA Rules, we are at a critical juncture.

Make your tax-deductible donation today!