Daily Current Affairs

The recent blocking of the VLC Media Player (GS Paper 2, Governance)

Context:

• The website of VideoLAN Client (VLC) has been banned in India.
• The VLC states that according to its statistics, its website has been banned since February 2022.

 

What is VideoLan?

• VLC gained popularity in India in the late 90s when advancements in information technology led to the penetration of personal computers in Indian homes. It continues to be one of the most popular media players.
• Apart from being free and open source, VLC easily integrates with other platforms and streaming services and supports all file formats without requiring additional codecs.

 

Why VLC was banned?

• Civil society organisations have repeatedly filed RTI applications with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). These applications have been met with similar responses stating that “no information is available” with the Ministry.
• This is despite the fact that when trying to access the website previously, the message “The website has been blocked as per order of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under IT Act, 2000”, was displayed. Lack of authoritative information from the government has led to speculation that VLC was banned along with the 54 Chinese applications.
• Although VLC is not a Chinese app, reports from cybersecurity firms, such as Symantec, in April 2022 suggested that Cicada, a hacker group allegedly backed by China, has been using the VLC Media Player to deploy a malicious malware loader. It is being suggested that this was part of a longer cyberattack campaign that started in mid-2021 and was still active in February 2022.
• Cicada’s targets were spread over a number of regions, including India. This is also being used to explain why the present ban is a soft ban rather than a hard ban. While the VLC website has been banned, the VLC app continues to be available for download on Google and Apple stores.
• This is probably because the app stores’ servers where the mobile apps are hosted are considered safer than servers where the desktop versions are hosted.

 

In which situations can online content be blocked to the public?

• There are two routes through which content can be blocked online — executive and judicial.
• First, given the reach of the internet and its potential to cause significant harm to online users, governments across the world reserve the power to monitor and issue directions for regulation of the online content being available in their jurisdictions.
• The Government of India gets this power from Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 69A allows the government to direct an intermediary to “block for access by the public ….. any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource” if it is “necessary or expedient to do so, in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence”.
• Section 69A draws its power from Article 19(2) of the Constitution which allows the government to place reasonable restrictions on the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.
• Second, courts in India, also have the power to direct intermediaries to make content unavailable in India to provide effective remedy to the victim/plaintiff.
•  For example, courts may order internet service providers to block websites which provide access to pirated content and violate the plaintiff’s copyright.

 

What is the procedure for blocking access to content online?

• A detailed procedure for blocking content is provided by the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (IT Rules, 2009) that have been formulated under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
• Only the Central government can exercise this power of directing intermediaries to block access to online content directly, and not the State governments.
• The procedure typically provides that Central or State agencies will appoint a “nodal officer” who will forward the blocking order to the “designated officer” of the Central government.
• The designated officer, as part of a committee, examines the request of the nodal officer. The committee comprises representatives from the Ministries of Law and Justice, Information and Broadcasting, Home Affairs, and the Cert-In.
• The creator/host of the content in question is given a notice to submit clarifications and replies. The committee then makes a recommendation on whether the request of the nodal officer should be accepted or not.
• If this recommendation is approved by the MeitY, the designated officer can direct the intermediary to remove content.

 

How can this process be improved?

• Civil society organisations have been advocating for certain reforms to the IT Rules, 2009 for some time now.

 

Transparency:

• The first is on the aspect of transparency. As witnessed in the case of VideoLan’s website blocking, there is no clarity on why its website has been blocked. Reasons for the same continue to be articulated on conjecture.
• Rule 16 of the IT Rules, 2009 provides that strict confidentiality is to be maintained with respect to any requests or actions under the IT Rules, 2009.
• This should be revisited and an element of transparency should be introduced whereby VideoLAN is given a reason for why such an order was made, something that has been done in the recent order in the Tanul Thakur case.

 

Opportunity of hearing:

• Second, even though the IT Rules provide for an opportunity of hearing to the creator/host of content, given VideoLAN’s cluelessness it seems that this opportunity may not be afforded to affected parties in all cases.
• The lack of an opportunity to submit clarifications/replies by the creator/host violates the principles of natural justice.
• It can also lead to erroneous decision making by the committee, which may not be in possession of the full facts, that can have significant financial consequences for the blocked online service provider.

 

Review mechanism:

• Third, a recent RTI has disclosed that the Review Committee, which is required to meet every two months to review orders of the committee, has not disagreed with a single decision of the committee.
• This raises doubts on the effectiveness of the review mechanism which has been provided as a safeguard against excesses of the committee.

 

Non-Compliance:

• Fourth, given that non-compliance with directions under the IT Rules can lead to loss of immunity from liability for content being hosted, it has been argued that intermediaries over-comply with these directions, which can have chilling effects on free speech.

 

Way Forward:

• The Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal has upheld the procedure enshrined in IT Rules, 2009 on the basis that it provides for adequate application of mind and transparency. The government would do well to follow its own rules, in form as well as spirit.

 

India seeks to strengthen and reform WHO

(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)

Context:

• India, in the second global Covid virtual summit held recently, suggested strengthening and reforming the World Health Organisation (WHO) for creation of a stronger and more resilient global health security architecture.

The question is why there is need for its reform and which are the key areas to be reformed and strengthened for enhancing resilient global health architecture?

Global health governance:

• There is no denial of the fact that effective implementation of public policies is strongly dependent on good governance at both global and national levels. Definitions by experts justifies the fact that “global governance is “doing internationally what governments do at home”.
• Lancet defines inter alia global health as the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide.
• It emphasises transnational health issues, determinants and solutions, facilitates inter and multi-disciplinary collaboration within and beyond health sciences and is a synthesis of population-based prevention and individual-level clinical care.
• Global health governance could be defined as the formal and informal institutions, norms and processes which govern or directly influence global health policy and outcomes and, in this context, three key areas for study from WHO perspective include:

1. global health challenges and key players;
2. sound and sustainable policies for health (national and global); and,
3. implementation of policies through good governance.

 

Establishment of the WHO:

• The WHO constitution came into force on 7 April 1948 with its mission focused on the attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health. Currently, there are 194 Member States grouped according to regional distribution constituting
• The World Health Assembly, with its elected Executive Board consisting of 34 technically qualified persons from Member States, for a three-year term.
• The WHO currently has 148 offices in countries, territories and areas, six regional offices and headquartered in Geneva to support its 194 Member States and two Associate Member States (Puerto Rico and Tokelau).

 

Comparative advantages:

• The comparative advantages of WHO stems from its normative function (set standards, best practices, guidelines), direct reach into ministries of health to provide technical support to countries, its independence, impartiality, neutral broker, convenor and coordinator, political legitimacy and technical credibility, global reach (regional and country offices) and finally it gives a voice to, and champions the health of poor people.
• In this context, WHO is uniquely placed as the only organisation where the voice of the Maldives (population of 306,000) has the same weight as the voice of the United States (population of 306,000,000).
• However, this comparative advantage may need to be converted to well-coordinated action to arrive at best results for resilient global health architecture.

 

Funding:

• The WHO funding source may be relevant for understanding its organisational structure and functions much better. The total budget of WHO was $4.3-4.4 billion during the period 2016-17 to 2018-19. Out of its total resources, 28 per cent are assessed contributions from Member States and the rest 72 percent are voluntary contributions.
• The assessed contributions are a percentage of a country’s GDP which is agreed by the United Nations General Assembly. The US contribute 22 per cent of its budget followed by Japan (10 per cent), China (7.9 per cent), Germany (6.4 per cent), France (4.9 per cent), UK (4.5 per cent), Brazil (3.8 per cent) and so on. India contributed 0.8 per cent of its budget and South Africa, 0.4 per cent during this period (WHO).
• The programme budget of WHO for the year 2018-19, out of its $4.4 billion, $3.4 billion goes for its base programmes with highest allocation for communicable diseases followed by corporate services/enabling functions. The remaining $1 billion goes for polio and special programmes.
• Also, more than one-fourth of its spending is done by its headquarters. This expenditure trend is continued with negligible growth in budget over the years which may require reconsideration.

 

The challenges of WHO are derived/broadly classified into internal and external factors:

Internal challenges:

• The internal factors include biomedical versus social medicine health approaches and the debate between vertical and horizontal approaches of WHO, inadequate resources (zero real/nominal growth in its budget), unclear priorities among a multitude of programmes by a plethora of health funding agencies and weak leadership and accusations of waste and corruption within the organisation.
• The biomedical or the vertical approach by WHO, being a specialised one, is executed by health workers and may not be successful unless there are permanent health services in specific regions for its monitoring.
• The horizontal approach of WHO, like mass campaigns, involves a significant proportion of population and the same is essential for its success, which is indeed in both approaches, lacking.

 

External factors:

• The prime concern is the declining commitment to multilateral action/United Nations after the end of the Cold War and in the current geopolitical climate of rising nationalism and deglobalisation.
• The primacy of international financial institutions like the World Bank addressing multidisciplinary requirements is another major factor.
• The political pressure exerted by powerful member states and corporate interests, due to their major contribution in the budget may not result in a level-playing field for other member countries. Also, there is a growing call for social justice amid accelerating economic globalisation.

 

DRDO develops 'Face Recognition System under Disguise' (FRSD)

(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

 

Context:

• The National Crime Records Bureau had floated a tender for deployment of a facial recognition system that can detect faces with masks or disguises during the pandemic.

Recently, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has indeed developed such a system.

Details:

• Dubbed Face Recognition System under Disguise (FRSD), the system claims to detect faces through several "disguises like face masks, beard, moustache, wigs, sunglasses, head-scarves, monkey-caps, hats, etc".
• The Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently released a report called ‘AI in Defence’, which revealed FRSD and other three facial recognition systems developed by organisations under MoD for the Indian Army.
• Since these technologies may not just be reserved for military activities, but also be deployed in public places, it is necessary to throw light on how and why they are being used.

 

Face Recognition System under Disguise (FRSD):

• Instead of human eyes, the FRSD relies on algorithms to identify the person from patchy, low-resolution surveillance camera feeds.The algorithm can also be used by security agencies for robust face search across large repositories.
• The system can be deployed in restricted/ secure zones for live video surveillance. It can also be deployed in public places to recognise anti-social elements.
• It takes into consideration different lighting conditions, shadows on the face, crowd occlusions and so on for identification.
• DRDO has developed the system keeping in mind that it should be scalable across servers and graphic processing units.
• The system comes with a flexible video analytics suite with a number of additional surveillance applications like people counting, geo-fencing, fire detection and collision detection.

 

Project Seeker:

• Project Seeker is a facial recognition system developed by entities under the MoD.
• Developed and deployed by the Indian Army, it has been designed for population monitoring, surveillance and garrison security, according to the MoD report.
• It doesn't require internet connectivity, can accrue intelligence data from multiple sources and be set up remotely with a field-ready system anywhere.
• It can be deployed in ‘disturbed’ areas for continuous surveillance and monitoring, as well as at civilian establishments ‘for ensuring state-of-the-art security’.
• The Seeker system is a self-contained, AI-based facial recognition, surveillance, monitoring, and analysis system for identification & tracking of threats for counter-terrorism, continuous surveillance, and monitoring of disturbed areas.
• The system can be deployed in ‘critical military’ or ‘civilian establishments’ for added security.
• Using intelligence data from various sources, the Army aims to track the movement of terrorists and ‘anti-national’ elements. There is no legal definition for the term ‘anti-national’, and has not been defined in Statutes.

 

Robot at border:

• Apart from Project Seeker, the Indian Army has also developed Silent Sentry, which is a fully, facial recognition capable, 3D-printed rail-mounted robot that slides on a rail and can be installed on fences and anti-filtration obstacle system (AIOS).
• The robot which communicates through WiFi is embedded with artificial intelligence for detecting human beings and faces.

• The video feed received from the robot is analysed by an AI software utilising object recognition. The software detects movement and human presence automatically, generates an audio alarm and stores the photographs with time and date log.
• On detection of a human, a background facial recognition algorithm is activated, which tries to determine the identity of a person from a stored database. The facial feature information is then stored in the database.

 

Driver fatigue monitoring system:

• BEML Ltd, a public sector company under the MoD, has developed a driver fatigue monitoring system which uses facial recognition.Assessing driver fatigue in critical conditions is an indispensable tool, especially in the Armed Forces.
• The report said that the system detects the onset of drowsiness in a driver while the vehicle is in motion.
• A camera inside the cabin films the driver continuously, and an algorithm analyses the footage frame by frame and determines whether the driver’s eyes are open or closed.
• Detection is done by continuously looking out for symptoms of drowsiness, while considering physical cues including yawning, drooping eyelids, closed eyes and increased blink durations by using the percentage of eyelid closure over the pupil over time (PERCLOS) algorithm.
• As dazzling as these technologies may sound, at the end of the day, these are all based on algorithms and the software that is being deployed.

 

Concerns:

• There are concerns over mis-identification due to poor accuracy in correctly identifying faces.
• For instance, in a test conducted in 2018, Amazon’s facial recognition tech known as Rekognition incorrectly matched 28 members of US Congress, identifying them as other people who have been arrested for a crime.

 

Reliability:

• Two siblings wearing masks can very well have similar looking upper-half of the face. They can be wrongly identified. This can even lead to communities being targeted.
• Any decision taken on account of any misinformation might lead to dire consequences. Facial recognition, as a practice, in its application, can also have shortcomings of its own.
• Therefore, the data thus received needs to be subject to a process where the Armed Forces need to further scan and filter the retrieved data.

 

Privacy:

• Over the years, the deployment of facial recognition technology by state governments and the Centre for governance and policing has been under the scanner of civil society groups and digital rights activists, who worry about privacy infringement.
• Although the usage of the system will be more concentrated on foreigners, queries are raisedon the data collection practices, and on whether its usage aligns with the Right to Privacy judgement.
• There is no legal framework which mandates transparency in data collection for the above purpose. The opacity regarding the use of personal data can be a violation of the right to privacy as given in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) versus Union of India.
• Furthermore, the Army is also keen to monitor social media pages. Such surveillance will intersect with already existing state surveillance and might not fall within the purview of roles of Armed Forces.

 

Legality:

• The data collected from facial recognition solutions comes within the purview of “Biometric Data” and is classified as “sensitive personal data under the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data of information) Rules, 2011 (“SPDI Rules”).
• However, regulations have carved out exemptions for government agencies to collect and use such data without the consent of the data subject, with the underlying presumption being that such use of data is for the general public good and national security.
• The recent notification of the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 also allows authorities to collect and share biometric information.”

 

Draft Indian Ports Bill, 2022

(GS Paper 2, Governance)

Why in news?

• Recently, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has prepared the draft Indian Ports Bill, 2022 (“IP Bill 2022”).
• The draft IP Bill 2022 seeks to repeal and replace the existing 1908 Act.

Purpose:

The bill seeks to consolidate and amend the laws relating to ports

1. for the prevention and containment of pollution at ports,
2. to ensure compliance with the country’s obligation under the maritime treaties and international instruments to which India is a party;
3. take  measures for conservation of ports;
4. to empower and establish State Maritime Boards for effective administration, control and management of non-major ports in India;
5. provide for adjudicatory mechanisms for redressal of port related disputes and to establish a national council for fostering structured  growth and development of the port sector, and
6. ensure optimum utilization of the coastline of India, as may be necessary, and to provide for matters ancillary and incidental thereto, or connected therewith.

 

The primary objectives of the proposed bill are four-fold:

1. promote integrated planning between States inter-se and Centre-States through a purely consultative and recommendatory framework;
2. ensure prevention of pollution measures for all ports in India while incorporating India’s obligations under international treaties;
3. address lacunae in the dispute resolution framework required for burgeoning ports sector;
4. usher-in transparency and cooperation in development and other aspects through use of data.

 

Key Highlights:

• The proposed bill will homogenize and streamline the development of the maritime sector, along with, promoting ease of doing business by eliminating unnecessary delays, disagreements and defining responsibilities.
• It will incorporate State Maritime Boards in the national framework.
• Additionally, Maritime State Development Council will ensure cooperative federalism where Centre and State/UT Governments will work together towards preparing progressive road map for the country.
• The redundant provisions of the Act have been deleted or replaced with contemporaneous provisions. Further, existing penalties in the Act which are outdated have been updated with respect to amounts and offences relevant to present day scenario.

 

Indian Ports:

• India has a 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and strategic location on key international maritime trade routes.
• About 95% of India’s trade by volume and 65% by value is done through maritime transport facilitated by ports.
• Under the aegis of the Sagarmala project of Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, several initiatives on port-led development have been identified and launched.
• The ongoing developments and committed investments (public and private) in ports needs to be aided by scientific and consultative planning, with a keen focus on ever increasing safety, security and environmental issues.

 

Way Forward:

• The Indian Ports Act, 1908 (“Act”) is more than 110 years old. It has become imperative that the Act is revamped to reflect the present-day frameworks, incorporate India’s international obligations, address emerging environmental concerns, and aid the consultative development of the ports sector in the national interest.

This bill will lead to increased economic activity, wider markets, and a significant increase in associated employment possibilities, resulting in achieving the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat of Prime Minister.