Parliamentary panel seeks robust safeguards for technology in legal process (GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Why in news?
- A parliamentary panel, which examined the three proposed criminal laws, has hailed the move to enhance the use of technology in legal proceedings but said the adoption of electronic means for communication and trials should proceed only after the establishment of robust safeguards.
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by BJP MP Brij Lal, also said enabling online or electronic FIR registration is a positive step forward but these should be allowed only through modes specified by the state.
Background:
- The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS-2023) bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 11 along with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS-2023) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA-2023) bills.
- The three proposed laws seek to replace the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, 1898, the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, respectively.
Clause 532:
- According to Clause 532 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, all trials, inquires and proceedings under this Code, including
- summons and warrant, issuance, service and execution thereof;
- holding of inquiry;
- examination of complainant and witnesses;
- trial before a court of session, trial in warrant cases, trial in summons-cases, summary trials and plea bargaining; recording of evidence in inquiries and trials;
- trials before high courts;
- all appellate proceedings and such other proceedings,
- May be held in electronic mode, by use of electronic communication or use of audio-video electronic means.
Concerns:
- The committee observed that while the increased utilisation of technology offers numerous advantages, it also creates opportunities for manipulation and misuse.
- The collection and storage of electronic evidence raise concerns about data security and the possibility of unauthorised access or breaches.
Challenges under Clause 173:
- The panel said allowing any form of electronic communication for FIR registration can create logistical and technical challenges for law enforcement.
- Moreover, it could become difficult to track all the FIRs filed, especially if, for example, sending an SMS to any police officer is considered as providing information within the scope of Clause 173.
- According to Clause 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, "Every information relating to the commission of a cognisable offence, irrespective of the area where the offence is committed may be given orally or by electronic communication.
- As the Sanhita stands out by introducing the formal adoption of audio-visual and electronic means to undertake various processes, the Committee feels that a proviso may be added to Clause 266 to facilitate the recording of evidence for defence through audio-video electronic mode as well.
- The committee, recommends that an appropriate proviso may be inserted to the clause for facilitating audio-video recording of evidence of defence, after ensuring proper safeguards.
Way Forward:
- The committee recommends that the adoption of electronic means for communication and trials should proceed only after the establishment of robust safeguards to ensure the secure usage and authentication of electronically available data.
NASA spacecraft fired a laser at Earth
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Why in news?
- NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, currently over 16 million kilometres away in space, successfully fired a laser signal at Earth recently.
Mission:
- The spacecraft is on its way to a unique metal-rich asteroid, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
- Scientists believe this asteroid is the nickel-iron core of an early planet, studying which could provide unique insights into the impenetrable iron core of our own planet.
- Simultaneously, it will also carry out another mission that might hold the key to future space exploration.
Space communication’s data rate problem:
- Communicating with spacecraft far away from Earth poses many challenges, of which the problem of data rates might be the most critical.
- Like wireless communications on Earth, spacecraft encode data on various bands of electromagnetic frequencies. Currently, most space communication is carried out using radio waves, having the highest wave lengths but lowest frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum.
The electromagnetic spectrum. (Credit: NASA)
- However, higher bandwidths (range of frequencies) carry more data per second. Thus, scientists would ideally like to transmit data at the highest bandwidths possible to increase the rates of data transfer. But this throws up its own set of challenges.
- Radio waves are more widely used for communication than other electromagnetic waves primarily because of their desirable propagation properties, stemming from their large wavelength.
- What this means is that they have the ability to pass through the atmosphere regardless of weather, pass through foliage and most building materials, as well as bend around obstructions. Shorter wavelengths tend to scatter when in contact with any interference.
DSOC Experiment:
- NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment is pioneering the use of near-infrared laser signals for communication with spacecraft.
- Much like fibre optics replacing old telephone lines on Earth, NASA says that DSOC will allow data rates at least 10 times higher than state-of-the-art radio telecommunications systems of comparable size and power, enabling higher resolution images, larger volumes of science data, and even streaming video.
- The Psyche spacecraft is the first to carry a DSOC transceiver, and will be testing high-bandwidth optical communications to Earth during the first two years of the spacecraft’s journey to the main asteroid belt.
- The tech demo achieved “first light” in the early hours of November 14 after this transceiver locked onto a powerful uplink laser beacon transmitted from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at the NASA’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California.
How does this technology work?
- The flight laser transceiver and ground-based laser transmitter will need to point with great precision. Reaching their targets will be akin to hitting a dime from a mile away while the dime is moving. A dime, or a 10 cent coin, is less than 2 cm in diameter.
- To achieve this, the transceiver aboard the spacecraft needs to be isolated from the craft’s vibrations.
- Moreover, since the positions of Earth and the spacecraft will be constantly changing as the photons travel, the DSOC ground and flight systems will need to compensate, pointing to where the ground receiver and flight transceiver will be when the signal arrives.
- Lastly, given the distance between the spacecraft and Earth, new signal-processing techniques will be utilised to squeeze information out of the weak laser signals transmitted over the vastness of space.
Why does this matter?
- In 2013, NASA’s Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration tested record-breaking uplink and downlink data rates between Earth and the Moon using similar technology.
- DSOC, however, is taking optical communications into deep space, paving the way for high-bandwidth communications far beyond the Moon and over a 1,000 times farther than any optical communications test to date.
- With humanity’s ambitions to travel in space, far beyond the Moon, improving communications technology is crucial.
