Naavi.org

I refer to the problems in Net4India partially ceasing its activities discussed here through our earlier articles.

The refusal of the domain registrar to allow transfer of domain to another registrar is a problem of Consumers of domain name service which should be addressed through the Consumer Courts under the Consumer Protection Act.

I had requested for transfer of my domains namely cyberlawcollege.net, cyberlawguru.in and pdpsi.in to another registrar though they are not presently due for renewal.

However my other registrar has expressed his inability to transfer in the absence of the Authorization Code from the earlier domain registrar. This is a constraint imposed by ICANN in their procedures.

In my case the problem is compounded because the e-mail of the registrant registered was at vsnl.com address which Tatas have now stopped servicing. Net4India is not able to make any changes in the e-mail address.

Both Vsnl.com (Now owned by Tatas)  as well as Net4India are service providers who were providing services to customers in India because of the ICANN having given them the license. The Indian Government is a party to this arrangement since they have the overall responsibility for managing the Internet Governance system. NIXI is specifically provided the authority to deal with the dot in domain names.

Now the problems consumers are facing with Net4India has exposed the deficiency in service of ICANN, Net4India, VSNL (now taken over by Tatas) and The Ministry of IT, Government of India.

There are many lawyers in Delhi who raise PILs for many irrelevant things. The Supreme Court is also pleased to take any anti Government PIL even if it is an interference of the normal Governance function provided to the executive.

The problem now posed by Net4India to domain name consumers is a matter which directly affects the Freedom of Expression, causes a denial of acccess, besides large number of people losing money. This is a far more serious issue than many other issues for which the PIL lawyers are able to get the Supreme Court act even under the COVID lock down conditions.

The Supreme Court also takes up certain cases on Suo Moto basis. Many times PILs are admitted  even when the interest represented is of the elite or on the basis of religion or for political reasons or even if it is related to a Vikas Dubey the notorious criminal or the terrorists.

This is now a test for PIL advocates of Delhi as well as the Supreme Court.

Will they recognize the public interest inherent in this instance and make ICANN clean up their domain name registration system?…

Will they pull up companies like Net4India and Tatas who discontinue critical services without proper winding down of operations?

Will they make the Government or NIXI type of agencies of the Government to think of how to resolve such issues through notifications and advisories?

We await answers…

Naavi

Preliminary reports suggest that the Government is releasing the report submitted by Kris Gopalakrishna Committee on Data Governance for public comments.

 The committee was formed  for the purpose of recommending the regulation on Non Personal Data which is of relevance to Big Data Companies.

The copy of the report is not yet available in public domain but some details are available through this article in Economic Times

The detailed report is available here.

Public comments can be made upto August 13 here.

Some of the recommendations that the committee could have made are

1. Appointment of a regulator for regulating non personal data
2. Payment for processed non personal data by the industry to the Government

The panel  is reported to have suggested that

-data can be requested from businesses and government by various stakeholders — the government, citizens, startups, private organizations, and non-profit organizations — for social welfare, regulatory, sovereign, and economic purposes.

-Data for sovereign purposes may be requested for national security, legal purpose, or meeting a sectoral regulation requirement.

We may await for more information.

Copy of the Report

Naavi

P.S: Log in here for submission of comments

On July 31, 2017, I had written an article “Is Net4India closing down its operations?”

At that time I had some problems and subsequently my issues were to some extent resolved. However, in recent days, I am receiving many complaints from other persons affected by similar problems.

I had recently drawn the attention of Mr Samiran Gupta through another article “Name and Shame Rogue Domain Name Registrars” in the context of preventing Phishing frauds. But I did not get any response from him.

I have now taken up the issue of Net4India again with Mr Samiran Gupta and sent him the following e-mail.

Dear Mr Samiran

Naavi.org has believed on knowledge dissemination and through out the 20 years of existence tried to spread knowledge freely. In the process, when some body wants to publish any article of their own on Naavi.org, I have obliged if the content is of relevance to the audience who frequent Naavi.org. When such content is published, Naavi.org would be an “Intermediary” and would be liable as per the provisions of ITA 2000/8 and also be able to claim the benefits of exemption from liability under Section 79 of ITA 2000/8.

But some times, people may misuse the facility of allowing guest posts.

One such occasion arose recently, when I received a request from a person named Badal Patel from myadvo.in. The article was titled “GDPR Compliance Checklist for Indian Companies”.

On February 29, 2020, I received an email as follows:

Hi,

I would love to provide a guest contribution to your blog. I’m also open to any of your ideas as well.

Anytime I guest post on a prominent blog like yours I always make sure to do 1200+ words, with images and data to back up any points I make.

I promise there will be no fluff, just actionable advice.

Let me know what you think. I’m excited to hear back from you.

Keep Up The Good Work.

Best Regards
Badal      

The sender was identified as

The much awaited Module G program of the Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India or FDPPI (www.fdppi.in) which will provide training on  many relevant Data Protection Laws of the world including GDPR, CCPA, Singapore PDPA, DIFC Data Protection law and HIPAA will commence today (11th July 2020)at 4.00 pm IST.

The sessions will be online for 90 minutes each on Saturdays and Sundays starting from today upto August 23.

This is a significant step FDPPI has taken in preparing the Indian Data Protection Community to be aware of the multiple Data Protection laws to which the organisations in India are exposed to.

So far, Indian professionals had to opt for expensive global certification programs ane even in such programs the learnings were  often limited to one specific law such as GDPR. FDPPI recognizes that the life of a DPO in an Indian company is different from that of the DPOs in other countries. Most Indian companies handle personal data of different companies and it would be inappropriate if they apply “GDPR knowledge” alone as if every other law is covered by GDPR compliance.

FDPPI’s course is therefore structured to provide a reasonable overview of multiple data protection laws and given an opportunity for the student to develop a discerning view on these different laws.

FDPPI has already covered the Indian law separately in one full module over 14- hours of online training leading to certification of Module-I. Now this module called Module G will cover over 18 hours of online training and cover GDPR in fair detail and then the other laws to the extent feasible.

These certifications are two modules of the “Certified Expert Data Protection Professional” program developed by FDPPI. This Certification is still available for interested persons under the E Education initiative of Naavi/Cyber Law College.

While individual certificates such as “Certified Data Protection Professional (Module-G)”  will be issued to those participants who register for the Course along with Certification exam from FDPPI (Total Cost rs 18000), those who have opted only for the training and not for taking the certification exam (Total Cost Rs 6000/-) will receive participation certificate from the training partner, Cyber Law College.

This Certification program as well as the PDPSI framework of implementation of data protection regulation are two significant “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” initiatives taken by FDPPI in the field of Data Protection.

The objective of these programs is to establish “National Self Reliance in Data Protection Certifications, Implementation and Audits”

Those who have missed the registration and want to catch up before today afternoon when the program starts, may peruse the Prospectus and make payment through the following link to join the program.

REGISTRATION CLOSED

Naavi

According to a report in Business Standard  the Kris Goplakrishna Committee has submitted its report on “Data Governance” to the Government. One of the recommended regulations that has been leaked appears to be for setting up of a new regulator which perhaps may be called the Data Governance Authority. (DGA)

It would be interesting how the functions of the DGA would be defined in a manner that it does not interfere with the DPA. The critical aspect of this seggregation of roles between DPA and DGA is the classification of data as “Personal Data” and “Non Personal Data”. The issues of “Data Identifiers”, the “De-identification/Pseudonymization” or “Anonyization” will need to be clarified so that the industry is clear on what is regulated by DPA and what is regulated by DGA.

The concept of “Differential Privacy” which we discussed yesterday will be extremely relevant since the proponents of “Differential Privacy” claim that it could be an alternate to “Anonymization Before Big data analysis”.

The DPA as it stands today would like the personal data be anonymized before the Big Data industry takes it up for aggregation and generation of community related inferences. The “Differential Privacy” advocates however claim that they can process identifiable personal data and ensure that disclosures remain e “Anonymous”.

Similarly, there is a need to debate on a definition of “Shared Personal Data” and “Community  Personal Data” which can be clarified when the new Data Governance law is drafted.

Naavi