Internet Governance/Advocacy

In April 2023, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology introduced Amendments to The Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020, and opened the same for public consultation. The Amendment allows non-state actors to provide…

A data-propelled tendency for economic concentration and the policy deficits that have fueled the rise of Big Tech companies have brought to the fore a critical realization – market power is coterminous with data power and the entrenched control of Big Tech over the data value chains is at the…

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 has rightly been criticised for failing to uphold good consent and data subject rights. One provision that has been largely overlooked is Section 16, which pertains to the transfer and processing of personal data outside India. Section 16…

In the last few years, data has been likened, aside from the hackneyed comparison to ‘oil’, to any number of tangible entities such as mineral deposits, dividend deposits, and even the Alaskan Permanent Fund. Metaphors as a tool could re-entrench existing power asymmetries or resist them,…

As procurers of all the civic tech that surrounds us, municipal authorities today find themselves in a unique position — they have become the custodians of personal and aggregate data generated by the world’s largest human concentrations. Rich or poor, large or small, democratic, autocratic, or…

In this paper, the authors argue that there is substantial scope for data governance policies for the Global South to draw from theories and practices informed by the idea that data can be a subject of decentralized, community-centric governance. First, the paper highlights the importance of…

UNESCO has released its initial draft proposal of the ‘Guidelines on Regulating Digital Platforms: a multistakeholder approach’ (Guidance Document) for inputs and observations. The document is meant to serve as a guidance on the regulation, co-regulation, and self-…

IT for Change submitted an input to the UN Human Rights B-Tech project in response to its call for inputs on gender, digital tech, and the role of business, using the lens of the United Nations Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) applied from a gender perspective. In our…

The public release of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot by OpenAI, in November 2022, percolated the public consciousness with the disruptive potential, both incredible and iniquitous, of emerging general-purpose AI technologies. In the following months, AI has dominated the public discourse and…

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. With an aim to increase platform accountability, the proposed amendments focus heavily on stemming the…

The National Health Authority (NHA) recently released its Data Sharing Guidelines draft for PM-JAY. The NHA invited responses and comments from the public and as such IT for Change duly sent in its recommendations. While the NHA's proposal is certainly a step in the right direction, there are a…

Cross-border data flows are the most hotly contested issue globally in terms of digital trade. IT for Change proposes a new framework to govern cross-border data flows, 'Data Flow with Data Right', which in our view should assure developing countries that their concerns, especially economic and…

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has published a draft version of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (hereinafter the Bill) for public comments to be submitted by January 2, 2023. The current draft of the personal data protection bill marks the fourth…

The new Intermediary Guidelines (IL Guidelines), require messaging platforms that have over 50 lakh registered users (such as WhatsApp) “enable the identification of the first originator of the information”.

The challenge from WhatsApp is that this impinges on an individual’s…

IT for Change responded to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare public consultation white paper for the India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA). The key points of our submission are summarized below.

The full submission may be found here.