In September 2021, the Centre for Internet and Society and IT for Change co-organized a strategy meeting on the government's newly launched e-Shram portal, designed to deliver targeted social security benefits to informal sector workers. This strategy meeting brought together civil society representatives, researchers, academics, trade unions,…
Internet governance
2021
Karnataka’s Open Data Policy opens up a Pandora’s box of concerns for public interest and citizen rights
Last week, the Government of Karnataka (GoK) notified its Open Data Policy (ODP) to open up government-held personal and non-personal datasets for “innovation, co-creation and research”. The government’s logic fits very much into the…2021
The rhetoric of the e-commerce opportunity in policy dialogues on trade and development often fails to engage with concerns on equity and inclusion. While the pandemic has given a new impetus to digital trade, the status quo of data extractivism presents an insurmountable barrier to gender-inclusive economic recovery. A new gender…
2021
IT for Change responded to the call from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs for public consultation on the proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020.
Read the full submission here.In light of the growing recognition of the dominance of certain platforms in the e-commerce domain, the Draft Rules are an…
IT for Change's Response to the Public Consultation on India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA)
2021
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.
IDEA will prevent corporate capture of core structures of the digital…2021
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 constitutional right to privacy and is therefore…
2021
The draft Digital Markets Act envisages the obligations of data sharing by large gatekeeper platforms along with ex-ante oversight by the regulator of such platforms, in the EU. This regulation is framed as a part of the Digital Services Act Package, being discussed by the EU to regulate the digital economy.
The feedback by IT for Change…
2021
Just Net Coalition, along with more than 170 civil society groups addressed an Open Letter to the UN Secretary General urging him to shelve plans for a High Level Multistakeholder Body which, if set up, can be expected to become the default apex global digital governance and policy body. This body is to be privately funded, with strong hints…
2021
In collaboration with the Data and Society Research Institute, the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), and others, IT for Change is co-organizing the first Annual Conference of the Platform Governance Research Network, which will take place from March 24 to 26, 2021. The three-day online conference seeks to bring together an…
2021
IT for Change is excited to announce its new project, Tech Practice and Policy in a Post-Covid World – Developing Civil Society Agendas, funded by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC).
Digital technology is proliferating with ever-increasing rapidity owing to the pandemic. As the extent to which it is poised to…