English speaking urban Indians are loud on English media but ultimately don't matter for political decisions because they can't actually flip an LA or LS election. You need to either be a significant voting bloc or a major economic bloc to become a veto player in any country.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
Most likely, Indian government will try again
We shouldn't call it "cyber safety" as that is a loaded phrase here. Obviously other considerations were part of it.
Like with the chat control in the EU now, the foot is already blocking the door
And I'm sure in the end it will cave in. The "they" have a clear plan supported by infinitely more patience and resources than the "us" can muster, and the von der Leyen presidency has shown clear signs of direction towards more control, less privacy (by weakening the GDPR), and less of the good kind of regulation in industry.
As an EU citizen, I'm very unhappy with the Union's recent direction.
But, at least for now, hooray for the temporary victory on the Indian front!
1. Most Indian bureaucracy is clueless about tech things, and just goes by whatever somebody who sounds like techy enough is selling them. Which in this case I'm guessing is a data mining company/lobby.
2. The information derived can be used for various purposes. Plotting election trends, economics, spotting general trends pro/against politics and other nefarious causes. etc.
3. Spying.
4. Using information to go after political opponents.
5. Demographic targeting, which in Indian context almost always means a pogrom against groups, which other groups don't like.
6. Selling data to commercial entities for better targeting, or even social engineering buying choices etc.
There could be many others. But its kind of nice that it was taken back. Having said this, it will be pushed again at some point when people are busy with a crisis and this will be sold as a fix.
That is how they ramped up enrollment in Aadhaar UID.
I held out for many years due to privacy reasons. In the end, I changed my mind - its just immensely useful to the general public.
Now, the morons in charge are making it mandatory to book a gas cylinder as well. It’s like once a blind suddenly starts seeing, he wants to capture everything.
A friend then showed me that he downloaded aadhar PSD online, put a random invalid number, his photo and a non-existent address on the bank and used it everywhere where people were asking for aadhar without any need. Building and Airport security, Hotel reservation staff, Bus tickets and so on and used real aadhar only for banking and sim cards. He said this simplifies life a lot.
In the later incarnations, if this is an app which you need to access government services that is less of an issue, though I'm not advocating that this is completely fine. There are already apps like these CoWin (during Covid time), or Digiyatra (despite some of the privacy concerns around it [1]) which many are using. I hope if at all this app gets introduced (in the form you mention) there are larger discussions about permissions and the data access the app would need,and it can be disabled, uninstalled.
I don't view these apps as net negative for a country like India which is helped immensely by digitization.
My comment was just pointing out that governments have a way to get you install the app if they really need to.
The question is what makes service critical. Is Expedia or Uber critical?
Ex A: Ind x ITU, https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-itu-res...
Ex B: China x ITU, https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/1677/
Read between the lines?
> Given Sanchar Saathi’s increasing acceptance, Government has decided not to make the pre- installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers.
India: Every phone must install a cyber safety app
Apple: No
India: OK, nevermind
?
Apple has been a massive driver for India's electronics manufacturing boom, because it's Apple that has been strongarming it's suppliers like Foxconn and Envision to start manufacturing (not just assembling) in India - just like how Apple helped turbocharge China's electronics upskilling in the late 2000s and early 2010s which helped Apple vendors like BYD and BOE become global competitors in the 2020s.
Tata Group has also become an Apple vendor now as well for both assembly as well as chip packaging, so they probably helped arbitrate.
Apple and India are also negotiating over a potential $38B anti-trust bill [0] which is a significantly higher priority for both parties.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
Policy that is hard to pass: SIM binding for all messenger apps and automatic log out every 6 hours for desktop apps.
Even more egregious policy: Pre-install spyware that cannot be disabled.
Withdraw the egregious policy on outrage, and people think they have won the battle.
