Photo credit: Pravin Jadhav Note: this is an excerpt of the first draft of our submission, and we will submit a final version by 4.30 PM today. Please feel free to add comments to our full submission here, in case you disagree with our position on an issue, of feel we have missed an important point. It will help us improve this submission. Also, feel free to use this as a basis for your submission (i.e. feel free to copy-paste). Submissions have to be mailed to Joint Secretary (Internal Security-I), Ministry of Home Affairs, North Block, New Delhi at jsis@nic.in by the end of the day, today. A copy of the bill is here. MediaNama's Recommendations This law is such that it is impossible to implement, makes everyone break it, makes everyday usage of applications illegal, hurts and harms the startup ecosystem and Internet users, and negatively impacts all those who use the Internet. This is an impractical policy, and needs to be overhauled completely. It appears to have been created only with the limited understanding of physical maps or just Google maps, without a clear understanding of how users and businesses use location data. It is unbecoming of a government which has digital ambitions for India to even consider such an archaic, bureaucratic and half baked approach for a policy in India. Our recommendations: 1. Change the Name of the bill and limit the scope of the bill to depiction of sensitive information: we would recommend renaming the bill to ‘Sensitive Geospatial Information Regulation Bill’…
