?If There’s One Story To Read Today
Western Railways tight-lipped on its surveillance system
Some months ago, Mumbai’s Western Railways boasted of its CCTV surveillance mechanism. Naturally, we had some questions about data security and retention. To our surprise, not only was the department evasive in its response, it also failed to provide the tender for setting up the AI-based mechanism. Why won’t it let the public be privy to such information?
CCTV surveillance is great but only if there are proper privacy safeguards to it. But Western Railways has decided to march ahead with its surveillance tactic even before ticking off that box. Now they’re planning to have CCTVs inside motormen’s cabins! Officials say this is supposedly being done to avoid accidents and to keep a check on the speed limit. Still, imagine having your boss’s eyes trained on you the entire time even when you’re resting. Now, will that make you want to come to work everyday? [Read , 3 minutes]
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? Your Tech Policy Agenda
- In case you missed it: TRAI has extended the last date till January 23, 2023, for submitting feedback on its Consultation paper “Data Communication Services Between Aircraft and Ground Stations Provided by Organizations Other Than Airports Authority of India”. Find details here.
- Data Privacy Week: TROPT is organizing Data Privacy Week 2023 to explore, amplify, and spread awareness on the latest in privacy tech and innovation from January 24-25, 2023. Register here.
? JobNama
- Policy Fellowship: Bharat Institute of Public Policy (ISB), in collaboration with Biju Janata Dal, is hiring under their Konark Fellowship Programme. Find JD and application for Policy Fellow here and Senior Policy Fellow here. Location: Bhubaneshwar, Odisha
?Today’s Top Stories
PLATFORM REGULATION
To continue, please confirm that you are above the age of 18: India’s data protection bill requires all sites processing personal data to verify the age of the user and follow additional requirements when processing data of those under 18. Ironically, to carry out age verification, sites might have to collect more personal data than they would’ve otherwise. But is there a way to verify age in a privacy preserving manner? The French data protection commission analysed six different solutions and found issues with all of them. But all hope is not lost. The Commission has prescribed measures to improve some of these existing solutions, as well as presented a new solution that is both reliable and privacy-preserving. [Read, 6 minutes]
E-COMMERCE & GIG ECONOMY
Guardrails for live commerce: It seems like the Indian government has begun talks to assess if there is a need to regulate live commerce. It may be a prudent move given that its revenue is projected to touch five billion dollars but it remains to be seen if the government is able to bring a framework in time. [Read ?, 2 minutes]
YouTube’s latest move to take on TikTok: TikTok wannabe YouTube Shorts will start sharing ad revenue with creators starting Feburary, giving content creators an incentive to choose the platform over TikTok, because the latter doesn’t share ad revenues, although, there are other ways creators can monetize their content. But here in India, YouTube Shorts already has the upper hand because the government conveniently banned TikTok. [Read, EconomicTimes]
CYBERSECURITY
In the name of Aadhaar: Imagine receiving a call from a stranger saying your personal information is being misused for a national crime. Indian Twitter is filled with such grievances and details of different types of frauds related to identity such as Aadhaar and online transactions. In this story, the scamsters go as far as to involve the Mumbai police too. [Read ?, 2 minutes]
? Tech Policy from Around the World
Iran Says Face Recognition Will ID Women Breaking Hijab Laws [Read] (Khari Johnson/Wired)
Twitter Accused of ‘Sham’ Redundancy Process by Staff Targeted in Mass Firings [Read] (Katharine Gemmell/ Bloomberg)
A government watchdog spent $15,000 to crack a federal agency’s passwords in minutes [Read] (Zack Whittaker/ TechCrunch)
Startup Uses AI Chatbot to Provide Mental Health Counseling and Then Realizes It ‘Feels Weird’ [Read] (Chloe Xiang/ VICE)
Exclusive: EU wants details of Big Tech, telcos investment plans [Read] (Foo Yun Chee/ Reuters)
Coinbase lays off around 20% of its workforce as crypto downturn continues [Read] (Jaclyn Diaz / NPR)
Instagram and Facebook introduce more limits on targeting teens with ads [Read] (Taylor Hatmaker/ TechCrunch)
A fifth of passwords used by federal agency cracked in security audit [Read] (Dan Goodin / Ars Technica)
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