🥇If There’s One Story To Read Today Ministry ‘fesses on using facial recognition Last week, the Ministry of Communications confirmed in the Rajya Sabha the existence of ASTR – a system to scan SIM subscribers’ faces to catch fraudsters. We at MediaNama like to believe we had a part to play in this admission of the government since ours was among the few publications that knew and reported on this system. In fact, in January we even did an explainer on what ASTR is. That’s not all. For those who attend MediaNama’s physical event, you may remember that ASTR was discussed during the Telecom Bill event as well. The news had considerably shocked many attendees, well-versed in the field of technology policy and developments in India. While the government has dallied on replying to RTIs regarding ASTR, it is nonetheless a good sign that the Ministry did not shy away from the Rajya Sabha questions. Still, when did it plan to tell people that their information is being processed? Read this 2-minute story here. Click here to subscribe to MediaNama Daily and receive the best of tech policy in your inbox. 🗓 Your Tech Policy Agenda What’s the view? The deadline for seeking stakeholders' views on the draft amendment to the IT Rules, 2021, is 20th February 2023. Voice your stand: Feedback for TRAI’s consultation paper on Regulating Converged Digital Technologies and Services can be sent to advbbpa@trai.gov.in with a copy to jtadv-bbpa@trai.gov.in by February 27, 2023. The regulator will…
