Center amends IT rules to issue orders for destroying interception records
- The government has amended the Information Technology (IT) rules.
- The rules allow for the Home Secretary or other bureaucrats in the Centre to issue directions to destroy digital records of interception or decrypt information.
Key Highlights
- So far, the power lies with security agencies, such as law enforcement bodies.
- The change will broaden powers of the Centre to issue directions to destroy digital evidence.
- In a gazette notification, the IT Ministry said that it was amending Section 23 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009
- By substituting “security agency” with the words “competent authority and the security agency”.
- The Rule 23 of this law states that every record, including electronic records pertaining to directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of information
- And of intercepted or monitored or decrypted information shall be destroyed by the security agency in every six months
- Except in a case where such information is required, or likely to be required for functional requirements.
Changes in IT Rules
- The 2021 IT Rules replaced the previous guidelines and sought to regulate intermediaries and digital news media.
- Social media platforms were required to provide technological solutions to identify the first originator of any information, risking privacy.
- The amendments introduced in April 2023 give the government power to decide for itself what information is bogus and exercise wide-ranging powers of censorship
- By compelling intermediaries to take down posts deemed fake or false.
- The new regulations threaten freedom of speech and civil liberties in India by restricting speech through executive order rather than legislation.
Prelims takeaway
- IT Rules
- censorship