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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

24/12/23 07:26 AM IST

Telecom Bill

In News
  • The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, was passed in Parliament this week.
  • When it receives the assent of the President, the Bill will replace three archaic laws such as the Telegraph Act of 1885, the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1933 and The Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1950.
Major provisions
  • The Bill governs authorisation of telecommunication networks and services, provides for auctioning as well as administrative allocation of spectrum, defines the mechanism for exercising the right of way for laying telecom infrastructure such as cables in public as well as private property.
  • It also spells out emergency measures the government can take in the interest of national security and public safety such as intercept messages, suspend telecommunication services as well as take temporary possession of any telecommunication service or network.
  • The Bill also states that rules will be framed to protect consumers with the setting up of a ‘Do Not Disturb’ register to ensure they don’t receive a specified class of messages without prior consent.
  • The Bill governs a whole host of services, including over-the-top services such as WhatsApp, Telegram and email services like Gmail through a broad definition for ‘telecommunication’ which is given as “transmission, emission or reception of any messages, by wire, radio, optical or other electro-magnetic systems, whether or not such messages have been subjected to rearrangement, computation or other processes by any means in the course of their transmission, emission or reception.”
  • The Bill also marks a shift from a licensing regime to an authorisation regime, where all telecommunication services in India “shall obtain an authorisation from the Central Government, subject to such terms and conditions, including fees or charges, as may be prescribed.” Anyone who offers a service without authorisation will face an imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
  • The Bill allows the government to assign spectrum for telecommunication through auction except for entities listed in the First Schedule for which assignment will be done by administrative process.
  • The First Schedule includes entities engaged in national security, defence, law enforcement and crime prevention, public broadcasting services, disaster management, promoting scientific research and exploration, as well as Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellites such as Space X, and Bharti Airtel-backed OneWeb, which had been pushing for administrative allocation.
Concerns over the bill
  • The new Telecommunications Bill, 2023, is draconian and provides a legal architecture for mass surveillance and internet shutdowns.
  • Among its several contentious clauses is the requirement that all users have to be identified through the use of “verifiable biometric based identification as may be prescribed” by telecommunication service providers.
  • Further, it requires that no user shall furnish any false particulars or suppress material information.
  • This could impede whistle-blowers as well as journalists who operate under anonymity. If users fail to comply, they will be charged a hefty penalty from ₹25,000 to ₹1,00,000 for some provisions.
  • Section 19 (f) empowers the Central government to notify “standards and conformity assessment measures” in respect of encryption and data processing in telecommunication, which has raised eyebrows given that most internet communication is increasingly being pushed towards encryption to evade national state surveillance programmes.
  • The government’s interest in breaking up encryption of WhatsApp and Signal has to be seen in the backdrop of a controversy over Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware targeting 300 mobile phone numbers for illegal surveillance.
  • It also allows the Central or a State government during a public emergency, including disaster management, and in the interest of public safety to take “temporary possession of any telecommunication service or network”.
  • It can take over control and management of such services or networks. It can intercept messages on the pretext of “preventing incitement to the commission of any offence”, and direct suspension of telecommunication services in such circumstances like the shutdown of Internet seen in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.
Source- The Hindu

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