TMC's Mahua Moitra tears down govt's efforts to create a 'surveillance state'

In wake of a petition filed by All India Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has withdrawn a tender for a Social Media Surveillance Hub that was in works and has indicated that it has no plans to float any in the future.

The development allays the growing concern over the misuse of social media data for politically-motivated agendas.

Huge victory today- on my petition UIDAI tells Supreme Court they are withdrawing tender for intended Social Media Surveillance Hub and says not planning to float any more in near future. Thank you @DrAMSinghvi
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) December 17, 2019

Earlier, United Kingdom-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was reported to have mined data of thousands of individuals, without their informed consent, to create psychological profiles, which it used for targeted messaging to influence voting patterns.

According to a media report, the government had wanted to use the Social Media Surveillance Hub in a similar capacity, to monitor the social media accounts of individuals to gauge their opinions about government policies, create “360-degree” profiles of them and target them with personalised messages to alter their opinions.

The Supreme Court had in 2018 observed that setting up a hub to monitor social media data of individuals will be “like creating a surveillance state.”

The move had faced much criticism from the public. The video of Moitra's first speech in the Lok Sabha regarding the issue had gone viral on social media.

The government was also recently rapped after it came to light that messages and calls of some activists and journalists in India shared on the messaging platform WhatsApp has been intercepted using Israeli software Pegasus, allegedly on the behest of the government.

Despite these setbacks, the government is ramping up efforts under the shroud of secrecy, tightening its stronghold on another more ambitious project: the NATGrid – a robust intelligence gathering mechanism set up with an aim to avert terror threats.

This National Intelligence Grid will have data related to all immigration entry and exit, banking and financial transactions, credit card purchases, telecom, individual taxpayers, air flyers, train travellers beside others to generate intelligence inputs. NATGRID will be operational by December 2020.

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