Telecom Trends In India 2014

Perry4Law Organisation (P4LO) is on the forefront of providing various techno legal trends of India since 2006. The latest to add to this list are Cyber Security Trends and Developments in India 2014 and Telecom Related Trends and Development in India 2014. The cyber security trends of India 2014 have also been covered here1 and here2.

In this work, Perry4Law’s Techno Legal Base (PTLB) is providing the summary of the telecom trends of India 2014. The telecom trend of India in the year 2014 witnessed a combination of progressive and regressive steps being taken by Indian Government.

On the progressive side the Telecom Commission of India has allowed satellite based mobile services in India in the year 2014. On the regressive side, the Indian Government has failed to protect civil liberties in cyberspace once again. In fact, telecom operator Vodafone revealed use of secret wires for government e-surveillance and eavesdropping worldwide, including in India.

Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) promised to investigate govt snooping allegations of Vodafone but it failed to do so till the end of December 2014. The dangerous central monitoring system (CMS) of India was also activated without any legal framework and Parliamentary oversight.

Similarly, the redundant and outdated telecom related laws remained on the statue book in the year2014. For instance, the telegraph and cyber law of India remained outdated, colonial and draconian in the year 2014. Similarly, encryption related dedicated laws in India are also missing till the end of December 2014.

Further, new lawmaking was also missing in the year 2014. For instance, there is no dedicated laws regarding cell phones and their dealings in India and the same continued till the end of December 2014 as well. In particular, the cell site data location laws in India and privacy issues are still not redressed by Indian Government so far.

India is also one of the countries where phone tapping is possible without any court order/warrant. This is a serious civil liberty violation that continued in the year 2014. A lawful and constitutional interception law in India is urgently needed. Privacy rights in India in the information era (PDF) have still not been recognised by Indian Government.

Overall, the telecom trends of India in the year 2014 were far from satisfactory. Rather they were on the negative side of development that must be taken care of by Indian Government in the year 2015.