It was interesting to read in ET today regarding a new agency to be started by the Government. The headline read “Central agency to monitor communication traffic” and interestingly it was in the sidebar of the 1st page. I was quite surprised that an agency which will monitor all possible communications (telephone, internet, and everything else) is being reported in small on the 1st page and mainly on the 5th page. Quoting from the article …

“The new UPA government will soon invest Rs 450 crore to establish a central autonomous agency that will monitor all communication ….. The agency, to be called ‘Centralised Lawful Interception and Monitoring System’, will monitor transmission through wireless and fixed lines, satellite, internet, e-mails and voice over internet protocol calls …… The centralised system aims to be a one-stop solution as against the current practice of running several decentralised monitoring agencies under various ministries, where each one has disparate processing systems, technology platforms and clearance levels. Currently, the defence ministry, the police department, the Intelligence Bureau and other agencies associated with national security, all have separate surveillance systems. In addition to duplication of work, they often refuse to share information with each other as they compete with each other.”

Is this possible? Reading this article one of the first thoughts which came to my mind was that in a country of a billion citizens, over 300 million mobile subscribers, 65 million netizens is it possible to monitor all communication traffic? May be it is through a complex grid of computer systems with automated programs (machine learning algos) trying to pick up keywords and find a security threat. After all such systems probably exist in USA (managed by NSA), UK, France and many other countries.

Is this not a breach of privacy? If the system is being totally run by computers then maybe it isn’t. After all Google also scans all your emails and gives you targeted ads. But then it might not be totally computerized! The troubling part is that a person working in such a central agency can easily find out all possible information about anyone, listen to all conversations, read all emails, basically complete breach of privacy. In India detecting and prosecuting such people will also be extremely difficult. However if this organization can even do a little bit of progress in terms of protecting the nation I guess we can still accept this.

Is Rs 450 crores enough? This is one part which seemed quite difficult to me, how can the Government expect to set up such a high tech central agency with a budget of just $100 million? Although they have said that they will provide more money for the organization when this fund gets over but it seemed quite strange. In a country where corruption eats away a lot of money it seemed a bit of like giving Rs 450 crores for nothing.

Aim of the organization? The organization is being setup to ensure easy access to information to defense, intelligence bureau, and police. To add another layer of bureaucracy to ensure more co-operation between various organization seems a little counter-intuitive.

Overall I admire the effort by the Government to work towards a more secure India. We do need better intelligence and if such an organization can make a difference then Rs 450 crores is a very small price to pay!

P.S. Next time you crack a joke or prank over the phone / email about security threat be a little careful to ensure that the message does not land you in a suspected citizen list

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