Rights and Freedoms

UID and Cellphone Numbers – a benign start?

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India’s Unique Identity Number is all set to ride on the country’s large cell phone database which has around 500 million subscribes. It’ll be a challenge to collect the subscriber’s biometric data and prevent duplicates. But most importantly, will it be misused by the government to create a police state as has happened in so many other countries?

SC hearing on Article 377 postponed from 14th September to 29th

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I really wish the media would take the trouble to keep us posted of important court cases when they’re scheduled for a hearing. We were all waiting for the SC to arbitrate Article 377 on the 14th of September 2009 and when the date arrives, no report in the media to keep us informed of what happened. Luckily, my Google Calendar is set up to notify me a day before the date approaches, and so when I found there was no mention of it, I decided to dig the records for myself.

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WADA – Threatening Privacy in the name of "safety"

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It’s a disturbing trend these days that governments and regulation bodies think that safety concerns can override an individual’s freedom. Whether it is censoring the Internet, surveillance, or the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) new “whereabout” clause, the underlying idea is the same – individual’s rights come secondary to “public safety”. Or so they say. Image … Read more