India’s 400mn social media users to lose anonymity

Bloomberg

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok will have to reveal users’ identities if Indian government agencies ask them to, according to the country’s controversial new rules for social media companies and messaging apps expected to be published later this month.
The requirement comes as governments around the world are trying to hold social media companies more accountable for the content that circulates on their platforms, whether it’s fake news, objectionable content, racist invective or terrorism-related content. India’s new guidelines go further than most other countries’ by requiring blanket cooperation with government inquiries, no warrant or judicial order required.
India proposed these guidelines in December 2018 and asked for public comment.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India, a trade group that counts Facebook, Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google among its members, responded that the requirements “would be a violation of the right to privacy recognised by the Supreme Court.”
But the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is expected to publish the new rules later this month without major changes, according to a government official familiar with the matter.
“The guidelines for intermediaries are under process,” said NN Kaul, the media adviser to the minister of electronics & information technology.
The provisions in the earlier draft had required platforms such as Google’s YouTube or ByteDance Inc’s TikTok, Facebook or its Instagram and WhatsApp apps, to help the government trace the origins of a post within 72 hours of a request. The companies would also have to preserve their records for at least 180 days to aid government investigators, establish a brick-and-mortar operation within India and appoint both a grievance officer to deal with user complaints and a government liaison. The Ministry is still finalising the language and content.
The rules cover all social media and messaging apps with more than 5 million users. India, with 1.3 billion people, has about 500 million internet users. It isn’t clear whether the identities of foreign users would be subject to the Indian government’s inquiries.
Law enforcement agencies around the world have been frustrated by tech firms that have refused to identify users, unlock devices or generally
cooperate with government investigations, particularly in cases relating to terrorism.