Modi govt's aims to be a peeping Tom: Congress on e-surveillance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP government at the Centre is aiming to become a "peeping Tom," said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi here on Monday.

"The ultimate ambition of Prime Minister Modi and the government is to become a peeping Tom and turn India into a nanny state," Singhvi told reporters here in an apparent reference to the recent mass e-surveillance notification of Union Home Ministry.

Singhvi said the NDA government is seeking to amend 'The Intermediary Rules, 2011' governed under the 'Information Technology Act, 2000' in a disclosed manner, which would amount to further intrusion of privacy.

He said that such an amendment under the draft's Section 3(5) can authorise authorities to break the end-to-end encryption. "The BJP government will hold the keys to personal and professional data of all sections," he added.

"Be it a journalist whose 'sources' for a particular story can now be traced or be it any opposition leader whose strategy or discussions shall now become open to the government's scrutiny. Be it, bureaucrats or officers who do not often toe the ruling political party's line or be it businessmen whose 'ease of doing business' shall now be hampered by harassment or be it, ordinary citizens whose private conversations shall now become a 'de-crypted' file in the government offices," he noted.

The Centre on Friday announced the move to authorise select security and intelligence agencies for the interception, monitoring and decryption of any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource.

The agencies empowered by the Centre in accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000, include IB, Narcotics Control Bureau, ED, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), CBI, National Investigation Agency (NIA), RAW, and the Commissioner of Police, Delhi.