

‘Location tracking’ of every Indian mobile user by 2014 - vilgax
http://www.firstpost.com/tech/exclusive-location-tracking-of-every-indian-mobile-user-by-2014-876109.html

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parvatzar
The timing of this particular news couldn't be better. The Govt. Of India
needs to really think this through in light of the latest PRISM NSA leaks. The
infrastructure to set up something of the scale of the CMS would be quite a
challenge considering the number of cell phone users per square kilometer.
NATGRID which has been in news for some time , however not known by many does
come at the intersection of the civil liberties / privacy versus national
security debate. The CMS like the NATGRID would need to have a well defined
access control mechanism to ensure who has access to sensitive info on
citizens. I am not sure where does NATGRID stand in terms of its completion
which was supposed to be done in multiple phases. NATGRID would integrate and
consolidate info n data from multiple central , state databases which would
include banks , credit card transactions , Indian Railways , Airline
Reservation records , income tax , hotel bookings etc. CMS is in my opinion
probably a subset of NATGRID. Neverthless even if its in interest of National
Security, the level of breach of individal privacy needs to be thought through
by the govt. From a tech and economic devleopment perspective govt initiatives
like these are good for India. However , I do hope the govt takes into
consideration the critical concerns and issues that arise with systems such as
CMS and NATGRID else we could see an another " Snowden" rise in India and
widespread dissent among the citizens who are seemingly losing patience with
the govt more than ever in the recent times.

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rockyj
While I would like to agree with you but the fact of the matter is no one
cares about this stuff in India at the ground level. The govt. is already
collecting bio-metric data of the billion plus population, apart from a few,
no one protested against it. Heck, only a few asked how they will store this
data and keep it secure. When more than half of the population is worried
about their next meal or a place to sleep, it does not care about privacy.

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sks
I think even those who are not worried about their next meal are not going to
protest this. India has seen so many terror attacks labeled as intelligence
failure that any move to beef up the intelligence infrastructure may even be
welcomed. The sad thing is that the probability of this data being misused for
political reasons is so much higher in India than in the USA.

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lignuist
> The sad thing is that the probability of this data being misused for
> political reasons is so much higher in India than in the USA.

I guess this is mostly speculation, while I can understand the sentiment.

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uh_oh
In India corruption runs through all levels of government. This is a fact. So,
yes, misuse is much more likely. I understand that you may have wanted to
express that it's less likely that the data is abused for political reasons
_by the government_ to further certain political goals. This may be true, I
don't know.

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Sven7
If they want to save lives, they are better of putting their dwindling
resources, into repairing their roads and improving enforcement of traffic
laws.

Just to get a sense of the numbers, more people are likely to die on Indian
roads _every year_ , than the sum total of deaths in the Afganisthan+Iraq wars
since 2001.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collisions_in_India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collisions_in_India)

~~~
sukuriant
How bad is that, actually, per capita? India is a very, very, VERY populated
place, on a scale unheard of in the United States or UK

[edit] I thought more about it; and China isn't as bad I'm sure. At least, the
internet teaches me that Indian traffic is something noteworthy and Chinese
traffic isn't.

