{"id":2386,"date":"2018-07-13T15:05:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T09:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2018-07-13T15:05:28","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T09:35:28","slug":"govt-wants-tap-whatsapp-texts-will-like-creating-surveillance-state-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/news\/govt-wants-tap-whatsapp-texts-will-like-creating-surveillance-state-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt wants to tap WhatsApp texts, it will be like creating a surveillance state: Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking a strong note of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry\u2019s decision to set up a social media hub for monitoring online data, the Supreme Court on Friday said the government wanting to tap citizens\u2019 WhatsApp messages is \u201clike creating a surveillance state\u201d, according to PTI. The top court has sought the government\u2019s response in the matter within two weeks.<\/p>\n

The apex court issued notice to the Centre on a plea by Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Mahua Moitra and sought Attorney General K K Venugopal\u2019s assistance in the matter.\u00a0\u201cThe government wants to tap citizens\u2019 WhatsApp messages. It will be like creating a surveillance state,\u201d a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.<\/p>\n

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, who appeared for Moitra, said the government has issued a request for proposal and the tender will be opened on August 20. \u201cThey want to monitor social media content with the help of this social media hub,\u201d PTI quoted Singhvi as saying.Senior advocate A M Singhvi, who appeared for Moitra, said the government has issued a request for proposal and the tender will be opened on August 20. \u201cThey want to monitor social media content with the help of this social media hub,\u201d PTI quoted Singhvi as saying.<\/p>\n

Court listed the matter for further hearing on August 3.<\/p>\n

\"social<\/p>\n

On June 18, the Supreme Court had refused to accord urgent hearing on the plea seeking to stay a central government move to set up a \u2018Social Media Communication Hub\u2019 that would collect and analyse digital and social media content. The counsel for Moitra had said that the government is trying to monitor social media content of individuals by tracking their social media accounts such as those on Twitter,\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and Instagram, and their e-mails.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the ministry, had floated a tender to supply a software for the project. \u201cA technology platform is needed to collect digital media chatter from all core social media platforms as well as digital platforms such as news, blogs\u2026 In a single system providing real-time insights, metrics and other valuable data,\u201d the tender document said.<\/p>\n

Under the project, media persons would be employed on contractual basis in each district to be the \u201ceyes and ears\u201d of the government and provide real-time updates from the ground. According to the tender document, the platform is expected to provide automated reports, tactical insights and comprehensive work-flows to initiate engagement across digital channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe platform maybe used to disseminate content and hence, should support publishing features,\u201d the document says, adding the platform needs to power a real-time New Media Command Room,\u201d the tender document said<\/p>\n

It should also help the ministry to understand the impact of various social media campaigns conducted on Centre-run schemes, it says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking a strong note of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry\u2019s decision to set up a social media hub for monitoring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paZdga-Cu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2387,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/2387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oyspa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}