Asaduddin Owaisi Slams Government's Digital Rulebook

All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Friday opposed the draft of ther rules to regulate content on Internet intermediaries and streaming platforms.

In a series of tweets, Mr Owaisi expressed his dissent against the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

"Currently, many messaging platforms are end to end encrypted. No one except sender and recipient of a message knows about its content, now government rules wants to force platforms to trace the ''originator'' of forwarded messages," Mr Owaisi tweeted.

"Proposals to implement traceability have been shown to be vulnerable to spoofing where bad actors can falsify originator information to frame innocents. Originators also have no control over who forwards the content, or how many times it is forwarded," other tweet read.

"Government already has too many powers to surveil. We don't have privacy laws that protect us from a government that constantly wants to know about our private conversations. There's no parliamentary oversight or judicial or redress against abuse of power. These rules must be opposed," Mr Owaisi tweeted.

Amidst growing concerns around lack of transparency, accountability and rights of users related to digital media and after elaborate consultation with the public and stakeholders, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 has been framed in exercise of powers under section 87 (2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and in supersession of the earlier Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011, informed the Ministry of Electronics & IT on Thursday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)