Current Affairs - Miscellaneous - Discussion

The Union Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) announced draft rules of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2018. Its objective is to end the complete encryption system to trace 'unlawful' activities for better national security. These would amend and replace the Information Technology Act, 2000 and would include the inter-ministerial consultations, followed by discussions with major social media platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and WhatsApp, and associations representing intermediaries. According to the amended rules under Section 79 of the IT Act, It will be mandatory for online platforms to deploy technology to enable access to content seen as "unlawful". Information about "unlawful acts" can be sought from the intermediaries by "court order". The parameter to judge unlawful acts would be Article 19(2) of the Constitution, which places restriction on freedom of speech and expression. The measures proposed include breaking end-to-end encryption so that the origin of messages can be traced. Online platforms will keep a record of "unlawful activity" for a period of "180 days", double the 90 days in the older version.