India to monitor FB, Twitter to strengthen cyber security

Your FB, Twitter account to be Monitored.
India to monitor FB, Twitter to strengthen cyber security

Government of India is planning to check your Facebook and Twitter account. Confirming the move, Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology, Mr. Milind Deora, said that his department has already received a recommendation on this regard from the Ministry of Home Affairs which is also in-charge of internal security of the country.

“Department of Telecommunication has received a letter from Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure effective monitoring of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter in order to strengthen cyber security paraphernalia,” the Minister informed the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) on August 5, 2011 in a written reply to a question posted by one Indian law maker.

Government of India is toying with the idea to monitor social networking sites for the last couple of years after the country had been ravaged several times by extremist groups which used social media to communicate with each other.

Apart from terrorism activities, many Indians are suffering from identity impersonation, abuse and other criminal activities which Government of India wants to deal sincerely.

But the Government of India is facing a tough challenge while planning to monitor various social networking sites. The department handling this activity doesn’t have the knowhow to decrypt all the intercepted encrypted messages.

In India, the Telecom Service Providers provide facilities for lawful interception and monitoring of communication flowing through their network including communications from social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, as per the terms and conditions of their licence agreements.

But, there are certain communications, which are encrypted by the Solution Service Providers of these services. The Telecom Service Providers are not supposed to know the content of any communication and, therefore, do not know whether a service is encrypted or not. This is known by the Security Agencies only when the stream of encrypted content is delivered to them through the facility of lawful interception and monitoring provided by Telecom Service Providers. But Security Agencies may not be able to decrypt all the intercepted encrypted messages.

The Government of India is now regularly interacting with various Telecom Service Providers and Solution Service Providers to address the issue and implement the solution to the extent possible keeping in view security, service and developmental needs of the country.