The Intelligence Bureau has recommended Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring foreign content providers including Facebook and Twitter under the ambit of Indian laws as is the practice in many foreign countries.
In his address to welcome the PM on the concluding day of the annual conference of Directors General of Police, IB Director Syed Asif Ibrahim conveyed the importance of bringing the social networking sites under the purview of the legal framework.
Outlining the deliberations for the last two days, Ibrahim said there was a special discussion on vulnerabilities and steps needed to be taken in order to overcome the challenges in cyber space which include constant upgradation of technology through in-house efforts.
He said the recent communal incidents had brought out that social media platform was being used for instigating the crowd. Security agencies in India were handicapped with technical and procedural constraints but foreign law enforcement agencies have unfettered access to social media, the IB chief said.
“The legal framework in India in this context is still evolving. It was recommended that foreign content providers be brought within the ambit of Indian laws supplemented with creation of our own cyber space”, he said.
If the recommendation is accepted, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter will be answerable to Indian laws, officials said. In his speech, the IB director emphasised that the decision to introduce non-lethal weapons for police while dealing with public agitation had yielded rich dividends.
“As a result of this, only three people lost their lives in the aftermath of hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru in Jammu & Kashmir this year as compared to 113 in 2010 public agitation,” he said.
In Jammu & Kashmir, despite concerted efforts to destabilise the State, effective coordination between security agencies have frustrated these moves, he said. However, elements within terror groups lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Hizbul Mujahideen have targeted security forces in order to provoke disproportionate response from security forces and later converted it into agitations, he said.
“Even the efforts for agitations by separatists have found no takers and people in the State have reposed their faith in the mainstream political process and results of forthcoming elections have become the focus of daily discourse,” he added.