Govt ‘not in favour’ of Internet surveillance

IANS/New DelhiThe Indian government was opposed to anyone accessing content of Internet communications emanating from the country, Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told parliament yesterday.He also assured members that steps had been taken to protect communications sent by missions abroad. Responding to concern of Rajya Sabha members over reports of access by US agencies to Internet communications emanating from India, Sibal said the issue had been “very seriously” raised by the government. He said US Secretary of State John Kerry, who visited India in June, had defended the electronic surveillance programmes of his country and said that it had led to uncovering of terrorist plots.Sibal said the US had conveyed that its surveillance programmes monitor only broad patterns of Internet traffic with the objective of thwarting terrorist attacks and the content of data was not being accessed or monitored. He said the US authorities had also informed that content of Internet traffic could be accessed only through court orders.Sibal said there was no information that content of Internet communications emanating from India had been accessed. “No evidence, nor has the US said (they) accessed content information. (We are) certainly opposed to anybody accessing content,” he said.Answering a query, he said servers of Internet search engines Google and Yahoo were located in the US. He also said servers of some Indian companies providing e-mail services were located in India.“They can protect e-mails within India,” he said.Sibal said that Indian embassies had linkage to the National Informatics Centre server for protection of government information.