Pierluigi Paganini
March 01, 2015
The Indian government will be monitoring the online activities of official computers, blocking any content not comply with its policy. The authorities will intimate users and, as an ultimate measure, will have the right to delete e-mails or browsing history on the machines that will be not aligned with Government directive.
The measures announced by the Indian Government are a part of two notifications, ‘E-mail Policy of Government of India’ and ‘Policy on the use of Information Technology resources of the Government of India, issued on February 18, according to the announcement.
The central Indian Government will ban the use of private e-mail services, including Gmail and Yahoo, for government use.
“All organisations, except those exempted under clause 14 of this policy, should migrate their e-mail services to the centralised deployment of the NIC for security reasons and uniform policy enforcement,” the policy says. “They can continue to operate the same provided the e-mail servers are hosted in India. However, in interest of uniform policy enforcement and security, it is recommended that these organisations should consider migrating to the core service of NIC,”
The Indian Government has decided that bureaucrats and officials must use e-mail services provided by NIC for official communication.
“The e-mail services provided by other service providers shall not be used for any official communication,” states the notification.
The Indian Government fear cyber espionage of foreign governments and is particularly concerned by the possibility that Government communication could be accessed by Intelligence agencies of other countries.
“Misuse of these resources can result in unwanted risk and liabilities for the government,” the policy says. “NIC may block content which, in the opinion of the organisation concerned, is inappropriate, or may adversely affect the productivity of the users.”
The notifications confer the NIC the power to “access, review, copy or delete” any kind of electronic communication such as files, e-mails and internet history, for “security-related reasons”. The notifications also regulate the access to
The policies has also regulate the access to social media websites sites from government networks, urging users to use “high security settings” and not post “offensive, threatening, defamatory, bullying, racist, hateful, harassing, obscene or sexist” content. The Government officials cannot publish any comment or post any content that would “cause damage to the organisation’s reputation.”
(Security Affairs – Indian Government, email services)
