Industry, civil society pan EC’s demand to be included in IT law amendment

Industry and civil society organisations have opposed the Election Commission’s demand to be included in a proposed change to India’s technology laws that deals with taking down content hosted on online, social media and messaging platforms.

An ongoing consultation by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed changes to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, seeking to regulate a set of companies that qualify as intermediaries, and covers the likes of Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Google.

The proposed changes include asking companies to notify users about their privacy policy at least once every month, assisting a government agency in an appropriate manner within 72 hours of communication and take down or disable access to content specified by the draft law.