The Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) deeply mourns the passing of the V.S. Achuthananda, the former Chief Minister of Kerala and a towering figure in India's Public life. His unwavering commitment to social justice and public good are always matched by his visionary support for the free software, and accessibility of the Technology to the public.

There have been a set of recent reports indicating a potential large scale data breach of the CoWIN portal. Personal and sensitive data of individuals including name, gender, date of birth, address, aadhar number, mobile number and the location of their vaccination centre, can be accessed through a Telegram bot. While the extent of the data breach has to be determined, the data leaked so far seems credible.

About the conference

ICDE-ACT aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Digital Ecosystems and Technologies. Digital Ecosystems include the coupling of the Social Networks which supports dynamic coalitions, in which we can see the digital paradigm is the primary driver of our networked economy.

The Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) welcomes the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) “Cease and Desist” order on Google for anti-competitive business practices. CCI has also imposed Rs. ‪1337.76 crore penalty on Google for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem ^[1].

16-12-21

Hyderabad

2-12-21,
Hyderabad

To,
Deputy Registrar General (CRS),
Office of the Registrar General, India
Ministry of Home Affairs
[email protected]

Sub: Consultation on Amendments to Birth and Death Registration Act 1969

Respected Official,

The Free Software Movement of India welcomes supreme court judgment appointing a committee to investigate the use of Pegasus spyware against journalists, government officials and citizens of India. The appointment of a three member committee led by former supreme court judge RV Raveendran is a welcome development in holding Union of India accountable for its actions. The court in its judgment particularly observed lack of denial from Union of India on using Pegasus spyware.

FSMI General Secretary Y. Kiran Chandra has filed a writ petition in Delhi High Court with a plea demanding Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) to investigate large scale data breaches in the country. FSMI over the past several months has sent several representations to CERT-IN, requesting them to act on data breaches in the country and provide us a response under their citizen charter. CERT-IN has not replied to any of our representations forcing us to send a legal notice which also did not yield any tangible response.

To,
Shri Shashi Tharoor,
Honorable Chairperson,
Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT,
Parliament House, New Delhi.
[email protected]

Sub: Request for Interim Report on the issue of Pegasus spyware

Dear Chairperson,