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Yes it is official. The US spies on India more than it spies on China.
India fifth on National Security Agency's spying list - The Economic Times
New Delhi: A report in a UK newspaper claims that India is among the top five countries most extensively monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA), a US government agency tasked with foreign surveillance.
The Guardian reported on Sunday that in March this year the NSA recorded 6.3 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks in India, placing it fifth on the list of most extensively monitored countries. Iran topped the list with 14 billion pieces of intelligence collected from it. Pakistan was third with 13.5 billion, Jordan was third with 12.7 billion and Egypt was fourth with 7.6 billion.
Incidentally, email services offered by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft etc are not only popular with Indian web users but are also used by many high-ranking bureaucrats and senior government officials. These email services are also extensively used by corporate users.
"In March 2013 the agency collected 97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide," noted the Guardian report, adding, "NSA has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from... (the paper) has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks."
Earlier, reports detailed how the NSA was using a programme called PRISM to access data generated by users of nine US-based technology companies. According to a few PowerPoint slides allegedly leaked by anNSA official, nine technology companies Google, AOL, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, YouTube and PalTalk were providing the US government easy access to user data. All companies named in the reports have denied being part of anything called PRISM.
On its report on Boundless Informant, the UK newspaper noted that the focus was on meta data instead of actual content of emails or calls. "The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message," it noted.
Cyber law experts told reporters that India needs to stand up for its users. Pranesh Prakash, a policy director with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said that Indian government should come up with a law to protect the privacy of Indian users. He said the law has to make it clear to firms operating in India that they need to respect Indian users' fundamental rights, even when they are dealing with governments outside India.
India fifth on National Security Agency's spying list - The Economic Times
New Delhi: A report in a UK newspaper claims that India is among the top five countries most extensively monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA), a US government agency tasked with foreign surveillance.
The Guardian reported on Sunday that in March this year the NSA recorded 6.3 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks in India, placing it fifth on the list of most extensively monitored countries. Iran topped the list with 14 billion pieces of intelligence collected from it. Pakistan was third with 13.5 billion, Jordan was third with 12.7 billion and Egypt was fourth with 7.6 billion.
Incidentally, email services offered by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft etc are not only popular with Indian web users but are also used by many high-ranking bureaucrats and senior government officials. These email services are also extensively used by corporate users.
"In March 2013 the agency collected 97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide," noted the Guardian report, adding, "NSA has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from... (the paper) has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks."
Earlier, reports detailed how the NSA was using a programme called PRISM to access data generated by users of nine US-based technology companies. According to a few PowerPoint slides allegedly leaked by anNSA official, nine technology companies Google, AOL, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, YouTube and PalTalk were providing the US government easy access to user data. All companies named in the reports have denied being part of anything called PRISM.
On its report on Boundless Informant, the UK newspaper noted that the focus was on meta data instead of actual content of emails or calls. "The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message," it noted.
Cyber law experts told reporters that India needs to stand up for its users. Pranesh Prakash, a policy director with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said that Indian government should come up with a law to protect the privacy of Indian users. He said the law has to make it clear to firms operating in India that they need to respect Indian users' fundamental rights, even when they are dealing with governments outside India.
