First phase of Indian e-surveillance nearing deployment

The Central Monitoring System (CMS), an advanced telecom and internet surveillance project, which is part of the Indian government's ambitious National Intelligence Grid (NTGRID), is getting ready for deployment.

Last month, it was indicated that the NATGRID will be up and running in four months and the initial stage could involve the ''real-time linking'' of data between various agencies through the NATGRID platform.

The CMS would enable the government and its security agencies to track phone calls, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and e-mails in real time.

The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) has already installed the equipment and conducted tests for first phase.

However, the government is yet to put in place the legal and procedural framework for the security agencies to share the platform.

Over 50 per cent of the overall testing is over. Work has been completed in Delhi and is underway in Haryana.

The massive snooping programme will initially cover seven of the 11 states to be brought under e-surveillance in the first phase.

Tests for ''remote provisioning'' and those related to protocol testing are underway. The intercept storage and forwarding (ISF) servers of the government are being tested for integration with the telcos and ISPs' legal intercept (LI) system.

At present, the onus of surveillance is on the operators, which will have to be brought under the government's purview through amendments to the Indian Telegraph Rules related to interception.

The CMS programme is expected to cover several states in the early part of the current year. It will work with the operator's existing legal interception systems (LIS) to provide nationwide interception.

Last July, the department of telecommunications (DoT) was reported to have asked all telecom operators to connect their LIS to the government's Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) and had inserted clauses in mobile licences for enabling this surveillance.

Earlier this month, the centre also released the 'Standard Operating Procedures of Lawful Intercept and Monitoring of Telecom Service Providers'.

While the interception of voice calls, SMS and emails is being transitioned to the CMS at a faster pace, though there are no safeguards as yet against misuse or infringements of privacy.

Under the CMS, the telecom operator or ISP will have no role in the interception. The authorised agency will send the interception request to a designated government department and the interception will be made without the knowledge of telecom operators or ISPs.

The CMS will cover nearly 850 million fixed lines and 200 million internet users on a ''real time'' basis through secure Ethernet leased lines.