Editors' Picks Archives - Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

Regulation of Content on OTT Platforms: An Explainer

Posted on December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This Explainer has been authored by Harsh Jain and Sankalp Jain of the NALSAR Tech Law Forum Blog.]

The over-the-top (‘OTT’) industry in India has been growing exponentially–faster than anywhere else in the world–and pegged to reach a size of $5 billion by the year 2023. With an increase in internet penetration, coverage and speed, the consumption of content available on OTT streaming services is at an all-time high. This has not only increased the accessibility to titles old and new, but has also created a new avenue for content-creation on diverse themes. As the pandemic led to the closure of movie theatres and other forms of public entertainment, OTT platforms have been growing in India along with the rest of the world.

Building safe consumer data infrastructure in India: Account Aggregators in the financial sector (Part II)

Posted on December 30, 2019November 1, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

TLF is proud to bring you a two-part guest post authored by Ms. Malavika Raghavan, Head, Future of Finance Initiative and Ms. Anubhutie Singh, Policy Analyst, Future of Finance Initiative at Dvara Research. This is the second part of a two-part series that undertakes an analysis of the technical standards and specifications present across publicly available documents on Account Aggregators. Previously, the authors looked at the motivations for building AAs and some consumer protection concerns that emerge in the Indian context.

Account Aggregators (AA) appear to be an exciting new infrastructure, for those who want to enable greater data sharing in the Indian financial sector. The key data being shared will extensive personal information about individuals like us – detailing our most intimate and sensitive financial transactions and potentially non-financial data too. This places individuals at the heart of these technical systems. Should the systems be breached, misused or otherwise exposed to unauthorised access the immediate casualty will be the privacy of the people whose information is compromised. Of course, this will also have an impact on data quality across the financial sector.

Building safe consumer data infrastructure in India: Account Aggregators in the financial sector (Part I)

Posted on December 30, 2019November 1, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

TLF is proud to bring you a two-part guest post authored by Ms. Malavika Raghavan, Head, Future of Finance Initiative and Ms. Anubhutie Singh, Policy Analyst, Future of Finance Initiative at Dvara Research. Following is the first part of a two-part series that undertakes an analysis of the Account Aggregator system. Click here for the second part.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released Master Directions on Non-Banking Financial Companies – Account Aggregators (Master Directions) in September 2016, and licences for India’s first Account Aggregators (AAs) were issued last year. From these guidelines and related documents, we understand that the purpose of Account Aggregator (AA) is to collect and share:

Sahamati: Self Regulatory Organisation for Financial Data Sharing Ecosystem

Posted on September 6, 2019December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

This post, authored by Mr. Srikanth Lakshmanan, is part of TLF’s blog series on Account Aggregators. Other posts can be found here.

Mr. Srikanth Lakshmanan is the founder of CashlessConsumer, a consumer collective working on digital payments to increase awareness, understand technology, represent consumers in digital payments ecosystem to voice perspectives, concerns with a goal of moving towards a fair cashless society with equitable rights.

Explainer on Account Aggregators

Posted on August 15, 2019December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

This post has been authored by Vishal Rakhecha, currently in his 4th year at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and serves as an introduction for TLF’s upcoming blog series on Account Aggregators.

A few days back, Nandan Nilekani unveiled an ‘industry-body’ for Account Aggregators (AAs), by the name of ‘Sahamati.’ He claimed that AAs would revolutionise the field of fintech, and would give users more control over their financial data, while also making the transfer of financial information (FI) a seamless process. But what exactly are AAs, and how do they make transfer of FI seamless?

Blockchain and Virtual Reality—A Heavenly Merger?

Posted on March 5, 2019December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

[Ed Note : The following post has been authored by guest contributor Davor Gasparevic. As Davor puts it, he is a writing virtuoso with several years of experience across a wide range of online industries, and has established himself as a crucial contributor for several online businesses and startups.]

At first glance, the convergence of Virtual Reality (VR) with Blockchain might seem like the most unnatural merger in technological history. On one hand, you have two fast-rising superstar platforms that both fascinate and capture the imagination of millions, but on the other, the two technologies started as completely disparate in terms of their aims and scopes. After all, blockchain started out as a decentralized ledger system for tracking cryptocurrency, and VR was developed for entertainment purposes. Combining them and creating something truly unprecedented might be seen as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Dr. Usha Ramanathan’s Talk on the UIDAI Litigation

Posted on December 24, 2018December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

[Ed Note : The following post is based on Dr. Ramanathan’s enlightening talk at the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. It has been authored by Karthik Subramaniam and Yashasvi Raj, first year students of the aforementioned university, who, in a slightly longer but informative read aptly put forth Dr. Ramanathan’s views on the Aadhar issue and its judicial journey.

Dr. Usha Ramanathan, an internationally recognized legal expert, is currently research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and professor at the Indian Law Institute. Since 2009, she has consistently brought forth the loopholes in the Aadhar project, exposing its shoddy functioning.]

Comments on the Srikrishna Committee Report and the Draft Data Protection Bill 2018 – I

Posted on October 14, 2018December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

[Ed Note : The following series of posts contain comments on the Srikrishna Committee Report and the Draft Data Protection Bill, 2018 made and compiled by students from NALSAR University of Law -Ankush Rai, Ashwin Murthy, Arvind Pennathur, Namratha Murugesan, Priyamvadha Shivaji, Shweta Rao, Sriram Kashyap, Vishal Rakhecha and Tanvi Apte. The comments have been uploaded on the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) website.

The present post deals with comments made in relation to four issues that arise in relation to the Report and Draft Bill – a) vagueness, b) government interference, c) the data protection authority and d) surveillance.

TechLaw Symposium at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad – Press Note

Posted on October 4, 2018December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

[Ed Note : The following press note has been authored by Shweta Rao and Arvind Pennathur from NALSAR University of Law. Do watch this space for more details on the symposium!]

On the 9^th of September NALSAR University of Law’s Tech Law Forum conducted its first ever symposium with packed panels discussing a variety of issues under the broad theme of the Right to Privacy. This symposium took place against the backdrop of the recent draft Data Protection Bill and Report released by the Srikrishna Committee.

Privacy & Transparency as Complementary Rights: Inadequacies in the Proposed Amendments to the RTI Act

Posted on August 16, 2018December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

[Ed Note : The following cross – post, authored by Sayan Bhattacharya of NALSAR University of Law, was first posted on the Law School Policy Review. The link to the same can be found here. ]

By leaving essential terms undefined and placing a higher burden to disclose personal information, the amendments proposed by the Srikrishna Committee are defeating the purpose of a right to privacy i.e. to make the state more transparent and the citizen less transparent.