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Data Protection Law in India… Three Big Ideas …. Data Trust, Jurisdictional Umbrella and Reciprocal Enforcement Rights

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Vijayashankar Na

As the Government of India conducting nationwide public consultation programs on the Data Protection Law proposed to be drafted on the basis of the Justice Srikrishna Committee, I would like to place before the ministry, some of my key ideas.

Big Idea 1: Data Trusts

The global regime of data protection including the EU GDPR recognizes the role of

a Data Protection Authority for the nation,
Data Controllers who collect data from the subject and/or determine how the personal data is to be used,
Data Processors who process personal data on the instructions of the Data Controller
Data Protection officers at the industry level as compliance officers.

I propose a new category of agency called “Data Trust” which operates between the Data Subject and the Data Collector and works as an escrow agent for the personal data of the individual. It will be a specialised institution which

has the necessary wherewithal to secure the data entrusted to it by the public
has the ability to classify the personal data entrusted to it by the public into different data category packages such as “Basic”, “Basic-identity”,”Sensitive identity”, “Confidential” \or such other categories as they may chose to logically group
has the ability to decode the consent forms and privacy notices of data collectors and grade the data controllers
has the ability to determine which category of data is required to be supplied to which category of data controller
has the ability to process a realtime request from the data subject to supply appropriate data to the data collector during a service registration process
is registered with the Data protection authority
is subject to being reviewed both by the strength of their performance and an audit by the authority
is able to keep an arms length relationship with the Data collectors
is able to monetize the data for the benefit of the data subject
is able to issue a pseudonomization Id to its members which can be used instead of the real information when personal data is to be provided to data collectors.

The creation of this intermediary would be a unique suggestion that will make Indian law different from the rest of the world and meet the requirements of our country where there are a large number of less literate persons operating mobiles.

Big Idea 2: Jurisdictional Umbrella

Since Data Protection is a global concept and just as India is imposing responsibilities under Indian law, many of the Indian processors are already under obligation to international data protection agencies including GDPR authorities where huge penalties are likely to be imposed on the Indian companies through contractual obligations.

Indian law therefore has to also decide on the jurisdiction of the proposed law and how it will handle the disputes arising between Indian processors (or controllers) with the GDPR counterparts.

It is proposed that Indian law is made primarily applicable to the Indian Citizens for the protection of their rights on personal information privacy.

Impact of this law on non citizens arising due to the collection of their personal data during their activities which come under the Indian legal jurisdiction is not an obligation of the country but could be accepted in the interest of projecting India as a country that can be trusted for data protection for cross border transactions.

However, when it comes to enforcement of the rights of any foreign agency including private citizens as well as GDPR authorities or even the Contractual beneficiaries aborad, on any Indian Citizen or Indian Data Controller or Data Processor, it should be mandatory that the dispute is resolved only with the involvement of the Indian Data Protection Authority.

Indian Data Protection Authority shall be the sole adjudicating authority for all disputes in which an Indian Citizen or an Indian Corporate or an Indian Government agency is a party.

Big Idea 3: Reciprocal Enforcement Rights

Recognition of any data protection law of any country outside India shall be only on a reciprocal basis where equal rights are available from the other country which may include

a) Enforcement of the privacy rights of an Indian Citizen or a Company in the foreign jurisdiction

b) Enforcement of penalty of any description on an Indian Citizen or a Company vis a vis similar rights for the Indian companies or individuals on the foreign citizens and companies.

I urge the Ministry to incorporate the above three ideas into the proposed law in appropriate terms.

Naavi

Posted in Cyber Law | Tagged data protection, data trust, enforcement, india, jurisdictional umbrella, naavi | 2 Comments

It is Y2K moment again in India, with Virtual Aadhaar ID

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Vijayashankar Na

It appears as if the Anti Aadhaar lobby in India has just been outsmarted by the UIDAI with its proposition of the “Virtual Aadhaar ID” as a response to the many complaints about the leakage of Aadhaar information.

The Supreme Court is waiting to complete its hearing which potentially could hold that the linking of Aadhaar to Bank and Mobile accounts was in violation of the Constitutional Right to Privacy of an individual. In the process, the entire Aadhaar scheme’s future hangs in balance.

The ground had been well prepared for scrapping the Aadhaar with the hurriedly issued 9 member judgement in the Puttaswamy case declaring Privacy as a fundamental right giving a very strong weapon with which any action of the Modi Government related to Aadhaar could be struck down.

Since the Supreme Court cleverly avoided defining what is Privacy even while holding that it is a Fundamental right, it left the doors wide open to intervene on any thing that Aadhaar was supposed to be linked with. The recent sting operation of Tribune alleging that the entire Aadhaar data base access could be purchased for Rs 500/- in 10 minutes had primed up the argument for striking down the Aadhaar linkage. Aadhaar linkage appeared to be a lost cause after this Tribune revelation.

But suddenly the “Virtual ID” option floated by UIDAI has frustrated the anti Aadhaar lobby and given a strong argument for UIDAI that it is responding to the security vulnerabilities and taking mitigation steps.

The plight of the Anti Aadhaar lobby is like the plight of a batsman in a Cricket game who has happily jumped forward to a flighted delivery hoping to hit a six, only to find that he has missed the ball and is now praying that the Wicket Keeper does not stump him out.

We hope that the Wicket Keeper completes his expected duty and the Umpire does not call a no-ball.

There is no doubt that the Aadhaar authorities have been in the past behaving with an air of arrogance that reminded me of the “Indira Gandhi of Emergency Days” . But the intention of the Government to use Aadhaar as a unique identifier to root out benami asset holding and black money cannot be faulted. All those who wanted to protect their black money were using the “Privacy” argument to oppose Aadhaar. The UIDAI was playing into their hands so far by its own negligence, ignorance and arrogance.

Hence there is a need to address the security concerns and meet them adequately rather than blaming the system itself and fight for its scrapping.

The Virtual ID concept is some thing which should be appreciated as a step in the right direction. It is true that it has come late and should have been in place from the day Aadhaar was intended to be used for KYC purposes widely. We have repeatedly advocated what we have called “Regulated Anonymity” and the Virtual Aadhaar ID is close in its concept to part this concept which is the principle of “De-Identification” or “Pseudonomization”.

Under the proposed system, UIDAI will stop allowing direct access to its core CIDR server system which houses the data of the citizens collected for issue of Aadhaar. Instead there will be a gateway server which faces the down stream service providers which is linked in the back end with the core CIDR server. Public will be able to obtain a “Virtual Aadhaar ID” which is a 16 digit temporary random number mapped to the Aadhaar number of the user, through the website. This 16 digit number may be used as an ID to be provided to service providers like Banks and Mobile companies. When these users want to check the Aadhaar identity against either the OTP or biometric of the Aadhaar holder, the query will be processed by the secondary server which in turn will query the Core CIDR server and process the request.

The exact architecture that UIDAI may use is not known. It is however clear that the Core CIDR server has to be kept insulated from the public including the agencies such as AUA/KUA with a strong Firewall that separates the Core CIDR system from any communication from outside. The mapping of the Virtual ID issued and the true ID has to be maintained some where and that becomes a critical component of the process. How this is secured determines the security of the system as a whole.

If UIDAI again makes mistakes in managing the security of this “Mapping Server”, then the problem will continue.

The architecture should therefore include a “Virtual ID issuing server”, “Virtual ID-True ID mapping Server” in addition to the current “Core CIDR Server”. In the Regulated Anonymity system that we had discussed in the past, a system was discussed for such requirements and hopefully some of those principles would be used and improved upon in the UIDAI new system. (The Regulated Anonymity system is discussed here). The concept was discussed in 2013 and could be considered as raw and amenable to many improvements.

If UIDAI does not secure access to the “Mapping Server”, the data will be only be marginally more secure as it introduces one additional step for the hackers to break.

If UIDAI sheds it’s “I Know Everything” attitude and is humble in listening to the experts in the field, it may perhaps be able to secure the system at least in future. Whether it is too late?… is difficult to answer.

The Y2K Moment again

Keeping the arguments of how the security of the Virtual ID would be implemented, we can now address the industry issue that the proposed system has introduced. UIDAI has announced that the UIDAI will start accepting VID from March 1, 2018. From June 1, 2018 it will be compulsory for all agencies that undertake authentication to accept Virtual ID from their users.

This means that all the agencies who are using Aadhaar now, (Should be thousands of companies) will all have to tweak their codes to accommodate a 16 number system in the place of a 12 number system for its services. For some time, they need to maintain both systems working and later remove the earlier 12 digit number acceptance.

Additionally it may be necessary for them to covert all existing storage of True Aadhaar Id with a Pseudo Aadhaar Id or atleast remove the True Aadhaar Id from their system.

This will be like implementing the “Right to Forget” which is a tough task since most of these companies will not know where all they have stored the Aadhaar numbers in their systems. It could be on web servers, on cloud storage systems, on e-mail servers etc and all of these have to be erased. (If such a requirement is made).

It is possible that the Supreme Court may impose the above condition for allowing the use of Virtual ID in future and not scrap the system. But it is not known when they will give their view on it. The user companies have to therefore keep their fingers crossed and wait if the 16 number field has to be used in future or they should keep both options in place for some time.

The software developers therefore have their hands full only to implement the changes as the Supreme Court may decide. In this respect we will be re-living the days of Y2K implementation when globally codes were changed to accommodate a four digit field for the year component of a date instead of the 2 fields which were provided.

Good for many… but costs for the companies….Perhaps it is the price to be paid for the development amidst a hostile political environment.

Waiting to see what the Supreme Court will do now….

Naavi

Related Articles:

Aadhaar Authentication: How To Use Virtual ID (VID)

Virtual ID is Aadhaar 2.0, It Can be Changed Any Number of Times: UIDAI Chairman

Aadhaar Virtual ID “Unworkable”, Will Oppose Tooth-And-Nail: Petitioners

There’s no consensus over Aadhaar number or 16-digit virtual ID

Old Articles of naavi

Reasonable Security Practices For UID Project..in India..A Draft for Debate

The Unique ID Project.. What should be Unique?

The National ID Card Challenge for Nandan Nilekani.. Part I

The National ID Card Challenge for Nandan Nilekani.. Part II

Posted in Cyber Law | Tagged Aadhaar, anonymity, anti-aadhaar lobby, naavi, uidai, virtual ID | 4 Comments

Look beyond GDPR and Create Personal Data Trusts to manage Privacy of data subjects

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Vijayashankar Na

As the extended date (31st January 2018) for submission of feedback on the whitepaper on Data Protection law approaches, there is increased activity in the industry circles to submit the recommendations.

It is obvious that there will be two distinct sets of recommendations that will be reaching the Government. One would be from the industry side where the concern is on the role of Data Controllers, Data Processors, the Cross border data flow restrictions, Data Localization, impositions such as Privacy by design and Right to be forgotten, Right to access and correction etc. On the other hand the Privacy Rights activists would be focusing more on the rights protection through increased participation of the data subject in the management of personal data, increased penalty, better data breach notification, proper consent management etc.

The law makers need to ensure that there is a balance in meeting the conflicting demands of the two stakeholders.

The Justice Srikrishna Panel has been heavily influenced by the GDPR in the draft of the white paper and it is likely that even the final law may borrow a lot of ideas directly from GDPR.

One of the key suggestions which Naavi.org would like to put out is to look beyond the concepts of Data Controller and Data Processor which form the backbone of GDPR and look at a new dimension of control by creating a third entity which we may call “Data Trusts” or “Data Managers”.

The “Data Trust” is envisaged an intermediary between the data subject and the Data Controller and would address most of the regulatory concerns where there are likely to be conflicts between the Privacy activists and Data Industry.

We all accept that “Data” is the new oil and there is a huge business interest driving data analytics which will be seriously affected by the Privacy regulations. If the regulations are too strict, the business interests will find ways to overcome the law and do what they would do for the commercial gains.

For example, “Informed Consent” coupled with “Notice” can be the basis on which any data controller could gather personal information for further processing. Even if these are mandated by legislation and supported by audit, penalty etc, it is unlikely that this would be anything beyond formalities. In the mobile world which is the biggest concern, consumers of service can hardly be expected to study the Privacy Notice and provide Informed Consent all the time. The Consent may be so complicated and long winding that “Consent Fatigue” may make it useless. Further it is possible that the coding of the Apps or software may include data mining though the notice may say otherwise.

Hence “Notice+Informed Consent” principle though is essential would not work in practice to the extent it should.

I therefore propose that a system should be introduced where data subjects are provided assistance by professionals in managing their “Data” and ensuring that it is not misused and where it is used with consent for financial gain, a part of the reward goes to the data subject.

For this, I propose the following infrastructure.

Declare “Personal Data” as the property of the data subject which he has right to license for a commercial consideration.
Any Data Controller who wants to use personal data must be prepared to purchase the rights from the data subject through a “License”.
The “Personal Data License” will be bound by a contract (like the consent) which will determine the purpose for which the data use is licensed, the period etc along with a measurable financial benefit in case the data is used for marketing and financial gain.
Since it is difficult for the data subject to negotiate a proper value for the personal data, there is a need for “Personal Data Managers” as professional advisers to the data subjects or a more institutional form of “Data Trusts” which could be organizations who will offer the service of “Personal Data Management”. They will function like “Portfolio management advisers” and “Mutual Fund” organizations in the investment circles.
Personal Data Managers and Data Trusts may offer their services under a “Self Declared Data Management Practice Statement” which is registered with and approved by the National Data Management Authority.
The National Data Management Authority will provide the Approval rating of such individual Personal Data Managers and Institutional Data Trusts in a National Registry and through periodical public feedback and its own research make necessary changes as and when required.
The data subject will be free to chose any Personal Data Manager or Data Trust and deposit their personal data with them with option to “Port data” to other data managers/trusts.
The Data Controllers will be mandatorily required to obtain the data from these data managers and trusts who will be responsible for vetting the “Notice” and “Consent” in a professional manner.
In order to enable a data subject to encapsulate his personal data into a package that can be managed, the Data Trust will receive the data and issue a “Personal Data Management ID”. This could be issued in multiple layers such as “Basic Data ID”, “Medical Data ID”, “Financial Data ID”, “Biometric Data ID” etc.
When a data subject needs to provide his personal data for availing any service, he may simply provide the appropriate ID and the service provider has to extract the details from the designated data trust/manager who is expected to apply due diligence in the interest of protecting the interests of the data subject.

Advantages

Apart from the benefits of this system to assist the data subject surf through the maze of complicated Privacy Notices, and Consent forms multiple times and understanding them befor approval, the system will make it easy for the regulator to regulate the industry since instead of regulating hundreds of data controllers and processors, they can focus on regulating the Data Trusts and Data Managers as an intermediary industry. This will reduce the number of players to be monitored.

At the same time, the Data Management industry will be able to develop expertise in data protection and management which is absent today even with regulatory authorities.

Since this scheme envisages that there would be a proxy ID for the data, it will enable confidentiality and data security by not exposing the primary data in multiple collection points.

Each data trust will be like the UIDAI or even better in terms of data security and they should compete on the basis of their security principles and ability to pay a license fee to the data subject members.

We donot envisage that members will pay for this service. They will license their personal data to the Data Trust agency either for free or for a fee payable. It may take some time for the economic model here to develop and for the Data Trusts to provide a commercial benefit to the members. But initially, their ability to provide data protection by pseudonomization of the personal ID or through complete encapsulation with the proxy ID will be a sufficient reward to the data subjects.

If Data is really the new Oil and the Data industry makes money out of the data subject’s data, then they may pass on part of the benefits to the data subjects. For this purpose they may offer a small percentage, even if it is one part in a lakh of a rupee of their profits from the data management business either in cash or in the form of “Loyalty Coupons” that can be exchanged elsewhere, it would provide some kind of “Return” to the data subject to compensate for his loss of privacy.

I believe that the above proposal is even a solution for the inadequacy of UIDAI to secure the Aadhaar data.

P.S: These are my preliminary ideas which can be refined further into a commercial service if any organization is interested. I trust the Data Protection Law recommended by Justice Srikrishna Committee makes such service feasible through appropriate enabling provisions.

Naavi

Earlier Articles related to the above may be available here:

Posted in Cyber Law | 2 Comments

Mr Piyush Goyal and Mr R K Singh… Do you know how much energy goes into Bitcoins?

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Vijayashankar Na

I draw the attention of the honourable Union Ministers Mr Piyush Goyal and Mr R .K Singh, responsible for the energy sector in the country on the need to take steps to reduce the adverse impact Crypto Currencies are having on the energy sector on a global scale.

It is a pet idea of Mr Modi’s Government that we need to encourage transport vehicles which would use electricity and renewable energy instead of the conventional Coal and Thermal energy. This is being countered by the proliferation of Bitcoins and Crypto Currencies and needs to be checked.

I would like both the Ministers responsible for Energy related activities, to reflect for some time the havoc that the Crypto Currency system is creating in the whole world in terms of the energy consumption and whether the World can afford it.

We often discuss the global warming and Carbon footprint and design policies to correct the environmental imbalance. But have we ever paused to consider the damage we are inflicting on the global energy environment by not taking action on Crypto Currencies?

Afterall, Crypto currencies like Bitcoin have no economic value to the society other than being the Currency of the Criminals, created by Criminals posing as technologists, for the benefit of the Criminals. The society has no reason to pay a price to make the life of Criminals comfortable and profitable. But that is what the policy makers are doing now.

It is unfortunate that instead of India under Modi taking a lead in preventing the damage to the energy environment being created by Bitcoins and its 1370 cousins (as of 31st December 2017) in the energy sector, we are debating whether India should legalize Bitcoins.

According to one estimate, (Refer digieconomist.bet)the current estimate of energy

consumption by the Bitcoin network isaround 38.21 Twh per year and it has grown from around 10 Twh to this level in the last one year.

This appears to be only refering to the Bitcoin network and if we add the other Crypto currencies, it would be more than double this level.

If this is compared with the total energy consumption in different countries, it appears that Bitcoin network consumes nearly 10% to 15% of the consumption of most advanced countries.

Compared to India whose estimated energy consumption is estimated to be about 1238 TWh, Bitcoin industry consumes around 3% of our consumption and the entire Crypto currency industry should be consuming around 6% of the electricity consumption of the 1.2 billion population. The consumption of Electricity by the Bitcoin industry is said to be higher than that of the whole of Denmark or Nigeria.

If this is not checked, the energy managers of the world will be considered as fools. There is no justification for wasting the precious energy resource of the globe to promote a Currency network for the criminals .

Since China is one of the biggest Bitcoin mining country and it uses Coal based power, it is also said that the Bitcoin industry contributes adversely to the Carbon footprint in the globe as well.

Bitcoin’s villany in being a “Perfect Black Money” and “Currency for funding Crimes and Terror” is well known. To this we need to add the adverse impact that the Crypto currency industry leaves on the Power consumption for unproductive and negative purposes and the Carbon foot print.

All this indicates that if the Government of India does not immediately move to ban Bitcoin and discourage use of all Crypto Currencies in India, it will be doing a disservice to the global community.

Many people are unable to understand the difference between Crypto Currencies and the Digital Currencies which represent the money in the Bank withdrawable by electronic means. Such people try to create a misconception that opposition to Crypto currency is opposition to Mr Modi’s Digital India Concept. I am sure that you understand the difference and you should educate other members in the Government about why Crypto Currencies is bad for India and we need to ban it forthwith.

Government is also often mislead with the fact that some countries like Japan have recognized Bitcoins and we should also follow. This is not a valid argument since the needs of different countries are different. We know that there are countries which have legalized sale of narcotics and illegal arms. It may be good for them. But we cannot follow them.

We donot know what is the stock of Crypto currencies held by Japan and China. It could be huge and they would like it to be used by converting it into dollars. USA also has a large stock in Government control. China has been very clever and has banned Bitcoin exchanges and prevented the Citizens to trade in Bitcoins but the Government itself is said to be continuing the mining data centers which run like an industry. It is also possible that China must have now shifted its attention on mining other Crypto currencies such as Ripple or Ethereum since it is more profitable than mining Bitcoins and hence it is playing a double game of banning the exchanges without stopping the mining activities.Those who already have a significant share of Bitcoins would definitely want to legalize Bitcoins not only for their countries internal use but also to use it in international payments.

We must resist their attempts since it would be detrimental to our interest.

I therefore suggest that India should take a global leadership position to oppose Bitcoins and Private Crypto Currencies (Not the Government backed Crypto Currencies which may be introduced by Russis or other countries in the coming days), starting with an immediate ban on Bitcoins in India.

In India I am sure that those who have already built up a stock of Bitcoins which unfortunately includes persons like Mr Amitabh Bachchan could be preventing the Government from taking a decision to ban Bitcoins. We need to take a tough stand on this and cannot allow those who converted white money to black by investing in Bitcoins to profit from their activities even if it was done innocently.

We need to show the same resolve that we showed during the demonetization of high denomination notes and now demonetize Crypto currencies.

I request Mr Piyush Goyal and R.K. Singh to move the issue with the Finance Minister as the delay in the decision is hurting the clean image of Mr Modi’s Government.

Naavi

Posted in Cyber Law | Tagged bitcoin, energy, naavi, piyush goyal, r k singh | Leave a comment

Bitcoin… Of the Criminals, By the Criminals, For the Criminals

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Vijayashankar Na

Whatever was the technological urge for Mr Satoshi in creating the block chain technology and Bitcoin is a thing of the past. The present status of Bitcoin is as a currency of the criminals. Many of my friends may hate me for saying this but I would like to say Bitcoin today is a currency of the criminals, by the criminals and for the criminals. It is not for honest individuals. It could have been at one time..but not today.

All Bitcoin holders are not criminals… but they could be

This is not to say that all those persons who possess Bitcoins today are criminals. But Bitcoin as a commodity and used as a currency is a product meant for criminals. If honest persons want to also use it, it is their choice.

(Ed: Reminds me of a Kannada proverb: “ಈಚಲ ಮರದ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಮಜ್ಜಿಗೆ ಕುಡಿದಂತೆ ” meaning “Like sitting under a palm tree and drinking butter milk” )

Bitcoin is the Perfect Black Money

There is a wide support for Bitcoins in India and the support is not surprising at all considering that India is a leading country in the world when it comes to corruption and Black money.

Bitcoin is a “Perfect Black Money” because it is anonymous and transferable across the globe at the click of a button. Just as an e-mail flies across, lakhs of rupees can fly across from India to another country either to one’s own account or to somebody elses’s account.

A Bitcoin wallet which can hold multiple Bitcoin addresses or a simple Bitcoin address for a single transaction can be created as easy as signing up for an e-mail account without any KYC formalities. Money can be transferred into this wallet or address by buying Bitcoins in cash or through bank account or through cards or through western Union or Paypal. If money is transferred through Bank account then there may be a KYC and identification. But there are other means that the black money people know which can easily convert their black money into Bitcoins.

It is therefore correct to call Bitcoin as the “Perfect Black Money”.

Bitcoin is also instantly fungible into 1317 (as of Dec 31, 2017) other crypto currencies at a click of a button and also convertible into a few legit currencies in the world.

Hence there is no doubt that many Indians including many in the Government bureaucracy and in regulatory agencies are very much in favour of Bitcoins being legally recognized so that all their ill gotten wealth can be held in the “benami numbered account” called Bitcoin addresses or wallets. Each transaction can be in a different Bitcoin address and for much less than 1 bitcoin (1 bitcoin can be reduced into units of bitcoins starting from a Satoshi which is 1 bitcoin divided by 100 million).

As it is, Bitcoin addresses are anonymous since they are public keys associated with private keys of a crypto key pair and the owner holds the private key confidentially. Whoever knows the private key is the owner of the bitcoin. If one wants to transfer the bitcoin, to another, he can do so simply by transferring the bitcoin in his control to another bitcoin address or wallet whose private key is known only to the transferee.

What more do you want to call Bitcoin a “Perfect Black Money” and a darling of all those who support black money and corruption in India?

All this is being explained here not to make people knowledgeable so that they can adopt to the use of Bitcoins to hide their black money. if this happens, it would be a tragedy.

Have you been already poisoned?

But the reason I am putting out this post in public is to tell our decision makers in the Government of India including Mr Modi, Mr Amit Shah, Mr Arun Jaitely and others that when you hear some experts saying that Bitcoin is great, Block chain technology is even greater, that country and this country has legalized Bitcoins etc and try to coax you into believing that all those who are opposing Bitcoins are either technology sceptics or jealous of others who are making money etc, please donot believe them. Many of them might have already asked you to have a “Free Trial of Bitcoin technology” and created an account for you and loaded some bitcoins in your account already. Remember that this is “Poison” and if you touch it, you will be consumed by it.

If you are still not touched by this poison, please come out boldly and confirm it to the citizens of India. Otherwise we will presume that you are all already posioned with Bitcoin.

Why Bitcoin is a currency of the Criminals, By the criminals and for the Criminals?

Bitcoin was created by the criminal syndicates of the dark web who sell crime ware, viruses, conduct ransomware attacks, extort money, sell drugs and illegal arms both offline and online. They obviously donot want any central authority to know of their transactions and hence prefer to deal with Bitcoins. Mr Satoshi who remains anonymous till date could be the biggest crook of all and posing himself as a technologist created an infrastructure for criminal funding.

The entire eco system of Block chains was created to support criminal activity and along with the spread of cyber crimes, the popularity of Bitcoins and other crypto currencies as well as the underlying technology respectably called the innovative “Block Chain” grew. Blockchain is the alter ego of Bitcoins and many believe that if Block chain technology is pushed into the main stream then Bitcoins will automatically survive and grow.

Bitcoin itself is a creation of the software and there is no physical currency or backing of a reserve or a Government promise. But it is being traded at a value of Rs 13-15 lakhs per bitcoins. Now a “Derivative of the Bitcoin” is being created which is another level of imaginary “virtualization of the virtual” with a value proposition for the gullible to pick up. It is a “bubble of bubbles” in another perspective and could burst along with the Bitcoin bubble one day ..unless the world is full of people who want to live in the dream of bubbles. There are many such people around now and they are their tribe may even grow further.

We also note that already Bitcoin block chain has hard forked once and it is anticipated that a third fork is likely to form soon. What it means to the bitcoin value, only future will unveil.

Those who are promoting Bitcoins in this uncertain environment are only trying to fool others and make money. Hence the system is full of criminals.

It is therefore not surprising that Cyber Criminals in the dark web transact only with Bitcoins (or its fungible new versions like Monero or Ripple etc, which may be more secretive than Bitcoins and better for Black money holders).

Since there are only Criminals who are technologically savvy who are working around these Crypto currencies, they also indulge in ICO scams, hacking int Crypto currency exchanges, creating malwares for mining bitcoin/crypto currencies and embedding it into softwares, apps, IoT applications etc so that all of us will use our data and devices to work as slaves and mine cryptocurrencies silently for the criminals as part of the Crypto botnet.

Is Government of India unaware of this?

I would not believe that Mr Arun Jaitely or the Finance Secretary or the SEBI Chairman or the RBI Governor is unaware of the fact that Bitcoin is a “Perfect Black Money” and hence it is great for politicians and other black money holders.

But Government strangely says that “They are Observing”… Observing what?.. the speculation where 4-5 lakh members of the public have already invested in bitcoins through the exchanges? We can note that these are innocent persons who have given their KYC and received notices.. this does not include those who have opened Bitcoin wallet account with agencies outside India including in Singapore which is developing into a hub of Bitcoin exchanges even for Indian entrepreneurs.

What the Finance Ministry is doing in being a silent supporter of speculation is absolutely unacceptable. They are deliberately not taking action to ban the use of Bitcoins. Chairman of SEBI is publicly in favour of Bitcoins. Ministry gives out conflicting statements now and then so that speculation thrives. RBI appears to be against Bitcoins but seems to have been kept silent by the Finance Ministry.

I want Mr Modi to show his commitment to removal of Black money in India by immediately taking up a total ban on all Privately created Crypto currencies like Bitcoin, Ripple, Etherium, Monero etc…

Mr Amit Shah may kindly note

If Modi Government does not ban Bitcoins and Crypto currencies, it will appear as if the Government has developed a cold feet in its fight against Black money and corruption. It will lose the moral authority to say that they have done everything to root out Black money.

This matter may come to haunt BJP in its next election in Karnataka where they have to explain why BJP was interested in demonetization of physical currencies only and are not willing to demonetize the crypto currencies?….

Security Issues

Apart from the issue of Black money creation, recognition of Bitcoins in India will bring in a market capitalization of over Rs 36 lakh crores of money into the floating currency in India and could completely upset the economic stability of the country.

Most of this Rs 36 lakh crores would be in the control of our enemies including China and ISI and will be used to fund terrorists in India. It will be impossible to trace the ownership and transactions of these currencies and our law enforcement persons will be looking like bakras when they have to prove “Money Trail” in Courts in corruption and criminal cases.

Criminals will go scot-free and Terrorists and Naxalites will be able to get funds easily for their operations to break India.

This is the future of India if Bitcoins are not eliminated from the Indian scenario forthwith.

History will Judge Mr Arun Jaitely

Mr Arun Jaitely will go down in history as the person who by his inaction to ban Bitcoin caused the country to collapse.

Will he or Will he not? …ban Bitcoins and all Crypto currencies…. now or when? will be the question.

Dear Finance Minsiter, Do you have a response?

Easy Way to ban Bitcoins and Crypto Currencies

If Crypto currencies are declared as “Benami Properties” since it is held in anonymous identity, dealing with them becomes illegal ab-initio.

Also ITA 2008 provides certain encryption guidelines which the Currencies violate and hence they are already not legal.

All so called Bitcoin exchanges in India are operating without either RBI or SEBI clearance whether they follow KYC or not. They are illegal operations ab-initio.

Projecting anything as a “Currency” violates the RBI Act and is punishable. Marketing of Bitcoins as a “Currency”, is therefore illegal per se.

We only need the Government to use these existing provisions of law and these Crypto currencies can be eliminated. …

Where there is a will, there is a way. But Government appears to be only trying to find a way out for the criminals rather than punish them in the interest of the nation. Kindly prove me wrong.

Our fight against Bitcoin continues…..

PS: It is surprising that the media and even Mr Subramanya Swamy is silent on Bitcoins. We can understand the reluctance of the media but why Mr Swamy is silent?.. We await his clarification.

Naavi

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PS: It is ironic that Google Ads may be serving ads on Bitcoin on this site even as you are reading. I donot endorse those ads.

Naavi