an offence, it cannot intercept the message, or resort to telephone tapping unless a public emergency has occurred or the interest of public safety or the existence of the interest of public safety requires.146 This important constraint has been done away with in the case of digital communications. At the same, by allowing for interception of communications in the course of the investigation of any offence, the range of communications that have the potential to legally come under the state’s radar has increased exponentially. While interception in the case of an economic offence, for example, generally would not have been possible under the Indian Telegraph Act, it is very much so under the new IT Act. The considerable expansion of the state’s powers to intercept communications within its borders is particularly worrying in the light of reports that even telephone tapping, regulated by the far more stringent Telegraph Act, is widespread. For example, in February 2011, telecom service provider Reliance Communications told the Supreme Court that it had tapped, on order of the authorities, 151,000 phone numbers between 2006 and 2010. This amounts to 30,000 telephone interceptions every year – or 82 every day – by a single service provider.147 As safeguards such as the Review Committee, which has to meet at least once every two months to assess the legality of all orders, are unlikely to work effectively under such circumstances, this has raised serious questions about the extent to which the law is being followed, in letter or in spirit. Legislative amendments have been proposed to the Telegraph Rules for the insertion of Rule 419B, which would give legislative authority to conduct mass interception of communications. As per Access Now’s report to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of speech and expression: Besides the deployment of the infrastructure and operations for the CMS programme, the Union Government also proposed amendments to the legal environment on interception in India, in the form of a proposed Rule 419B to the Telegraph Rules. This would have provided legal cover for the CMS programme and real time surveillance operations on Indian licensed network operators. Proposed in 2013, this 146 PUCL v. Union of India. AIR 1997 SC 568. 147 Mahapatra, D. (2011, 15 February). Over 1 lakh phones are tapped every year. Times of India. www. articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-02-15/ india/28545822_1_lakh-phones-subscriber-base-provider amendment to the Telegraph Rules has not yet been advanced.148 While the Indian Telegraph Act regulates only interception, section 69 of the IT Act applies to monitoring and decryption as well. Since its inception, the Aadhaar project has raised concerns for its potential for mass and pervasive surveillance. Only in 2016, the government enacted legislation to govern the different aspects of the project: the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016. With subsequent notifications by the government requiring the Aadhaar number of individuals to be linked to everything from government benefits to mobile numbers and bank accounts, it has created an unprecedented infrastructure with huge surveillance potential. Section 33 provides for the disclosure of this information, including identity information and authentication records, when it is required in the interest of “national security” in pursuance of a direction of an officer who is Joint Secretary to the Government of India or a higher rank, on behalf of the central government. Every such direction is to be reviewed by an Oversight Committee. Such orders will be valid for a period of three months from the date of issue, and may be extended for three more months after the Oversight Committee reviews it. Further, the purpose of use of the information and the terms of sharing, publication and display of the information are not fixed, and may be specified through regulations.149 This means that the scope of use of the information held by the Unique Identification Authority of India can be expanded at the executive’s will, without the Act having any further checks and balances. Future violations through draft laws In March 2017, the Law Commission of India submitted Report No. 267 on Hate Speech to the central government, in pursuance of a request to do so by the Supreme Court in March 2017.150 This report suggests 148 Access Now. (2016). Access Now submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression study on Telecommunications and Internet Access Sector. www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ Telecommunications/AccessPart_II.docx 149 Section 23(2)(k) of the Act allows the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to share information about individuals in such manner as may be specified by regulations. Section 29(2) permits the sharing of identity information other than core biometric information, in such manner as may be specified by regulations. Section 29(4) permits the publication and display of an individual’s core biometric information or Aadhaar number for purposes as may be specified by regulations. 150 Law Commission of India. (2017). Op. cit. 80 / Unshackling Expression