India To Have Automatic Communications Monitoring

angry tapir writes "India plans to set up a centralized system to monitor communications on mobile phones, landlines and the Internet in the country, a minister has told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament. Indian laws allow the interception and monitoring of communications under certain conditions, including to counter terrorism. A pilot of the new Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) is to be started by June next year, subject to clearances by other government agencies."

Spain has it too

[Anonymous Coward]

Look for "SITEL" in Spain, the actual government monitorizes the communications without judges control.

Outsouring effects...

[canadian_in_beijing]

Kind of interesting seeing India go into spheres of protectionism like China`s firewall... early stages Sounds like a major blow to the Indian outsourcing industry. What major company would want any government organization intercepting their business. Back doors implemented by the government are never good for the consumer or general Indian population.

Inefficient current systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember 5 years back, there was this group of kidnappers that had to be nailed in Northern India and police had no proper equipment to trace their communications. Finally, some geeks and a professor were hired by police and they were successfully nabbed. Such a system is essential in India considering terrorist threats from Islamic and China supported socialist maoist extremists.

However, I am nervous as well, as I certainly wouldn't want corrupt govt. agencies snooping up on me :(

Re:They are just like the Chinese.

[MrNaz]

Great. Another American high horse. Because democracy in the US of A is the gold standard by which the free world should measure itself.
- The US builds and holds more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined
- US military spending accounts for 60% of the total world military spending, outpacing all other industrialized nations by more than double on a per-capita basis.
- An American calling another nation nationalistic is beyond pot calling the kettle black.
- The CIA and NSA have hundreds of stations on every other continent, and that's just what's published.
- Killing fetuses? Sorry, I got nothing on this one.
The only difference between the USA and China is that Americans *think* they are free, and no people are more hopelessly enslaved, as those who truly believes he is free. How often do you think "honor killings" actually happen? Its a crime there, called murder. The murder rate in the USA is far higher in per capita terms than in India or China.