Indian govt to launch homegrown spying system Netra

While not much remains known about India’s Central Monitoring System (CMS) , it seems the government is already setting sites on a new way to comb the Internet and monitor the digital lives of its citizens. The new digital spying system called ‘Netra’ could soon be in set up. The Economic Times reported the imminent launch of Netra - a government backed internet surveillance system that “will be capable of detecting words like ‘attack’, ‘bomb’, ‘blast’ or ‘kill’ in a matter of seconds from reams of tweets, status updates, emails, instant messaging transcripts, internet calls, blogs and forums.” Voice calls on Skype and Google Call won’t be safe either, according to the report. The NEtwork TRaffic Analysis system has been developed by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (CAIR), a lab under Defense Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), says the article. [caption id=“attachment_187463” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] The ET report also states that an ‘apex inter-ministerial group’ recently met to discuss deployment strategies. Some of the steps to be taken include asking the DRDO to assign additional staff to CAIR and also to develop a systematic strategy to track internet use and among other things, establish strong IT security processes. As more and more of India’s citizens take to the Internet, there’s also a growing attempt to monitor their online activities. As far as Central Monitoring System is concerned, the only thing that is known about it is that this is a surveillance project, similar to NSA’s PRISM and will allow the government to monitor online and telephone data of citizens. The project is believed to have been place since 2009. In contrast, Netra seems to be aimed at the Internet, which has become a popular medium for many citizens to register their dissent. Whether the use of Netra will cause any outrage in India, remains to be seen.