Geospatial bill has some serious repercussions for users, startups

The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill 2016, a draft of which has been released last week to seek public comments till 4 June, outlaws acquiring geospatial information without the express permission of the government of India. According to experts, this will have a huge impact on the smaller startups which depend heavily on geospatial data. According to the Geospatial regulation draft, “No person shall depict, disseminate, publish or distribute any wrong or false topographic information of India including international boundaries through internet platforms or online services or in any electronic or physical form." The draft goes on to say that anyone found guilty will be punished with a fine going from Rs 1 crore to Rs 100 crore and/or imprisonment up to seven years. The government cites reasons such as wrong depiction of the map of India by multi-national companies such as Google, Microsoft and others and refusal to block out sensitive areas inside India. Speaking to  Economic Times, Kiren Rijiju, minister of state for Home said that there won’t be hurdles for business and technological developments but national security considerations cannot be compromised at the same time. To curb this, any agency mapping India via satellites should get a license from the government’s ‘security vetting authority’. This move will affect not only big companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, but also other companies which are heavily reliant on maps to get their work done - apps such as Ola, Zomato, and many other startups which require geospatial information of its users to deliver on-time services. According to a report in Hindu Businessline Sumandro Chattapadhyay, research director at Centre for Internet and Society, says that the move is most likely to affect smaller start ups more than the bigger players such as Google, Uber and others. “Smaller companies have no means to know what kind of geospatial information they can store and what they cannot. Moreover, if a start-up requires three months to get approvals for your data before you can use it, it’ll be as good as dead,” said Chattapadhyay to the paper. The report also mentions how the government has taken a sudden U-turn. Sanjay Kumar, president of the Association of Geospatial Industries, claimed that PM Narendra Modi had expressed in a speech last year on the importance of geospatial data in daily life of a common man, and now this bill hints at a complete U-turn by the government. The bill dosen’t just affect companies, but also individuals. Any one who even posts a geo-tagged photograph online, is liable to be booked under the law if it passes through. According to Prasanth Sugathan, counsel at Software Freedom Law Centre in India, clicking photographs with the GPS on means that you are taking photographs with location data without the government’s approval. Technically that is a violation of the law, if the new bill goes through without any opposition. There is certainly a lot of scope for misuse of the Geospatial bill if it does indeed clear, just like Section 66A of the IT Act was misused. The argument by some leaders to use home-grown mapping software Bhuvan, does not hold much water as one doesn’t just use Maps to go from point A to point B. Things such as points of interests, traffic situations, navigational information and much more are offered by these mapping services. Also with maps information is updated on a regular basis - one can’t expect to wait months till changes are approved. Blocking sensitive areas is a valid argument, but putting a blanket ban on anyone trying to access and use these free map services, is stretching it a bit too far. If this bill indeed goes through, what would stop authorities for booking someone for things such as location check-ins, posting pictures with geo-tags, mapping your runs with fitness apps, using taxi aggregators and many other services which rely on map data. Speaking to Economic Times, Mishi Choudhary, legal director at Software Freedom Law Centre, said,“This kind of digital nationalism is a way to create a government-controlled monopoly on all geographical information about the country, conveniently transforming Digital India to Licence India, digitally this time.” There has already been an uproar about this draft online and some users have got together to create a website called  SaveTheMap.in which hopes to inform user about the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill 2016 with a simple FAQ section. It also lets you add your comments and send an email to the Ministry of Home Affairs from the site itself.