It’s no secret that India, like countries everywhere else, has increased its snooping on citizens’ online activities.

The snooping is often justified on the national interest grounds of keeping the citizenry safe from the bad guys, i.e. the terrorists.

Privacy Issues

Whether all this Internet snooping on citizens is helping to thwart the bad guys or is a meaningless exercise in futility, it’s impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy.

But privacy advocates ought to be concerned since abuse of laws by the power elite (politicians and bureaucrats) is far too common in India.

Indian police and intelligence agencies like the Intelligence Bureau routinely snoop on user activities with impunity and little safeguards for citizens.

In an example of the increasing snooping by India on its netizens, the number of requests to Google on user accounts has been increasing.

In our view, the increasing requests to Google is the proverbial tip of the iceberg with regard to online surveillance conducted by the Indian authorities..