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Permalink Reply by Pawan Agrawal on May 15, 2011 at 23:22

Today, I was reading a mail forwarded by somebody through a mailing forum about the new rules for Cyber cafes. It was mostly talking about the right of expression... New rules are taking away the right to expression as nobody would be able to write anything against anybody which can be fall in the definition of defamatory and seems obscene... I thought this is only one aspect which relates to People of India as a whole but when I go in a little deep I found that now every public place like educational institutions or coffee shops or any other place where internet surfing facility is provided by the owners falls under the meaning of cyber cafe and they will be responsible for any act done by the users with computer and internet... Moreover they will have to register with an agency as "cyber cafe". New rules have given a set of information which are mandatory to receive from the user at the time of internet use by user.

 

Cyber cafes not only have to enter the information of users but they also have to keep a copy of an authenticate ID card (duly authenticate by user(signed)) any photograph taken through webcam for a period of one year.

 

Secondly the owner has to keep tract of all logs and prepare a monthly report which should be submitted to the registering agency.

Thirdly, the cafe must install any filtering or soft software to avoid access to pornographic or obscene website. Additionally a warning note should be displayed at various places in cyber cafe.

Fourthly, The cafe must take sufficent precautions to ensure that their computer resource are not utilised for any illegal activity.

 

Finally defination of cyber cafe that reads “any facility from where access to the internet is offered by any person in the ordinary course of business to the members of the public”

 

The definition denotes that we the library professionals running a computer lab also fall in the definition of the Act.

There are many questions arise in our mind now...

 

1. Will this increase the responibilities of a librarian not only professionally but also legally..

2. One more type of record generation and its submission will become necessary.

3. The agency will appoint some person as inspection officer. Do we have to face one more inspection periodically?

4. Will it raise cost as we have to fix a web cam and scanner or copier to take to copy of ID card or user?

5. How will we know that which user is doing what at his computer?

6. Many universities already having filtering software. But now it will become a mandatory for all of us who running a cyber library or providing internet facilities to the students and those who already have it need to increase categories of prohibition. We already facing critics of users on prohibiting websites like facebook, orkut and youtube. How further prohibition will reflect?

 

We may face these burning question soon. will digital libraries will be limited to the databases which are subscribed by us as now writing a simple comment about anything on a blog can take anyone on task. Care takers of these cafes would also be liable for it. so what would be our choice?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Badan Barman on May 15, 2011 at 23:51

Based on the knowledge gained from reading I can say "Yes" to your point 1-4. Now it will be very difficult for the librarians and libraries to run the Internet Section of the library and I hope it will be thrown away from the libraries to avoid responsibilities by the librarians.

I have a lot in my mind regarding this, I hope I can come back soon.

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Permalink Reply by Pawan Agrawal on May 16, 2011 at 0:03

I am afraid that perhaps users may not be able to use internet facilities inside the educational institutions.. Wi fi's also will prove meaning less as it is very difficult to detect users using internet facilities through wifi. In this case user will be able to use only electronic resources subscribed by the institution. This practice is already going on in my University where I am studying. we cant access anything else than e resources subscribed by the university. Though internet section is there but it is paid and very very restricted. I feel now it will become more restricted.

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