👨🏽‍💻🧙🏼‍♂️🐉😷💉💉

Wannabe Gryffindor, possibly Ravenclaw, Borderline Atheist, Pseudo Liberal, Faux Conservative, chronically depressed, wildly optimist, Barely IITian

[👨🏽‍💻🧙🏼‍♂️🐉😷💉💉 @TitansDumble]

@JatinBanga18 @fs0c131y @IndianIdle @baxiabhishek @digitaldutta @SauravDassss @nixxin

[👨🏽‍💻🧙🏼‍♂️🐉😷💉💉 @TitansDumble]

@JatinBanga18 @fs0c131y @IndianIdle @baxiabhishek @internetfreedom @apar1984 @GoI_MeitY

[Srinivas Kodali @digitaldutta]

Under what law is NATGRID functioning is a question courts won't even want to hear.

[Saurav Das @SauravDassss]

What kind of judge is he? Since when is “disrespecting someone” equivalent to endangering the sovereignty of India? This is nothing but sanctifying a frivolous misuse of a serious legal provision. By that logic, anyone who didn’t vote for Prime Minister Modi, or anyone who critiques him or his government’s policies should be in jail. It is bizarre and plainly illegal. A judge who reasons like this has no business being on the Bench and should be impeached.

[Nikhil Pahwa @nixxin]

More surveillance from the Indian Government, with mandatory GPS / Location tracking ON for our handsets? You won’t have the option of turning location off, and while Google, Apple and Samsung have opposed this, the Telecom Industry is pushing for it, Reuters reports.

Many of you have tagged me on this story, so let me explain what is going on here:

1. Impact it has on us: GPS on doesn’t mean we’re being tracked, but it does mean that we are all being forced to be minutely “trackable” all the time. The government may never want to track you, but this will drain your phone battery rapidly, and force you to charge it multiple times a day, and significantly reduce your phones battery life. It will also heat up your phone significantly. But the question that has to be asked: why is it that we need to make everyone trackable all the time, in order for one person to be tracked at one point in time?

This is disproportionate and badly thought through. Remember that Nitin Gadkari’s ministry MORTH is also planning to push GPS FASTAGs, instead of the RFID ones. They’ll make our cars more trackable.

Aadhaar is linked to mobile number is linked to SIM card is linked to to phone with GPS.
Aadhaar is linked to Driving License is linked to FASTAG (with GPS)

With this there’s no anonymity in the physical space.

We’ve already lost it for the most bit online. Now this too.

Also, GPS can give the government continuous location, not just when a tower handshake happens. Triangulation is episodic, and it updates when your phone pings the network. GPS updates every few seconds.

Trackable on foot. Trackable in the car. All of us. All the time. Like a report for our movements. A location graph!

2. Why is all this problematic?

The Centralised Monitoring System has GPS tracking ability (since 2010, I think. I reported on the Tender Document for Delhi Police), but it needs GPS to be on. Imagine how it impacts journalists meeting sources to report on the government. Imagine if two opposition party leaders are meeting planning to partner to form a coalition government after elections, or overthrow the sitting government in the state.

They’ve done nothing wrong, but they have something to hide. Whistleblowers, judges, lawyers…This isn’t good for democracy.

We also don't know how this will link up with NATGRID, the Indian governments ultimate surveillance system, which will take data from 21 public and private databases. Eventual plan is to expand it to over 1800 databases. More in the link in the next tweet in this thread.

3. No consent: same problem as Sanchar Saathi. The telcos want this forced on us. Users cant choose to NOT disclose their location, and hence this is a violation of privacy. Remember that India has no surveillance laws, and surveillance agencies are not accountable to Parliament.

The government has exempt itself from the Data Protection Law and now appears to be pushing for increasing surveillance, and making it perpetual. Of course, with the Supreme Court unwilling to look into matters of National Security (which is anything the government wants it to be, and is undefined), every act of surveillance can be justified under National Security.

Again, like with Sanchar Saathi and SIM Binding, there was no public consultation, no public disclosure. Same shit, different ministries. We’re supposed to be transparent and trackable all the time. Not the government.

4. The government has an alternative to GPS tracking: The government can track your location anyway, but not as well: Cellular towers can give a broader idea of where you might be by doing something called cell tower triangulation: they can estimate your location in a radius of 50-100 meters (maybe even better) because they’re comparing signals your phone receives from three different towers.

But it’s not as good GPS. You might remember that when you switched off GPS while using Maps, it used to switch from an exact location to a larger circle / range or a zone indicating where you could be. This is why.

Cell towers - 50-150 meters accuracy
GPS - 5 meters to even 1 meter accuracy

However Cell Tower tracking has been useful in the past. I’ve read SEBI reports on stock market manipulation by promoters, where it has historical data on peoples locations, like in a particular restaurant, validated by cell tower data.

We do this anyway, and triangulation appears good enough for SEBI to prove its case, why not other use cases? If triangulation is sufficient for criminal investigations, why do we need 24x7 GPS tracking of 1 billion devices?

5. GPS can help the government track you much much better: When we use Uber, Ola or Google Maps, it knows exactly where we are. Inside malls, it can even estimate which turn floor you are on. GPS tracking is very very precise, though not always accurate, because it uses satellite signals.

Your phone receives a ping from a satellite, and the time taken between when the satellite signal is sent and is received on your phone, along with cellular tower data, is used to calculate your exact location. Triangulation can’t recreate your path, your speed, the exact time you spent at an exact spot, or the difference between the entrance to an apartment complex and your front door. That’s why it’s the best way to track someone. You’ve seen Google Maps… This can create a perpetual history of where you’ve been all the time.

6. Every phone becomes an ACTIVE tracker.
It’s not just the government that will get the information from GPS — they’ll rarely use it. But every phone application can easily get access to your location because your location is perpetually on. Triangulation depends on telecom operators. Forced GPS forces your personal device to give up your location perpetually, and potentially to every app.

7. How SIM Binding changes things here: SIM Binding, which means that you social media/whatsapp account will be locked into the SIM essentially prevents people from running apps on secondary devices, or keep a clean device separate from their main identity, but use the same app. SIM Binding means you'll use the app on the same device and your movements will be mapped.

8. The game that the telecom lobby is playing: Here’s what is likely to have happened. The government must have told the telecom operators to improve location tracking. They’ve done it in the past. For this, telecom operators would have to invest in better hardware and improving the location sensitivity of cell towers. They don’t want to put in that money.

Airtel pushed back against the same thing in 2010 when the government asked it to upgrade systems to bring traceability down to 50 meters from 100 meters. What’s the easier counter - tell the government to screw the Internet companies and our handsets instead. Make the phone do the tracking. Shift the cost to the user. Burn their battery, not our capex.

Some links for you to read in the next tweet

[Karthik 🇮🇳 @beastoftraal]

Why is BJP desperate on device-level satellite location tracking of all Indian citizens, something that has no precedent anywhere else in the world? Return of the 'Saheb' days?

[Punit Pania @Punit_Pania]

They didn't even wait a week after Sanchar Saathi fiasco. The desire for North Korean levels of oppression is monstrously clear. 500 AQI, forests being wiped out with vengeance, monopolies n ubiquitous corruption, religious hatred n election engineering. Ab aur viksit nahi hona🙏

[Pranesh Prakash @pranesh]

SHOCKING: Reuters reports that @ConnectCOAI — which represent companies like Airtel, Jio, Vodafone Idea — is urging the Indian govt to engage in constant GPS-facilitated location surveillance of all Indians via their phones and to prohibit mobile OSes from notifying you when the govt is tracking you.

Google, Apple, Samsung and others are pushing back arguing it harms the fundamental right to privacy.

#surveillance #India #telecom #spyware #privacy

https://t.co/rjXF2HLvEx

[Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) @internetfreedom]

There seems to be an unrelenting push for surveillance from the Union Government. Despite the withdrawal of the mandatory pre-installation of Sanchar Saathi, a recent @Reuters report notes that COAI, a lobby group of telecom companies, is urging the government to require constant GPS-based location tracking on our phones. The SIM-binding regulation also remains in force, a development first reported and closely followed by @medianama. A few weeks ago, @PTI_News reported that Jio is pushing TRAI to dilute net neutrality protections.

Taken together, these three stories reveal a pattern of policy lobbying and regulatory moves in the telecom sector that threaten the rights of internet users in India. All Government Ministries and institutions must take urgent steps to restore public confidence and commit to making any regulatory changes only through a process of genuine and meaningful public consultation. In the interim, MEITY, the DoT and TRAI must make these communications from lobby groups public given they impact public interest.

IFF will continue to closely track these developments and push for your rights.

Link to stories:

1. Aditya Kalra & Munsif Vengattil, “Exclusive: India weighs greater phone-location surveillance; Apple, Google and Samsung protest” (December 5, 2025): https://t.co/a8Jp6VxZ5L

2. Kamya Pandey, “It’s Not Just Sanchar Saathi, New SIM-Binding Rules Could Change How Messaging Apps Work in India” (November 29, 2025): https://t.co/iVH4bcSaT4

2. Press Trust of India, “Jio urges Trai to adopt flexible net neutrality approach amid 5G evolution” (November 13, 2025): https://t.co/renkvMPwx2

[Srinivas Kodali @digitaldutta]

Now the government wants the smartphone manufacturers to keep your GPS always on. This will ensure Government can track the location of every SIM, individual in the country.
https://t.co/IUxmst94Ac

[Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) @internetfreedom]

DigiYatra promised your data stays on your phone..This court battle shows it never really did.

[Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) @internetfreedom]

The DPDP Act, 2025 gives unchecked power of the government to demand digital personal data of Indian citizens.

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

This is a constitutional court in India. Unsaid words by a Muslim man are heard but no openly spoken 'goli maaro..." and what not by ruling party politicians are not.

[Revant Himatsingka “Food Pharmer” @foodpharmer2]

Bad news. Fake ORS ban has been paused by the Delhi high court.

ORSL has been allowed to sell 180 crore of their stock first. ORSL sells at 45 rupees per pack, so basically they want to sell 4 crore (180/45) fake ORS packs.

These fake products have up to 10 times more sugar than real ORS, and can be dangerous for kids suffering from diarrhea.

I request all Indians to unite and support @dr_sivaranjani
in the fight against fake ORS.

Please share this across all platforms so that we can put public pressure to not have any fake ORS sold.

#ORS #FoodPharmer

[👨🏽‍💻🧙🏼‍♂️🐉😷💉💉 @TitansDumble]

TLDR - E2E isn’t gonna come no matter how much you cry.
Forget that govt officials might start using it & their official messages are going to be vulnerable to breach. Maybe have same spine as WhatsApp & then you can talk

[Sridhar Vembu @svembu]

On the topic of privacy, there are three distinct cases I want to address:

1. The secret lover case

2. The violation we feel when a company uses our personal data to show ads to us

3. The secret rebel case

The secret lover case also applies to org trade secrets and confidential data but "secret lover" is more catchy 😁

We work hard to ensure your privacy in case 1. Our tech stack and product are designed with this as a major goal.

Let me come to case 2. By taking a vow to not use your data to try to sell you stuff, we protect you from that sense of distaste or violation. Our strong stand also ensures that corporate confidential data or trade secrets do not get leaked to those ad-related data mining systems.

The secret rebel case is subject to the laws of the nations we operate in. Any company operating in a jurisdiction promising to protect a secret rebel against their own government is making a false promise. Sovereign power always prevails over mere companies. Whether it is Google or Apple, when they operate in India, they have to comply with Indian law and likewise Zoho has to comply with US law when operating in America.

So while secret rebels can communicate like secret lovers do, secret rebels cannot expect courts to affirm their right to plot against their government.

Our stand has been consistent on this matter. I have said these in our Zoholics events in many locations around the world for well over a decade.

[Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) @internetfreedom]

IFF is proudly Indian. We are born from the https://t.co/hYIxzR64qM movement that defeated Facebook Zero and till date have had more than 5000 individual Indian donors support our journey. Our sources of funding are transparently disclosed on our website and our monthly disclosures.

IFF is one of those rare organisations that filed a shareholder resolution with Meta's board for a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) and a complaint with the Competition Commission of India against WhatsApp when it changed its Privacy Policy. You can even check our viral posts around 2021 when we called them out.

IFF's record and its body of work speaks for its non-partisian actions in national interest.

Here attempts to use Community Notes to undermine our credibility fails for a lack of accuracy. The primary source provided does not match the assertion as per the links provided there itself. IFF for @internetfreedom stands for the "Internet Freedom Foundation". Not the OTF's, "Internet Freedom Fund". While both abbreviate to IFF, both are different and @internetfreedom has never received any OTF. Such errors are common for AI hallucinations.

We are a tiny team and are going to continue focussing on our work that does get harder every day and not get drawn further into such attempts at sealioning. Our mission becomes more urgent and needs greater courage. If you are Indian help and donate generously to IFF today. https://t.co/LV0gywytjh

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

This is a 2018 video.

Look how people laugh when that insane man asserts that Shah Jahan did not build the Taj Mahal. And look where we are today.

Sanghis have harmed India's basic intelligence.

They have dumbed down India to the point that it may be irreversible.

[Roshan Rai @RoshanKrRaii]

This is YouTube Journalist Rajiv Pratap from Uttarakhand.

He exposed corruption in Govt hospitals in BJP ruled Uttarakhand.

Just a few days later he went missing for 10 days an then his body was found in a lake.

0 Tweets from Anjana
0 Tweets from Sudhir
0 Tweets from Roohbika
0 Tweets from Arnab

Reason : It Is a BJP ruled state.

Imagine the outrage if this were a opposition ruled state.

[Manoj Arora @manoj_216]

In a diverse country like India, banning non-veg or eggs is not justified even if it is for a limited duration.
The government shouldn't decide and enforce what we can eat and what we cannot.
What we eat, wear, speak, follow should be left to each individual.
That's basic.

[Mahua Moitra @MahuaMoitra]

How can entire multi-faith city of Bhopal be forced to give up fish, meat & eggs simply because some people decide to turn vegetarian for finite period of time to balance out their sins for remainder of year? Madhya Pradesh- this is the lunacy you get when you vote BJP.