“CERT-In’s directions, specifically the overbroad mandate for all entities to synchronize their time with the government’s servers and for them to maintain all their ICT system logs for a period of 180 days, could have serious repercussions on the usefulness of the Internet for India and its people. The CERT-In directions endanger the very sectors that the regulation seeks to foster and protect. If enacted in its current form, the regulation could curtail the country’s digital transformation without imparting clear benefits for its economy and society,” the Internet Society (ISOC), along with the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), said in their internet impact report on the new cybersecurity directions issued by the Indian government.
The directions, issued by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) on April 28, have already been criticised by a long list of stakeholders, but the report by ISOC brings a new dimension to the criticism by focusing on the impact of the directions on internet development in India and the health of the global Internet.
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