The Intelligence Bureau wants internet service providers, or ISPs, to keep a record of all online activities of customers for a minimum of six months, a move that can add to operational costs for companies and pose privacy concerns.
IB, in a communication to the department of telecom, or DoT , has sought that addresses of websites visited with date and time and financial transactions of all customers be stored by internet operators for six months.
If implemented, it may pose a threat to online privacy as internet service providers such as Bharti Airtel , Reliance Communications , BSNL and MTNL will now become custodians of citizens' online records.
Currently, mobile phone companies and internet service providers do not keep online logs that track the web usage pattern of their customers. They selectively monitor online activities of only those customers as required by intelligence and security agencies, explained an executive with a telecom company.
"At present, we only keep a log of all our customers' Internet Protocol address, which is the digital address of a customer's internet connection. We are not aware of the IB proposal, but such a move will pose huge logistical challenge for ISPs and increase costs," said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India.
The Intelligence Bureau communication to DoT, which was reviewed by ET, says its demands are in line with the security and monitoring provisions that already exist for mobile and landline calls. Mobile phone companies are mandated to maintain call logs for all their customers for a minimum of six months.
It added that both internet and mobile telephony permits contain several clauses that state companies offering access to the world wide web are obliged to provide tracking facilities to authorised government officials, including the police, Customs, excise and intelligence department when such information is required to detect crimes, or in the interest of national security.
But, the telecom ministry, in an internal note, is of the view that the inter-ministerial group currently looking into monitoring of internet services and networks in the country must take a final call on this issue.
In a related development, IB has asked the telecom and IT departments to work with mobile phone companies and the National Informatics Centre to put in place a system that can uniquely identify any person using the internet across the country.
The project aims to develop a technology platform where users will have to mandatorily submit some form of an online identification or password to access the internet every time they go online, irrespective of the service provider.
NIC is involved in active promotion and implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in the government and spearheads the centre's e-governance drive.
The IB communication also asks the departments of telecom and IT to expedite the creation of a national internet registry while adding that this facility would be a major facilitator for creating the technological platform to uniquely identify any person using the internet in India.
Most nations have a national internet registry that coordinates all IP address allocations and other internet resource management functions at the national level.
The telecom ministry is also of the view that the IB proposal can be examined and implemented only after India's indigenously-built Centralised Monitoring System (CMS), which can track all communication traffic�wireless and fixed line, satellite, internet, e-mails and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls�and gather intelligence inputs, becomes functional.
The centralised system, modeled on similar set-ups in several Western countries, aims to be a one-stop solution as against the current practice of running several decentralised monitoring agencies under various ministries, where each one has contrasting processing systems, technology platforms and clearance levels. Planning for CMS , which was aimed at strengthening the country's internal security apparatus, began in 2007, but the project was put on a fast track after the Mumbai attacks, when terrorists received orders via VoIP (internet telephony).