The Congress today attacked the Modi government over its proposal to install a chip in television set-top boxes to ascertain viewership data, dubbing the move a serious breach of privacy and the “next stage of surveillance”.<\/p>\n
Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala alleged that Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani wanted to now know what shows people watch within the four walls of their bedrooms.<\/p>\n
In a Twitter post, Surjewala referred to the Modi government as “surveillance sarkar” which had shattered to pieces the right to privacy.<\/p>\n
“BREAKING! The Next Stage of Surveillance by BJP Revealed!<\/p>\n
“In a serious breach of privacy, Smriti Iraniji wants to know what show you watch on your TV, within the four walls of your bedroom, without your permission! Why?<\/p>\n
“‘Ab ki baar Surveillance sarkar’. The right to privacy broken into pieces,” he tweeted.<\/p>\n
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has proposed installing a chip in new television set-top boxes which will provide data about channels watched and for how long.<\/p>\n
A senior official of the ministry said the move is aimed at getting “more authentic” viewership figures for every channel.<\/p>\n
“This would help advertisers and the DAVP to spend their advertising expenditure wisely. Only those channels which are widely watched will get promoted,” the official added.<\/p>\n
The Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) is the nodal agency of the government for advertising by various ministries and its organisations.<\/p>\n
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), “It is also proposed to ask DTH operators to install a chip in the new set-top boxes which can give data about channels watched and their duration.”<\/p>\n
The proposal was part of the ministry’s response to a number of recommendations made by the TRAI on issues related to new direct-to-home licenses.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Congress today attacked the Modi government over its proposal to install a chip in television set-top boxes to ascertain viewership data, dubbing the move a serious breach of privacy and the “next stage of surveillance”. Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala alleged that Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani wanted to now know what shows people watch within the four walls of their bedrooms. In a Twitter post, Surjewala referred to the Modi government as “surveillance sarkar” which had shattered to pieces the right to privacy. “BREAKING! The Next Stage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9324,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions\/9324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}