In accordance with the latest assertion of Gurudas Kamat, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology of India, the government is contriving to establish a centralized system so as to keep an eye on communications on mobile phones. Even though the entire concept is at the primary stage, as per security experts, this can enable the nation fight against sinister designs of terrorists. It is to be noted that Indian laws consent to the interception and monitoring of communications under certain conditions, including countering terrorism.

A pilot of the new Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) is to be started by June next year, subject to clearances by other government agencies, the Minister said.

As indicated by the government, the CMS will have central and regional databases in order to help central and state-level enforcement agencies intercept and scrutinize communications. It, in addition, will have direct electronic provisioning of target numbers by government agencies devoid of any intervention from telecom service providers. It will also feature analysis of call data records and data mining of these records to identify call details, location details, and other information of the target numbers.

The current system used by the government for call monitoring can be easily compromised because of the requirement of manual intervention at many stages, the Minister said. Interception using the new system will also be instant, he added. Experts are terming the approach as fitting as the nation has become the prime target of worldwide terrorist organizations.

If you are considering the same as a despotic approach, let’s remind you that perpetrators of the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai made extensive use of mobile communications and the internet extensively to plan and execute their attacks.

The government, earlier this year, did launch the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, an amendment to a previous law, which extended the government’s powers to intercept and monitor communications.

But our question is whether CMS will be a success.