Attacking
Trai for "compromising" the privacy and security of over a million activists supporting net neutrality, Congress on Tuesday sought a probe against the telecom regulator for "exposing" their names and e-mail addresses by allegedly going public with these details.
"Trai should be investigated for making one million activists vulnerable to attacks by hackers and online criminals. It's a grave error," Gourav Gogoi (Cong) said in Lok Sabha during the Zero Hour.
Gogoi, who had given notice for adjournment motion on the issue, said net neutrality has been a burning issue and the activists have been agitating against any attempt by big telecom operators to control the Internet.
Noting that the issue was
raised by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who had supported net neutrality, he said the government must decide whether it was "on the side of big corporates or the commoners."
Trai
came under criticism on Monday for publishing the name and email address of all the million plus individuals who had responded to its request for comments on a paper on how Internet should be regulated in India.. A month ago, Trai released a draft consultation paper on the issue of regulations for Over The Top (OTT) services - what we'd call apps and websites - and
sought feedback from the various stakeholders including individuals. It received responses from the various service providers (such as BSNL, Airtel, and Vodafone) and associations (such as Assocham, COAI, and Nasscom), along with
over a million responses from individuals.
Trai is now looking for counter-comments to these responses from the different stakeholders, which will be accepted on advqos@trai.gov.in until May 8.