{"id":14320,"date":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/11-03-2021\/telecom-licensing-conditions-amended\/"},"modified":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T00:00:00","slug":"telecom-licensing-conditions-amended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/11-03-2021\/telecom-licensing-conditions-amended","title":{"rendered":"Telecom Licensing Conditions Amended"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Department of Telecommunications (DoT)<\/strong> amended <strong>licensing conditions for telecom <\/strong>companies by including <strong>defence and national security<\/strong> as parameters in <strong>purchase of telecom equipment for trusted sources.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The government will declare a list of <strong>trusted sources and trusted products<\/strong> for installation in the country&#8217;s telecom network.<\/li>\n<li>Telcos can use <strong>telecom products<\/strong> only from<strong> trusted sources in its network<\/strong> and <strong>must take permission<\/strong> from the <strong>designated authority <\/strong>if they plan to <strong>upgrade their existing network<\/strong> u<strong>sing telecom equipment<\/strong> that has not been <strong>designated as a trusted product.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The directive, however, does not envisage mandatory replacement of the existing equipment already inducted in the network of telecom operators and it will also not affect annual maintenance contracts or updates to existing equipment already inducted in the network as on date of effect of the directive.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It will help in controlling installation of network equipment from China and other non-friendly countries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Implications of the Mov<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The move could potentially make it more difficult for <strong>Chinese telecom equipment <\/strong>vendors like <strong>Huawei and ZTE to supply equipment<\/strong> to <strong>Indian telecom players in the future.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Both Huawei and ZTE have been under <strong>global scrutiny<\/strong> for <strong>allegedly installing \u2018backdoor\u2019 or \u2018trapdoor\u2019 vulnerabilities<\/strong> and spying for the Chinese government and have been banned by several countries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>telecom companies<\/strong> will not be able to use equipment from <strong>non-trusted sources <\/strong>for the s<strong>etting up or expanding of network<\/strong> to <strong>utilise the 4G spectrum<\/strong> that they <strong>bought <\/strong>in the recently concluded <strong>spectrum auctions<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other Steps in Same Direction <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>National Security Directive <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In December last year, Cabinet Committee on Security had approved setting up of a new <strong>National Security Directive on the telecommunication sector<\/strong> with an intent to classify t<strong>elecom products and their sources<\/strong> under the <strong>\u2018trusted\u2019 and \u2018non-trusted\u2019 categories.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>National Cyber Security Coordinator<\/strong> has been made the <strong>designated authority <\/strong>for <strong>deciding on the list of trusted<\/strong> and n<strong>on-trusted telecom equipment<\/strong> sources and products.\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0its decisions will be made based on approval of a committee headed by the deputy National Security Advisor (NSA).<\/li>\n<li>Apart from the deputy NSA, the expert committee will have members from other departments and ministries, and independent experts as well as two members from the industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Information Security Audit<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In July 2020, the Centre had asked all <strong>telecom operators<\/strong> to <strong>undertake an \u2018information security audit\u2019 of their network<\/strong>s.<\/li>\n<li>The objective of the audit was to <strong>specifically check for any \u2018backdoor\u2019 or \u2018trapdoor<\/strong>\u2019 v<strong>ulnerabilities in the telecom networks<\/strong>, which can be <strong>exploited to extract<\/strong> <strong>information and pass on illegally<\/strong> to agencies around the world.\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>\u2018backdoor\u2019 or a \u2018trap door\u2019<\/strong> is a <strong>bug installed<\/strong> in the <strong>telecom hardware<\/strong> that <strong>allows companies<\/strong> to listen in or <strong>collect data being shared on the network.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:735px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color:#fff2cc; width:468.0pt\">\n<p><strong>Cybercrime Safeguards in India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Information Technology Act, 2000 (Amended in 2008)<\/strong>: It is the main law for dealing with cybercrime and digital commerce in India.<\/li>\n<li><strong>National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) <\/strong>was created under Section 70A of IT Act 2000 to protect Cyberinfrastructure.<\/li>\n<li><strong>CERT-In (Cyber Emergency Response Team, India):<\/strong> It is the National Nodal Agency for Cyber Security and is Operational since 2004.\n<ul>\n<li>The purpose of CERT-In is to respond to <strong>computer security incident<\/strong>s, report on <strong>vulnerabilities and promote effective<\/strong> IT security practices throughout the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>National Cyber Security Policy, 2013: <\/strong>The policy provides the vision and strategic direction to protect the national cyberspace.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cyber Swachhta Kendra:<\/strong> Cyber Swachhta Kendra helps users to analyse and keep their systems free of various viruses, bots\/ malware, Trojans, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C)<\/strong>:Launched in 2018, It is apex coordination centre to deal with cybercrimes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cyber Surakshit Bharat:<\/strong> It was launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy) in 2018 with aim to spread awareness about cybercrime and building capacity for safety measures for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and frontline IT staff across all government departments.<\/li>\n<li>The Cyber Warrior Police Force: It was organised on the lines of the Central Armed Police Force in 2018.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cyber crime grievance portal<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It aims to raise a group of \u201ccyber crime volunteers\u201d to flag \u201cunlawful content\u201d on the Internet.<\/li>\n<li>Various groups, including the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), have expressed concern that the programme enables a culture of surveillance and could create potential <strong>social distrust by encouraging civilians<\/strong> to report the online activities of other citizens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The MHA had operationalised the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal on August 30, 2019 to provide a centralised mechanism to the citizens for online reporting of all types of cyber crime incidents, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/business\/telecom-licensing-conditions-amended-defence-security-new-criteria-for-trusted-sources-products-7222935\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Source:IE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) amended licensing conditions for telecom companies by including defence and national security as parameters in purchase of telecom equipment for trusted sources. Key Highlights The government will declare a list of trusted sources and trusted products for installation in the country&#8217;s telecom network. Telcos can use telecom products [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-14320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/5776590current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}