The National Cyber Coordination Centre is an operational cybersecurity and e-surveillance agency in India. It is intended to screen communication metadata and co-ordinate the intelligence gathering activities of other agencies. Some have expressed concern that the body could encroach on Indian citizens' privacy and civil-liberties, given the lack of explicit privacy laws in the country. Components of the NCCC include a cybercrime prevention strategy, cybercrime investigation training and review of outdated laws. Indian and U.S. intelligence agencies are also working together to curb misuse of social media platforms in the virtual world by terror groups.
Background
The NCCC is an e-surveillance and cybersecurity project of Government of India. It has been classified to be a project of Indian government without a legal framework, which may be counterproductive as it may violate civil liberties and human rights. The National Cyber Coordination Centre may be abused for indulging in mass surveillance in India, privacy violation and civil liberty violations as agencies like NTRO and organisations like the National Security Council Secretariat are exempted from the applicability of any transparency law like Right to Information Act.Mass surveillance in India is not new as India already has e-surveillance projects like Aadhaar, Central Monitoring System,NATGRID, and DRDO NETRA. Many, including legal experts, in India believe that intelligence agencies and their e-surveillance projects require parliamentary oversight.
Motivation
India has no dedicated Cyber-security regulation and is also not well prepared to deal with cyberwarfare. However, India has formulated the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 which is not yet implemented. The National Cyber Coordination Centre's purpose would be to help the country deal with malicious cyber-activities by acting as an Internet traffic monitoring entity that can fend off domestic or international attacks.
Status
The National Cyber Coordination Centre received an in principle approval in May 2013 and would come under the National Information Board. In September 2014, Indian government discussed to establish it. In November 2014 Rs. 1,000 crore has been allotted to improve Indian cybersecurity. From this Rs. 800 crore would be utilised for National Cyber Coordination Centre purposes. On 9 August, in response to a question, minister of State P.P. Chaudhary mentioned that Phase-1 of the National Cyber Coordination Centre is now operational.
