<p> Soon, government employees may be banned from using e-mail services of Gmail and Yahoo for official communications.<br /><br />Instead, they would have to use only nic.in platform, sources in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) told Deccan Herald. <br /><br />Worried about cyber snooping, the Centre is planning to ban the use of these popular e-mail services so as to safeguard its critical data.<br /><br />The DEITY will formulate a policy governing e-mail usage in government offices. “The e-mail policy is applicable to central as well as state government employees using National Informatics Centre (NIC)”, DEITY Secretary J Satyanarayana said here. <br />He said the main aim of the new e-mail policy is to address the large amount of critical government data and ways and means to safeguard it.<br /><br />At present it is estimated that around 5-6 lakh Central and State government employees use the e-mail service provided by the NIC, a Central government body which provides e-governance platform for central and state governments, while the rest use other e-mail services like Gmail and Yahoo.<br /><br />Intelligence alert<br /><br />In the past, intelligence agencies have alerted the Centre that use of e-mail services provided by foreign firms (mostly US-based) with their servers located in overseas locations, rendered it difficult to ascertain if sensitive government data was vulnerable to snooping.</p>.<p><br />The move assumes significance in the light of the Snowden revelations that US intelligence agencies used a secret data-mining programme to monitor Internet data worldwide and spy on various countries, including India.<br /><br />Snowden effect<br /><br />Former technical contractor for National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Edward Snowden had leaked details of a top-secret American mass surveillance programme, which prompted countries to review the safety of their official Internet-supported communication networks. <br /><br />India is the fifth most targeted country by the United States, data leaked by Snowden showed. <br /><br />Though India downplayed the US snooping charge, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said in Parliament last week that the government will do everything to protect its data. </p>
<p> Soon, government employees may be banned from using e-mail services of Gmail and Yahoo for official communications.<br /><br />Instead, they would have to use only nic.in platform, sources in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) told Deccan Herald. <br /><br />Worried about cyber snooping, the Centre is planning to ban the use of these popular e-mail services so as to safeguard its critical data.<br /><br />The DEITY will formulate a policy governing e-mail usage in government offices. “The e-mail policy is applicable to central as well as state government employees using National Informatics Centre (NIC)”, DEITY Secretary J Satyanarayana said here. <br />He said the main aim of the new e-mail policy is to address the large amount of critical government data and ways and means to safeguard it.<br /><br />At present it is estimated that around 5-6 lakh Central and State government employees use the e-mail service provided by the NIC, a Central government body which provides e-governance platform for central and state governments, while the rest use other e-mail services like Gmail and Yahoo.<br /><br />Intelligence alert<br /><br />In the past, intelligence agencies have alerted the Centre that use of e-mail services provided by foreign firms (mostly US-based) with their servers located in overseas locations, rendered it difficult to ascertain if sensitive government data was vulnerable to snooping.</p>.<p><br />The move assumes significance in the light of the Snowden revelations that US intelligence agencies used a secret data-mining programme to monitor Internet data worldwide and spy on various countries, including India.<br /><br />Snowden effect<br /><br />Former technical contractor for National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Edward Snowden had leaked details of a top-secret American mass surveillance programme, which prompted countries to review the safety of their official Internet-supported communication networks. <br /><br />India is the fifth most targeted country by the United States, data leaked by Snowden showed. <br /><br />Though India downplayed the US snooping charge, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said in Parliament last week that the government will do everything to protect its data. </p>
