Govt plans to curb misuse of call data records

Rules to be at par with phone-tapping procedures

The United Progressive Alliance government is revising the rules that govern access to call-data records (CDRs), in order to check the laws’ misuse by police and security agencies, putting the surveillance at par with telephone-tapping procedures.

It is learnt that the Union Home Ministry has sought legal vetting of a revised draft of the rules on taking out CDRs from phone operators.

The tightening of rules, once cleared by the ministry, will demand that authorised security agencies seek permission from the Union Home Secretary for getting printouts of CDRs. Similarly, state home secretaries will be the authorised to give the nod for it to police.

The agencies will have to destroy the CDRs after six month, unless they need it for longer periods, for which they will have to seek permission.

Mobile service providers will have to designate persons for handling such requests from agencies in different regions.

The proposed guidelines, said sources, has stringent provisions for taking punitive action against mobile service providers too, if it is found that they are leaking the records for ulterior motives.

Government sources said that Indian Telegraphs rules will have to be amended to insert new provisions of seeking CDRs.

The new initiative is part of a series of attempts the government is making to streamline the electronic surveillance set-up, which has been misused even in high-profile cases.

For instance, corporate lobbyist Neera Radia’s taped conversations were leaked, while some of senior lawyer and BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s mobile phones CDRs were procured by a Delhi police official for private detectives. 

Some of the proposed changes in CDR guidelines echo many provisions of telephone monitoring which were introduced in 2011 after industrialist Ratan Tata had approached Supreme Court seeking a direction to check misuse of eavesdropping by investigating agencies, as some of his private conversations with Radia were also part of the leaked records.

On the directions of the apex court, the government had plugged loopholes in the procedure for telephone interceptions.

Besides, the Central Monitoring System, a centralised body for monitoring phones, is also going to become functional soon.