"Basit Banday*, employed with an IT firm based in the southwestern Indian city of Pune, handles sensitive healthcare data of his company's clients, ensuring they are safe from leaks and cyberattacks. Until late last year, the 27-year-old Kashmiri Indian was able to do that using a virtual private network (VPN), which allows a user to mask their internet protocol (IP) address by routing web traffic through a remote server in a manner that makes it undetectable to telephone data or internet service providers (ISPs)."
"But that changed on December 29 when the Indian government ordered a sweeping ban on the use of VPNs for two months in Indian-administered Kashmir, citing threats to national security and alleged misuse of the services to incite unrest. The government claimed the use of VPN in Kashmir has the potential to be exploited for unlawful and anti-national activities, including dissemination of inflammatory material, misinformation, and other activities that threaten public order."
The Indian government imposed a two-month ban on VPNs in Indian-administered Kashmir, citing national security threats and alleged misuse to incite unrest. Officials claimed VPNs could be exploited for unlawful and anti-national activities, including dissemination of inflammatory material and misinformation that threaten public order. Almost identical district orders noted that VPNs enable encrypted data transmission, mask IP addresses, bypass firewalls and website restrictions, and may expose sensitive information to potential cyber threats. Basit Banday, an IT worker from Pulwama handling healthcare client data, fears job loss or forced relocation to Pune more than 2,000 km away.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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