Know About:Centralized Monitoring System (CMS)

• Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) is envisaged to be implemented by DOT to strengthen the security environment in the country. 
• With the implementation of CMS following problems which are inherent in the present system will be overcome.

1. The CMS gives India’s security agencies and income tax officials centralized access to India’s telecommunications network and the ability to listen in on and record mobile, landline and satellite calls and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and read private emails, SMS and MMS and track the geographical location of individuals all in real time.
2. It can also be used to monitor posts shared on social media such as Face book, LinkedIn and Twitter, and to track users’ search histories on Google without any oversight by courts or Parliament.
3. According to a government official, an agency “shall enter data related to target in the CMS system and approach the telecom services provider (TSP), at which point the process is automated, and the provider simply sends the data to a server which forwards the requested information”. The intercepted data is subject to pattern recognition and other automated tests to detect emotional markers, such as hate, compassion or intent, and different forms of dissent.

• The system aims to attain a tracking accuracy of 80% in the first year of operation, followed by 95% accuracy in the second year, in urban areas.
• CMS creates central and regional databases, which authorized Central and State level government agencies can use to intercept and monitor any landline, mobile or internet connection in India.
• The CMS will converge all the interception lines at one location, for access by authorized government agencies. CMS is connected with the Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) which will helps in monitoring voice calls, SMS and MMS, fax communications on landlines, CDMA, GSM, video calls and 3G networks.
• In the existing system secrecy can be easily compromised due to manual intervention at many stages while in CMS these functions will be performed on secured electronic link and there will be minimum manual intervention.
•  Interception through CMS will be instant as compared to the existing system which takes a very long time.

The envisaged salient features of CMS are as follows:

-Central and regional database which will help Central and State level Law   Enforcement Agencies in Interception and Monitoring. 
– Direct Electronic Provisioning of target numbers by Government agencies without any manual intervention from Telecom Service Providers (TSPs). 
– Filters and Alert creation on the target numbers. 
– Call Data Records (CDR) analysis and data mining on CDRs to identify call details, location details etc. of the target numbers. 
– R&D in related fields for continuous up gradation of the CMS.

Criticism-

• Human rights and civil-liberties groups have expressed concerns that the CMS is prone to abuse, and is an infringement of privacy and civil liberties.
• Critics have described it as “abuse of privacy rights and security-agency overreach”, and counterproductive in terms of security.
• Indian activists have also raised concerns that the system will inhibit them from expressing their opinions and sharing information, especially because the government has repeatedly used the Information Technology Act, since it was enacted in 2011, to arrest people for posting comments on social media that are critical of the government, as well as to put pressure on websites such as Facebook and Google to filter or block content, and impose liability on private intermediaries to filter and remove content from users
• A central monitoring system is vulnerable to misuse.
• The CMS has mainly been criticized by the public for the lack of public information and debate, before its implementation. Many have expressed concern that the system could lead to violations of individual liberty, in the absence of privacy laws