Gmail banned in Indian government offices | Hacker News Reader

Gmail banned in Indian government offices

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

39 pointsuiiooooo15 comments

"The e-mail services provided by other service providers shall not be used for any official communication," the notification says..."

The U.S. government also mandates that official government e-mail accounts be used for official business, since we have laws that require the archiving of official communications (to avoid corruption, etc.).

For example, there was a controversy a few years ago when the head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, was found to have been doing EPA business using the e-mail alias of "Richard Windsor", in an apparent violation of federal records laws.[1]

There are also industries like finance where laws mandate that e-mails must be archived for a certain period of time to make them accessible to regulators in case improprieties are alleged. Many other businesses also want to keep archives of employee e-mails in cases patent disputes or other lawsuits arise.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_P._Jackson#EPA_Administra...

No, they don't ban Gmail in particular, they banned all non-NIC email providers in general. This is not a focused ban, it's a general ban. Obviously they want to have editorial control over government employee generated information.

Why is this even sensational when all governments around the world do sth of this sort one way or another ?

Exactly what I was wondering. Governments and private companies. This isn't news, it's not even linkbait.

When dealing with a lot of sensitive government data a lot of things can happen. It makes so much sense to ban widely used email services where appropriate. Indian media houses just try to make an issue out of nothing just to grab attention instead of concentrating on things that matter. These days media houses like times of India are becoming bad examples of responsible journalism. It's a shame.

Yep,in Canada provincial govts were caught using gmail numerous times so they could hide their scheming from transparency laws.

Oh no, not again. The amount of times this news has been circulated over the last 1-year is amazing.

August 30, 2013 : Cyberspying: Government may ban Gmail for official communication [0]

October 29, 2013 : Govt. mulls ban of official usage of Gmail, Yahoo [1]

March 27, 2014 : Centre asks for ban on Gmail, Yahoo and Facebook sites in government offices [2]

September 12, 2014 : Email services like Gmail and Yahoo! may be banned for government's official use [3]

I looked around for an official notification but could not find any. Usually, it is the DeitY (Department of Electronics & Information Technology) that issues such notifications and the latest one still makes NIC mails a "preferable" option over a mandatory ones [4].

[0] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/C...

[1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-mulls-ban-of-offi...

[2] http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/centre-ban-yahoo-gmail-so...

[3] http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-12/news...

[4] http://dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/2014%2012%2008%20Posti...

> monitoring online activities ... on official computers, block content which it feels is adversely affecting productivity ... and also have a right to delete e-mails or internet history

Is this unusual in India? In the US this is normal.

When I was working in American financial institution we got the same, all Google services (expect Youtube) were banned. I had a little experience in working for big companies, but I think it's pretty standard, isn't it?

could be additional reasons such as the fear of sensitive data being transmitted to a company notorious for it's close relationship with the US surveillance apparatus

Doing business in India is, apparently, really hard.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/india

They come 142nd out of 189 countries!

The Indian railway ticketing system is bafflingly terrible.

I'd love to hear from people who live there about what it's like, and if there's any chance it can turn around. It's kind of surprising to me that India is not much more powerful than it is.

Yes. Thats one of the things India needs to improve upon desperately. Despite all these there is huge potential considering the 1 billion population and the fast adaptation of new technology.

The Indian railway ticketing system was recently improved and it looks like its vastly better now.

Yes, true. Here are the technical details: http://pivotal.io/big-data/case-study/distributed-in-memory-... - a worthy HN submission by itself

Well i live in India and while I can't comment on "starting a business" etc, I must say that over past few years i have found IT enabled services (both government and private) refreshingly easy to use and in some cases superior to what i have found in developed markets -especially Europe. Train tickets are very easy to book online and you actually need only the text message with the confirmation number and a proof of identity to travel. Online tax filing now comes with many fields pre populated and corporates can now only file online - no paperwork. Seeing any registered company's annual filings takes about 5 mins to process. The providend fund is now online and so is passport application. When I've travelled abroad especially in Europe, i sometimes find their systems charmingly antiquated.

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