Electronics and IT Ministry does not issue decryption orders under IT Rules 2009, Rajeev Chandrasekhar informs Rajya Sabha

Amid disruptions in parliament proceedings by the opposition over its allegations of surveillance using Pegasus spyware, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) told Rajya Sabha on Thursday that it does not issue decryption orders under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring, and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a written reply that the ministry does not issue decryption orders and as such no database is maintained.

“Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology does not issue decryption orders/directions under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009. Accordingly, no database is maintained by MeitY,” he said.

RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha had asked if the Ministry keeps a database of decryption orders/directions given each year under Rule 5 of the IT Rules, 2009 for decryption of information involving a computer resource and its details in the last two years.

The Union Home Ministry had said in a release on December 21, 2018 that a Statutory order (SO) issued a day earlier had been released in accordance with rules framed in 2009 and no new powers have been conferred to any of the security or law enforcement agencies.

It said that Rule 4 of the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules 2009 provides that ‘the competent authority may authorise an agency of the government to intercept, monitor or decrypt information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource for the purpose specified in sub-section (1) of Section 69 of the Act’.

“The statutory order of December 12, 2018 has been issued in accordance with rules framed in year 2009 and in vogue since then. No new powers have been conferred to any of the security or law enforcement agencies by the S.O,” the release said.