Intelligence Bureau (IB) has raised concerns against Bharti Airtel and Hughes Communications India Ltd for not providing specific users' location.
The IB (Ministry of Home Affairs) in a letter to Department of Telecom dated May 17 has written that “Despite providing with Internet protocol (IP) addresses, dates and exact stamps, some telecom service providers (Airtel and Hughes) have been unable to provide details of the actual user in case of communications over GPRS/ Internet.”
The letter seen by
IP addresses
It said a request was made to Airtel on May 7 and 9, with exact time stamp for resolving two IP addresses related to GPRS/ Internet activity concerning national security, but the company could not locate the actual users who accessed the Internet during given time.
“In their reply, they provided us with the data of the whole day which accumulated to 212 records,” it said.
However, when contacted Airtel, said, “We have not got anything on this from the DoT. Bharti Airtel is in complete compliance with all conditions and agreements as per the stated government policy. We share all necessary information with law enforcement agencies to support their analysis.”
Similarly, IB said a request was also made to Hughes on May 10, giving it one IP address, date and exact time stamp for providing the profile of the user. However, Hughes responded to IB saying, “This IP belongs to some of sites, with multiple sites behind this IP.”
The company in its response asked the IB to provide the IP address of the uniform resource locator (URL) visited by the IP and then only it may be able to pin-point the site from the proxy log.
Response from Hughes
When asked the company, the President, Mr Pranav Roach, told Business Line , “In this specific case, the IP address that was shared by the IB is used by multiple users and their query covered a large time band, both of which restricts our ability to provide further details or pinpoint a specific user.”
Therefore, the company responded to the authorities asking them to help them narrow down the search by providing more information such as providing the URL or IP address that was visited by the IP address in question.
He said that it has been three weeks since Hughes made this request and has not heard anything back from the concerned authorities.
“We will always cooperate and provide any information that may be required,” Mr Roach added.