Research Collaboration with Internet Freedom Foundation

GNLU Centre for Law and Society (GCLS) collaborated with The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian digital liberties organization, ensuring that technology respects fundamental rights and that Indian citizens can use the Internet with liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. The organisation has undertaken numerous causes and is currently part of various socio-legal issues in the Supreme Court and various High Courts proceedings, including the infamous internet shutdowns in Kashmir restricting people's access to resources and free speech, IT Rules 2021, facial recognition tech, regulation for search and seizures of electronic evidence, amongst others.
GCLS and IFF will work together to work in the fields of litigation, research and policy drafting, specifically concerning issues such as privacy of digital devices during investigation procedures. Through this collaboration, we aim to engage with IFF constructively to bring about much-needed changes in the socio-legal aspects of the present society. In furtherance of the same, GCLS invited student researchers to research on the following projects:
a. Privacy of digital devices during search and seizures as part of any investigation
This is a subjudice matter in the Supreme Court of India, for which notice has been issued to the Union Govt. This research would entail the compilation of best practices/laws that foreign jurisdictions have on this issue and how foreign courts have dealt with the same. The research from this would supplement a PIL submitted to the Supreme Court of India. This project was a collaborative effort of Angelina Dash (Batch of 2018-23), Mohammad Zayaan Ravouf Asimi (Batch of 2019-24), Aaiysha Topiwala (Batch of 2020-25), Tanisha Nair (Batch of 2021-26), and Mohak Chaudhary (Batch of 2022-27).
b. Law on Encryption in India and abroad
The research would focus on the law of encryption in the digital world, how the new IT Rules have affected the same, and how it is dealt with in other international jurisdictions. This project was a collaborative effort of Sanjali Rupnawar (Batch of 2019-24), Raghav Saha (Batch of 2020-25), Manisha Soni (Batch of 2020-25), Soumyabrata Chakraborty (Batch of 2021-26), Durlabhya Singh (Batch of 2022- 27).