28 At this juncture, it is clarified that the above requests do not correspondent to requests under Section 69 alone, but it represents the entire number of requests received from the governmental agencies under various legal provisions. 30. Furthermore, the Petitioner No. 1 through its Executive Director has sought a wide array of information relating to authorizations issued under Section 69 of the IT Act on 28.12.2018. Replies from Respondent No. 2 are awaited, and will shed further light on the state of surveillance. True Copy of the RTI Applications dated 28.12.2018 filed by the Petitioner No. 1 is annexed herewith as ANNEXURE P-11 (Page Nos. 130 to 141). D. Latest Developments 31. The ‘Report by the Group of Experts’ constituted by the Planning Commission of India under the Chairmanship of Retd. Justice A.P. Shah [hereinafter “Justice A.P. Shah Report”] examined the widespread directions for surveillance issued under the Telegraph Act and IT Act. To this end, the Report of Group of Experts dated 16.10.2012 has identified key lacunae in the existing procedure and rules to prevent harms to individual’s right to privacy. The Report stated: “6.4. … The regime does not require judicial oversight or authorization, it is unclear which agencies are legally authorized to undertake interception/access, systematic access or proactive disclosure of communications and classes of data is not prohibited, agencies are not required to be transparent to the public regarding the effectiveness and cost of each intercept, interception/access is permitted for even minor offenses, there is no requirement for standardization of orders, there are no additional safeguards for when interceptions/access invade individual’s privacy beyond the

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