BackIndia wakes up to risk of Hotmail, Gmail
The $11 mn Indian project aims to bring some 5 mn public employees onto the govt's email domain powered by the NIC as early as mid-December
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New Delhi: Worried by US spying revelations, India has begun drawing up a new email policy to help secure government communications, but the man responsible for drafting the rules still regularly uses Hotmail.
Like many of his peers in ministries across New Delhi, IT minister Kapil Sibal’s office recently sent an email inviting journalists to the launch of his new personal website using the free email service.
Others, including senior foreign ministry officials, the information and broadcasting minister and the health ministry secretary, also use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo instead of their government accounts.
When asked why he continued to use his Hotmail for official use, Sibal declined to comment, but a senior bureaucrat in his ministry admitted that he personally preferred Gmail because it is “just a lot easier".
“We keep moving, get different designations, go different places and with that, our emails change. You lose contacts and important emails, which you don’t need to worry about with a Gmail account," the bureaucrat told AFP.
“To be honest, the quality of our official mail isn’t that great yet. It still needs some work," he added on condition of anonymity.
Security concerns
IT security expert Sunil Abraham said the use of Gmail and the like was highly risky since the American services had their servers in the US and the National Security Agency has been known to tap into their database systems.
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