December, 2019 - securitylinkindia

Report

INDIA RISK SURVEY 2019

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 2024036 mins

Indian policies continue to make foreign investments in India more attractive to make economic growth robust. Policy drive in the Centre is to make India a USD5 trillion economy by 2024. The policy also aims to continue making ease of doing business more attractive with competitive and fair business practices by further digitizing the economy, and improving infrastructure, logistics and networks to promote manufacturing activities. While the Government of India and other agencies are in attempt to make operations smooth and glitches-free, the key challenges for these agencies would be to manage existing risks, identify emerging threats, and design a framework to have an action plan in place when continuity becomes a casualty. This study aims to allow businesses to develop a 360-degree risk management strategy to assist companies in preparing against any contingency, that will help companies mitigate disruption and hedge against any concerns pre-emptively. This survey uses Pinkerton Risk Wheel framework to understand and assess each risk individually and also to look at them for a holistic analyses. There are four risk categories in the Pinkerton Risk Wheel – based on the nature of threats. Some of these risks listed under each category are interconnected to each quadrant. The four quadrants in the risk wheel are – Hazard & Event Risk (natural hazards, crime, terrorism & insurgency, and fire), Operational and Physical Risk (strikes, closures & unrest, threats to women safety and accidents), Market and Economic Risk (corruption, bribery & corporate fraud, and political and governance instability), and Technology and Information Risk (business espionage, information and cyber insecurity, and intellectual property theft). INDIA RISKS India Risk Survey 2019 identifies the most significant threat types within each risk for mitigation and holistic management. The threats highlighted in this study are interconnected and overlap across domains, sectors and geographies. Corruption, Bribery & Corporate Fraud Corruption, Bribery & Fraud climbs up in the risk chart to the top position in the India Risk Survey 2019. It includes bribery/ kickback, conflict of interest, shell companies, business identity theft, and others. Among these, bribery/ kickback has emerged as the biggest threat. A series of high-profile fraud cases have been reported affecting the banking sector in the past two years. While the Government has initiated a series of crackdowns on corrupt officials and shell companies and made regulatory changes, India has not significantly improved its position in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index in the past three years. Natural Hazards Natural Hazards remains at the second most significant risk to business operations for two successive years. In 2019, floods continued to disrupt business operations and hence remained a potent threat under this risk category. Persistent improvement in early warning systems and preparation to deal with natural hazards would be required. During natural calamities, business operations also get affected due to inadequate infrastructure and maintenance by concerned bodies. “Businesses operate in a complex environment wherein the nature of risks is ever changing. India’s business environment is also transitioning through regulatory changes, adoption of new business practices, and evolution of technologies at a rapid pace. All these changes are aimed at making India an attractive business ecosystem and investment destination. This also calls for quick action and collaboration between both public as well as private sector to help protect businesses against the identified risks. India Risk Survey attempts to assess business threats and aims to serve as a useful guide for policy makers and business leaders to mitigate these identified risks. Pinkerton adopts a comprehensive risk management approach, relying on data and new tools like Artificial Intelligence and so, to anticipate risks and gauge their impacts before recommending mitigation measures. The purpose of the report is to engage with all stakeholders including policy makers and business leaders to connect and collaborate in anticipating risks and mitigating them in a timely manner” -Rohit Karnatak Managing Director – India APAC & EMEA – Global Screening, Pinkerton Crime Crime risk category moves up in rankings to the third most eminent risk. Offences against public tranquility have emerged as the topmost threat to the private and public sectors under this risk category. White collar crime also poses a direct threat to companies’ finances and brand reputation. Political & Governance Instability Political & Governance Instability ranks fourth in the India Risk Survey 2019. The survey finds that policy changes are perceived as a threat under this risk category. Following the general elections in 2019, the Government at the centre with a strong mandate, is expected to continue with market reforms, and changes in regulations is on the cards. Businesses can expect reforms and change in rules in the near to medium term, which could impact the business ecosystem and particular sectors of the economy. “During 2019, India’s macroeconomic risks moved into sharper focus. Financial market volatility increased and the headwinds facing Indian economy intensified. Though the growth of Indian economy moderated in 2018-19 with a growth of 6.8 % – slightly lower than 7.2 % in 2017-18, yet India continued to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world. To achieve the objective of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25, as laid down by the Prime Minister, India needs to sustain a real GDP growth rate of 8%. At the same time, Indian businesses are facing a growing number of complex and interconnected challenges – from slowing growth and persistent economic inequality to non-financial risks such as climate change, geopolitical tensions and the accelerating pace of the fourth industrial revolution. This report aims to measure and quantify the different risks that businesses face when conducting operations in India. It is not just producing a risk ranking, but more interestingly, analyzing the changing perception of industry with shift in macro and micro economic factors and government policies” – Rahul Chaudhry Chair- FICCI Committee on Homeland Security Terrorism and Insurgency Risks emanating from Terrorism and Insurgency show a significant drop to the fifth position in the Indian Risk Survey 2019. This highlights a reduction in terror and Left…

Case Study

SAS adds Automated Machine Learning to Make AI-Powered Decisions Even Easier

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202408 mins

SAS enhanced its easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to help organizations improve efficiency and quickly realize value with automation. The updated SAS® Platform delivers new functionality including automated data management, automated machine learning and cutting-edge interpretability features, underscoring SAS’ commitment to making AI more transparent and accessible for all. Available in the fourth quarter of 2019, the newest release of SAS® Viya® on the SAS Platform offers the latest AI and advanced analytics techniques, accessible to both data scientists and business users. The enhancements provide an intelligent process to automate many of the manual and complex steps required for data transformations and to build machine learning models. SAS automates the analytics life cycle – from data wrangling to feature engineering and algorithm selection – in a single click. To further democratize AI solutions, the automated modeling process uses a REST API. This helps developers customize business applications while using SAS analytics. Additionally, users can easily embed open source code and augment their analysis with SAS, providing a truly open experience. Machine learning is also used to recommend data transformations to reduce data preparation time. UK Insurance provider Admiral fights fraud with AI Fraudulent claims and applications are a major problem for the UK insurance industry, with both insurers and genuine customers paying the price through increased premiums. According to Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud-prevention service, false insurance claims rose by 27% in 2018 from the previous year, with auto/ motor seeing a 45% increase. Admiral, a UK-based insurance company, has developed fraud portals that eliminate the need for manual referrals, saving significant time and resources while detecting more fraud than ever before. Fraud investigators and analysts now work from a single centralized hub, sharing data across the organization and applying sophisticated analytics to detect and prevent fraud. This approach has delivered more than £31 million of benefit in the last 12 months alone, including £6 million in savings for claims fraud. “We used an insurance fraud analytical engine from SAS to apply multiple techniques – including automated business rules, machine learning, artificial intelligence, text mining, database searches, anomaly detection and network-link analysis – to automatically score claims, associated entities and any corresponding social networks,” explained Sarah Lang, Head of Business Analytics at Admiral, “This process has allowed us to build a strong relationship between analytics and claims fraud. A continuous feedback loop ensures we continue to update the process, identifying fraud in more cases in a faster way, whilst improving our customers’ experience.” Industry disruption powered by AI I talian startup Yolo is disrupting the insurance industry with help from SAS AI solutions. The company’s digital insurance platform provides on-demand access to policies for travel, products, health and pets. Fueled by SAS machine learning, Yolo’s Platform can customize a temporary insurance policy offer to a customer without lag time. “As a digitally native company, our customer’s experience is paramount,” said Gianluca De Cobelli, Co-founder and CEO of Yolo Group, “With SAS, our Platform is able to process a customer’s request to insure their vacation or their smartphone using all available data in real time, allowing our financial institution and corporate partners to provide their clients with a customized and dynamic mobile experience.” A continued partnership with IBM For the first time, the November release of SAS Viya will run on the IBM POWER9 chip architecture. This will support all SAS Viya functionalities including GPU acceleration for machine learning, deep learning, and AI training and inferencing. In addition, this expands the flexibility to run SAS workloads in any cloud platform. “SAS and IBM have collaborated for more than 40 years. We’ve solved some of the most complex algorithmic challenges together. IBM Power Systems offer value to mutual customers whose business challenges demand not only SAS analytics, but also high data throughput,” said Ken Gahagan, Senior Director of Compute Services for Research & Development at SAS. The future in AI: Growth and opportunity “ SAS continues to innovate in AI, building on the $1 billion investment in AI we announced earlier this year,” said Saurabh Gupta, Director of Advanced Analytics & Artificial Intelligence at SAS, “SAS delivers AI that helps users manage, understand and analyze the data they have and make better, faster decisions with it. The latest enhancements to our AI offerings focus on automating the many manual and complex steps required to build machine learning models.” The investment will focus on current and future R&D and expert services to build on successful AI efforts like that of Admiral and Yolo over three years. It will also include SAS education initiatives that address customer and partner needs to better understand and benefit from AI. In 2018, SAS experienced 105% growth in AI revenue – a rate three times faster than the overall market – according to a recent IDC report on AI software platform market share.

Case Study

RCBC Bankard, Inspiro and Verint

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202405 mins

Verint® Systems Inc., the Customer Engagement Company™, in partnership with Inspiro Relia, Inc. (Inspiro), have optimised the quality of RCBC Bankard’s call centre operations with the implementation of Verint’s innovative voice biometrics solution, part of its identity authentication and fraud detection (IAFD) offering. The combination gives the organization high-level expertise and automated technology to help reduce costs and improve the overall customer experience. RCBC Bankard Services Corporation, the credit card arm of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), one of the largest universal banks in Philippines, collaborated with Verint on a landmark upgrade of their voice recording and biometrics systems. Verint voice biometrics recognises the unique vocal characteristics of enrolled customers seconds into a live call, helping to reduce the number of security questions and average handle times. This faster authentication can reduce contact centre costs, help eliminate the need for security questions, and can provide an overall improved customer experience. “The implementation of voice biometrics improves our workflow and increases the security behind every single call. This is at a time when credit card fraud has become more prevalent,” said Simon Calasanz, RCBC Bankard President and CEO who believes that the rollout of the solution was well timed, “Our service delivery is of utmost importance to our customers, and we are pleased to say that the upgrade to the system was executed to the highest degree. The Verint and Inspiro teams were well orchestrated and operations continued smoothly behind the scenes. Following the deployment, we expect a decrease in the number of security questions, and we will have the ability to provide assistance more quickly, with a reduction in average handle time.” Commenting on the successful partnership and project outcomes, Manish Shah, Vice President of Verint’s Southeast Asia operations said, “Understanding the RCBC Bankard’s needs and a strong collaborative partnership with Inspiro were key to a seamless transformation of RCBC Bankard’s back office operations. RCBC Bankard wanted to push the envelope with new modernised and automated technology that would help them deliver higher quality customer service. Our local support capability and our voice biometrics technology was the winning combination that led to the successful execution and delivery of this project.” “Advanced voice biometrics is a positive disruption for our industry, and we are seeing greater adoption across the financial services industry,” Mr. Shah added, “We look forward to working closely with our local partners to ensure they’re providing the best customer service experience possible with best-fit solutions.” Mark Mistal, Inspiro’s Chief Information Officer added, “Verint’s capabilities within the contact centre space are well-established, and their best-in-class voice biometrics system delivers tangible enhancements to every single call and in real time.” Inspiro supports the customer engagement requirements of leading brands in the Philippines. Mistal continued, “As the customer service quality in the call centres gets a new boost through technological advances, we see great value in our continued partnership with Verint.”

Case Study

Ministry of Movement and NEC to Collaborate on Future of Urban Mobility

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202404 mins

Ministry of Movement Pte. Ltd. (SWAT), a startup providing on-demand bus services in Singapore, Australia and Vietnam, and NEC Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (NEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, recently announced a partnership that will pool together their respective expertise and technologies to transform urban mobility and address social challenges posed by city developments. As part of this partnership, the companies jointly launched ‘Ally,’ an app offering AI-based personalized road planning functions coupled with an on-demand bus booking service. The app was available during the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress recently taken place at Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre. During a four-day trial, congress delegates and members of the public who downloaded and created their profiles on the Ally app were able to experience on-demand bus rides for free within a geofenced area extending from Dhoby Ghaut to the Marina Bay Sands area and parts of the central business district. Combining SWAT’s dynamic bus routing algorithm with NEC’s personalization engine supported by machine learning technologies, Ally made recommendations on potential places of interest including malls, retail shops, restaurants and other attractions based on data points such as the user’s interest(s), profile, location and time. Once the user selects their destination, the app generates an optimized route in real-time and automatically assigns a bus servicing the area to the rider. In addition to cost savings, Ally allowed users, particularly visitors from overseas, the ability to explore lesser-known areas more efficiently and encourage the use of more environmentally-friendly modes of transportation. Jarrold Ong, CEO and Co-founder, Ministry of Movement said, “With our advanced routing technology, we are always on the lookout for ways we can transform the mobility and transport space. We see relevance in being able to book a ride and discovering local attractions on the same platform, and NEC’s expertise in AI and their local market insights were key to this partnership.” “NEC has been actively working with startups to explore innovative solutions to transform markets and create new social value,” said Lim Kok Quee, Managing Director, NEC Asia Pacific, “We see great potential in this partnership with SWAT. Intelligent on-demand bus services can play a key role in building a more sustainable urban transportation system by optimizing the number of vehicles on the road to reduce the environmental impact and ease traffic congestion. We will continue to explore ways to harness technology and improve the society we live, play and work in.”

Case Study

Dallas Police Integrate Avigilon Video Cameras & CommandCentral Aware Software to Inform Officer Responses and Increase Efficiency

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202405 mins

The Dallas Police Department, Safer Dallas and Motorola Solutions recently launched a six-month pilot program, the Starlight Program, that will facilitate collaboration between the police department and local businesses. Participating businesses will be outfitted with Avigilon cameras, blue lights and program signage, and will be actively monitored by, and connected directly to, the Dallas Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) using Motorola Solution’s CommandCentral Aware software. By connecting these cameras to the RTCC, officers will gain additional insights when responding to events, be able to resolve incidents faster and return officers to the street in a timely manner. The Starlight program is open to businesses throughout the city. The pilot program will launch at three locations that have experienced a high volume of calls for police services: 7-Eleven at 2911 East Ledbetter Road in District 4. Dallas Police Integrate Avigilon Video Cameras & CommandCentral Aware Software to Inform Officer Responses and Increase Efficiency The Dallas Police Department, Safer Dallas and Motorola Solutions launch Pilot Program to increase community and officer safety 7-Eleven at 2503 Lemmon Avenue in District 14. Ferguson Food Mart and Texaco Gas Station at 11770 Ferguson Road in District 9. “This is an exciting time for the Dallas Police Department and our partners, Safer Dallas and Motorola Solutions,” said Reneé Hall, Chief of Police for the Dallas Police Department, “The technology fosters faster decision-making with real-time situational awareness. The ultimate goal is to protect the public while making first responders more effective by providing much-needed information before they even arrive on the scene.” “We have seen great success in a variety of communities in using technology, like our integrated software and video security solutions, to create a tighter connection between public and private entities and further our shared mission of improving public safety,” said Neil Thomas, Vice President of Motorola Solutions’ Sales and Services Organization, “We’re proud to launch this new pilot program with the Dallas Police and Safer Dallas to help connect the Dallas community to public safety.” The pilot program was launched on Oct. 28 and is expected to run for six months. After the initial pilot phase, the three organizations will evaluate the impact of the program and explore further expansion. The mission of Safer Dallas Better Dallas is to protect the citizens of Dallas from becoming victims of crime and engage them in a partnership with the Dallas Police, to support the efforts of Dallas police officers and to make Dallas America’s safest big city. Safer Dallas Better Dallas works to accomplish its goals by raising money from Dallas foundations, businesses and citizens to purchase equipment for Dallas police officers, help fund the department’s priorities, and by helping educate elected leaders on changes that will help reduce the crime rate in Dallas.

National

Any Body Can Tech (ABCT) Program on Cyber Security & Cloud Computing

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202404 mins

Unlike in the past when technology was a support to the business, today it lies at the heart. In fact in many cases it is the technology which is driving the business. This trend is going to get even more accentuated in the times to come. Lack of tech awareness or the inability to use it effectively, it’s functionally could be career limiting in the times to come. On the other hand, there are no barriers to learning in today’s world – it is just a few clicks away. Technology is easy if taught correctly by the right trainers. One does not need to have a degree to learn it; inquisitive mind and the desire to learn are all that is needed. With the above background Forces Network decided to prove the concept in practice and launched ABCT (Any Body Can Tech) Program. It is a 3 week program – online and offline – to train participants in attaining a functional understanding of two tech areas – Cyber Security and Cloud Computing. There is no prerequisite for the participants – they could be from any stream (BA, B.Com, B.Sc. etc.) and of any age. The program ran from 01 November 2019 in offline mode and finally concluded with a day-long face-to face workshop at New Delhi on 17th of the month. The pedagogy included weekly webinars, assignments, quiz tests, and hands on lab sessions in the workshop. The trainers were practising industry professionals. The participants profile had pretty varied age groups ranging 14-60 years. The batch size was deliberately kept small so that individual attention could be paid. Approximately 70 percent of the students had a complete non-tech background. However, the curriculum was very carefully designed starting from scratch. The learning curve was kept at a gentle gradient but with consistent daily learning. At the workshop the participants were given live handson sessions, as well as industry related case studies were shared. The participants went from no knowledge of even how a computer works to learning about operating systems, data center, virtualization to being able to create virtual machines on Azure cloud, logging in to them remotely, and installing a web server in them – all in less than 3 weeks. Similarly in cyber security the participants were taken through topics like Cryptography and Encryption Technologies, Security Architecture, Ethical Hacking, and Application Security to practical cyber security exercises. The feedbacks from the participants are extremely positive and encouraging. They said to have learnt a lot, learnt it well, learnt it fast, they are now asking for more. So Forces Network has de facto proven the ABCT concept practically, and they look forward to conducting more ABCT workshops across the country.

National

Patriarchy in Security Business – A Bias

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202407 mins

Diversity is the qualifying criteria for the OSAC Delhi Chapter (DC) Country Council Achievements Awards nomination The general perception is the business of ‘Security’ is a masculine, male dominated and managed domain of human expertise. The social fabric subtly insinuates that security falls under the purview of male responsibility, ability and capability. The bias is thicker in developing countries like India, resulting largely in exclusion of women partnership in this field. Diversity challenges on hand The security functions are and have been challenged by the absence of female security professionals, and cross functional groups such as Business Continuity and Risk Management (BCRM), Travel Security Management, Environment Health and Safety (EHS), thus limiting the 360 degree function security approach. This lack of engagement of the female security professionals and public-private partnership has led to substantive deficit in the cross pollination of knowledge and sharing the best practices. OSAC Justifies The Delhi Chapter of the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), US Embassy runs an ‘out-reach program’ for diversity and inclusivity in security domain. It leverages a three-pronged approach to address this challenge. 1. Student engagement initiative OSAC DC initiated an innovative approach for the first time by engaging with Post Graduate students of all the women’s colleges of ‘Vedica Group.’ The initiative aims at helping them understand the various spheres of security functions and to look at it as one of the ‘first career’ options. The overall intention of inviting these young career professionals to Delhi OSAC meeting was the tipping point, and now they have been regular attendees. OSAC’s All-India General Meeting (AGM) in December 2018 had presence of 32 Vedica students out of the total 330 participants. 2. Multi-functional diversity & inclusion approach OSAC believes in the concept of inclusion of professionals in security – especially for the female, others cross-functional units’ members, and all of those who work closely to deliver robust security plans on a day to day basis. This effort is being supported and propagated by a conscious awareness and engagement drive leveraging their strengths. As a strategic step forward, Delhi Chapter has a track record of having a female council secretary right from 2015. In addition, the mentoring program by the senior industry chief security officers (CSOs) has been encouraging female security professionals to opt for core operational physical security roles. 3. Equal opportunity OSAC focuses on enhanced industry engagements in a positive step-up towards public-private partnership. This has been led by way of female OSAC members being invited as speakers/ moderators at large and reputed security industry events/ conferences to share their best practices and technical expertise. Demonstrated result For the first time, Vedica Group of institutions encouraged their students of the batch graduating in 2018 to look at roles within the security domain as part of their campus placements. Vedica students who were already inspired by attending the OSAC meetings opted for security industry for their internships – four (04) of them have already been offered career opportunities by those agencies. Thus, OSAC DC has clearly helped move the security function from the ‘last to the first’ choice for the next generation female professionals. Stepped up membership of female professionals in DC from 05 in 2015 to 50+ in 2018 – an increase of 900% in line with the growing female footprint in the corporate industry. Positive cross functional engagement of professionals from CSR, BCRM and Travel domains helped make security deliver on a 360-degree approach. Delhi Chapter members are being a regular feature in the landscape of all major security events from Security Today summit to IFSEC. The UBM International group has recognized DC members as the trusted jury partner for their annual awards – where out of 04 members, 03 OSAC women professionals are on the panel – recognizing the female talent in the security industry. The enhanced public-private partnerships initiative’s crowning glory was the invitation by UBM to jury members to attend the IFSEC conference as special invitee delegates at Seoul in 2019. Summary Diversity augments holistic growth of a function, and also the ability to deliver its true potential. The Delhi Chapter of OSAC has spearheaded a revolution by pioneering the change management in engaging the new millennial female leaders to lead the security functionalities for 21st century as their brand ambassadors. The enhanced diversity engagement of the female security professional and public-private partnership by OSAC DC have fostered a robust security landscape with enhanced collaboration and sharing of the best practices – thereby accomplishing the overall goals of OSAC.

Latest

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CYBERLAW, CYBERCRIME & CYBERSECURITY 2019

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 14, 2019November 14, 202408 mins

New Delhi saw a glittering ceremony to mark the inauguration of the world’s famous International Conference on Cyberlaw, Cybercrime & Cybersecurity – the only authoritative conference in the world which looks at the intersection of cyberlaw, cybercrime & cybersecurity. Justice Gita Mittal, Chief Justice, Jammu & Kashmir High Court inaugurated the event. In her inaugural address, Justice Mittal highlighted the significance of internet for societies, and its massive misuse that is emerging across the world. She particularly underlined how internet is being used to target the sovereignty of countries which is emerging as a big trend, which needs to be appropriately addressed. She focused on the tremendous increase in cyber terror and cybercrime cases and advocated the need for judiciary to adopt more proactive approach towards cyberspace related issues and challenges. Referring to the main theme of the conference being ‘Tackling Today’s Emerging Regulatory Frontiers – Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things & Blockchain,’ she stated that there is a new judicial mindset to deal with newly emerging technologies like artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things; however, the Indian judiciary can lead the way. She complimented the work done by the International Conference on Cyberlaw, Cybercrime & Cybersecurity and its Director Dr. Pavan Duggal who is a pioneer in the area of cyberlaw, cybersecurity law and artificial intelligence law, and who is a foremost global authority on cyberspace legal issues. The inaugural session was further addressed by Alfredo M. Ronchi, General Secretary of the European Commission – MEDICI Framework; Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant (Retd.), National Cyber Security Coordinator, Government of India; and many other persona of eminence. The three day conference was held during 20-22 November 2019 at Scope Convention Centre, Scope Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. It had 4 different tracks and 55 different sessions covering vast variety and gamut of critically important issues concerning cyberspace. It represents India’s thought leadership on cyberspace issues and is contributing to the evolving jurisprudence on cyberlaw, cybercrime & cybersecurity. In the first session, Dr. Pavan Duggal spoke about the evolving legal landscape towards cyberlaw across the world, and highlighted the distinctive new trends in cyberlaw jurisprudence and how there is a need for addressing the same. He specifically addressed the need for expeditious evolution of norms of behavior in cyberspace. He explained how distinctive national approaches on cyber security can become a predominant approach for regulating security and why there is a distinctive need for international common denominators to deal with cyber security regulation at global level. He cited various legal challenges that emerging technology like artificial intelligence has brought forward to the world at large. The conference had different sessions on cyber security, cybercrime, regulating artificial intelligence, freedom of online speech, digital identity and 5G on the first day. The subject ‘freedom of speech online’ attracted conspicuous attention since most of the stakeholders are concerned about their freedom of speech and expression, and they don’t want it be unduly regulated to stifle the enjoyment of their civil and other digital liberties. The remarkable capacity of the conference was its unique multi-stakeholder approach where attendees saw different stakeholders from different verticals coming in – deliberating, discussing and analyzing not just the present trends but also the future that are going to emerge on the horizon, and how appropriate proactive approaches need to be adopted in that regard. The conference was attended by representatives from various countries including Gambia, South Africa, Italy, United States of America, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany and Nepal. The second day highlighted the emerging trends of cyber sovereignty and data localization and why there is a need for nations to come up with approaches to protect their own data. The conference specifically talked about darknet, protection of sensitive personal data, fighting to preserve privacy online, the issue of fake news, and topic of social media abuse, and also about the potential approaches that can be adopted to prevent such misuse in India. The forum also discussed norms of behavior in cyberspace, General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), Quantum Computing, protecting children and women in cyberspace, attribution, self-regulation, international cooperation in cyberspace matters and cyber citizenship. The valedictory session of the conference was chaired and addressed by Justice Anup Bhambani, Judge, Delhi High Court. He highlighted the significance of the like conferences and the need for coming up with proactive approaches so that the judiciary can appropriately address nuances pertaining to cyber disputes. The session was also addressed by Dr. Gulshan Rai, Former National Cyber Security Coordinator, Government of India. The conference came up with an ‘outcome document’ with various recommendations on various sessions of the conference. The conclusion of the conference marked yet another important chapter in the direction of India contributing to its thought leadership to cyberspace issues. Till the next conference comes in November, 2020, the deliberations of the conference and its outcome document would inform the discussions and deliberations of various stakeholders at international, regional and national levels on various cyberspace issues.

Interview: Ashish P. Dhakan

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 13, 2019November 14, 2024023 mins

ASHISH P. DHAKAN (MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd.) Ashish P Dhakan does not need introduction. An Engineer and MBA by qualification, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Prama Hikvision India Private Limited had a very humble start in security industry in 2005, and over just more than a decade, he steered the company to achieve the leadership position in the industry with his characteristic attributes including sincerity, focus, dedication, honest approach towards his business, and ground to earth personality. A first-generation entrepreneur Ashish has gone through various challenges; however, thanks to his cool, patient and skillful marketing strategies, he crossed over all of them and emerged successful. His vision about Indian security industry’s growth has led to the formation of Prama Hikvision India Pvt Limited, the very first joint venture company formed by Hikvision across the world. He led Prama Hikvision into a leading security business entity by successfully creating a pan India network of dealers, distributors and system integrators. Ashish believes In Make in India, Make for India, and Make by India concept and in the line he recently opened a world-class state-of-the-art manufacturing unit in Vasai, near Mumbai. He also has plans to expand manufacturing to other states of the country. Further, he devised setting up a state-of-the-art training center to enable product knowledge and training to system integrators, partners and end-users. With his thoughtfulness, he built diversified vertical solutions teams to cater Hikvision solutions to the Indian market. The vertical solutions offered by Prama Hikvision are customized as per the end-users requirements and specifications to adequately befit in the Indian environment. Today, Prama Hikvision offers solutions in various verticals including Smart City, Safe City, Transport, Education, Banking, Pharma and Retail segments. SecurityLink India has recently had a detailed interaction with him on the recent trend, prospective and his plans for future – here are the excerpts: SecurityLink India (SLI): Opening of Prama HikVision manufacturing unit in Mumbai is a great accomplishment – kindly comment on the achievement. Ashish P. Dhakan (APD): Yes of course – it is a great achievement. It gives us a sense of accomplishment also because we are celebrating 10 years of growth, innovation and technology leadership in the Indian security industry. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The decade long journey of Prama Hikvision India has had many milestones which were driven by the timeless wisdom that all great things start with a humble beginning. We are grateful to all – our partners, well-wishers, and key stakeholders. On 1 October 2019, we organized a grand ceremony to inaugurate the ‘Make in India’ manufacturing facility near Mumbai. It was a milestone moment for all of us. Prama Hikvision’s world-class manufacturing facility was inaugurated by Dr. V.K. Saraswat – Member, Niti Aayog, former Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Indian Minister of Defence; and Dr Neeraj Sinha – Adviser, Science & Technology, Niti Aayog. Today Prama Hikvision India is known as the leading security systems and solution provider in the country. The company has established an impeccable trust and reputation among security industry professionals in India. With a commitment to provide high quality products with excellent technical support, the company serves to a large network of dealers and system integrators, all across the country with its wide reach through 51+ branch offices, 21 return merchandise authorization (RMA) centers and 2000+ motivated employees. SLI: Kindly explain in brief the factory set up and the modus operandi of the unit. APD: Prama Hikvision’s ‘Make-In-India’ manufacturing plant is a living testimony of our firm commitment to the vision, mission, and a throbbing reality of an ongoing success story. It is one of the best and largest manufacturing facilities in security and electronics industry in India. The latest technologies, world class processes and state-of-the-art machineries are the key highlights of the manufacturing facility. With this brownfield manufacturing facility and big ticket investment, Prama Hikvision is continuing CCTV camera production to cater to the fast expanding domestic market in a phased manner. Employing over 2000 skilled and semi-skilled employees, this manufacturing facility is spread over 12 acres of land comprising end-to-end production capabilities. Currently, this facility produces 8 lac cameras and 1 lac back-end devices per month. It has the capability of manufacting 850 product models. The installed capacity of this manufacturing facility is 1.5 million cameras per month. This state-of-the-art manufacturing facility has multiple lines that do surface mount technology level manufacturing and enable us to make electronic chips and cameras locally instead of importing them. To upskill a significant part of the workers in this factory, we have developed in-house training programs comprising worldclass modules. Prama Hikvision’s manufacturing facility is an expression of our full commitment to the Government of India’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program. We remain committed as a long-term partner of the country and continue to pursue our vision of ‘Make in India for a Safer India’ with manifold commitments. We have so far invested INR500 crore in this plant, and there is a further investment commitment in the pipeline to ramp up the production, and research & development activities. SLI: How do you foresee its impact on your business per se, as well as on the offerings you are going to make to the Indian market? APD: The future of the security market in India is very bright due to enhanced security awareness and growing requirements. We are experiencing a good growth in the current financial year. The current state of the physical security market in India is very conducive to growth and expansion. Apart from the eight metro cities, India’s vast and largely untapped network of Tier-II and Tier-III cities are developing very fast due to various socio-economic factors. Having blessed with the capability of the said manufacturing plant to produce electronic chipsets and cameras locally in India, we are to bring the best of the offerings to the Indian market….

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Securing My Square Inch of Motherland’ Thumbs Up

MassMediaLink India LLP SecurityLink IndiaDecember 13, 2019November 14, 2024011 mins

The significance and relevance of the term and entity ‘Chowkidars,’ and their potential and contributions towards nation building were rightly highlighted by G Kishan Reddy – Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, GoI – at the recently held 14th Security Leadership Summit 2019 organized by the Central Association of Private Security Industry (CAPSI) and Association of Private Detectives and Investigators (APDI) during 15-16 November 2019 at PHD House, New Delhi. He credited the grand success of Bhartiya Janata Party in 2019 General Election of India to the campaign called by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi – ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’– which hit the sentiment of being safe and secure across masses. Further, he correlated it to what potential and values the private security industry carries and what influences they can make in the growth and development of the nation. He asked the stakeholders to consider instituting the ‘Prime Minister Best Chowkidar’ Award covering various facets of private security industry that will be a befitting tribute to the honest and hardworking security personnel who are playing an important role in India’s growth and progress. Later Mr. Reddy said that after agriculture, private security industry is a major employment generator and the government is taking all steps to ensure the growth and progress of this sector. Santosh Gangwar – Minister of State (Independent) for Ministry of Labour and Employment, GoI, expressed that the Centre is planning to introduce ‘one nation, one pay day’ system to safeguard the interests of the private sector workers, particularly labour class. “There should be a pan-India single wage day every month across various sectors to ensure that workers get timely payment. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen on this legislation to get passed soon. Similarly we are also looking at uniform minimum wages across sectors which will safeguard better livelihood of workers,” he said. He also indicated the intention of the government to implement occupational safety, health and working conditions (OSH) code, where code of wages makes an important part of it. The OSH Code will streamline the private sector by enhancing the coverage of workers manifold by merging 13 central labour laws relating to safety, health and working conditions into a single code. He said to have taken 44 complex labour laws to reform, and asked all the stakeholders to contribute to make these laws more effective and useful. On compliances, he said that they are preparing a ‘single page’ mechanism for various sectors to complete requisite compliances in order to ensure ease of doing business. An online system is being developed for grievance redressal which ensures that all problems are resolved within 48 hours without any physical interface. Gen. V K SINGH (Retd.) – Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, GoI, stressed upon the adoption of modern technologies by the private security agencies to expand scope of their operations. He suggested that the private security guards can help government agencies in carrying out their daily affairs like traffic management, pollution monitoring and crowd management with the aid of technologies like drones and CCTV solutions. While addressing the gathering at the Security Leadership Summit, the Transport Minister said, “Today, the government deficits in resources and manpower to meet the daily requirements of general public where the private security agencies can play a major role. However, they need to train their personnel in modern and upcoming technologies to gain trust of the government. The scope is immense towards traffic management, pollution monitoring, crowd management and cyber security etc. They have to reinvent themselves and prepare for the future challenges.” He also emphasized that there is a huge shortage of manpower in foreign markets like Europe and Gulf nations, and with innovations and skills enhancement at par with global standards, Indian private security agencies can tap this opportunity very easily. Industry needs to hire more technically qualified people to upscale skills and preparedness of personnel. Kunwar Vikram Singh, Chairman, CAPSI & APDI assured that the private security agencies are ready to help government in carrying out day to day work needed to make life easier and safer for the common man. The associations and the industry are aware of the growing need of the foreign markets which is of the size of about 1.5 crore private security personnel. They are exploring and working on the idea of tapping it. The Security Leadership Summit 2019 was inaugurated by Santosh Gangwar on 14 November 2019. In his welcome address the chairman thanked the Modi Government for timely amendments in the Private Security Agency Regulation (PSARA) Act and Rules that go in favour of industry, and helped the industry in streamlining its growth. “Under Prime Minister Modi, private security industry has seen implementation of various progressive policies and reforms in laws. Our sector is growing at almost 20%. Today the private security industry employs around 90 lakh personnel, making it one of the top employers. We hope to cross 2 crore workforce within next few years,” he added. The chairman also apprised the dais and gathering about the campaign of CAPSI, called – ‘Securing My Square Inch of Motherland,’ – which aims making every security stakeholder to have the attitude, diligence and alertness to all-round security of the piece of land he/ she is active right at the moment. This involves active police public and police RWA participations, and private security personnel can act as a bridge in between the police and public. The concept was hailed by the ministers, and all the participants in the event. G Kishan Reddy launched the audio-video of the campaign during the event. The conference saw various distinct sessions of discussions and debates by a number of eminent speakers and panelists on various topics such as PSARA Governance, moderated by Vivek Bharadwaj, Addional Secretary, MHA; Role of Youth in Civil Society, moderated by Ashok Prasad, Former Advisor, MHA; International Investigation; New Strategies and Innovation for Growth of Business in PSI; Star Rating for PSAs, Certified Insurance Investigators, Police Public Relations…