'Submarine cables' (also undersea cables or 'subsea cables') are critical components of the global internet infrastructure which is vital for communication system connecting different regions of the world and the global economy.
As of early 2024, there are 574 active and planned commercial undersea cables owned and operated by individual private companies as well as consortia of companies covering over 1.4 million kilometers connecting every country in the world. These undersea cables link Asia, Europe, and Latin American countries with North America.
India's strategic location makes it as a focal point and an absolute hub for undersea cables connecting countries across Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia. Undersea cables are therefore critical for India and protecting them from intentional and unintentional human attacks is strategically important.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) report say that more than 99 per cent of the world's internet traffic including financial transactions is transmitted through submarine cables. The International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) legal advisor evaluates that disruptions of these cables have a financial impact excess of $1.5 million per hour.
India’s banks use Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system for international financial transfers and banking operations. This SWIFT system relies on submarine cables to transmit more than 15 million messages a day, valuing $10 trillion of financial transfers to 208 countries including India. As India's financial security is dependent on submarine cable communications systems, destruction of submarine cables can cripple the Indian financial market. In 2008, the severance of several submarine cables off the coast of Egypt and Dubai caused intense economic consequences for India. India lost more than 80 per cent of its international service and 60 million users for over two weeks.
Despite their vital importance to international communications and the transaction of money worldwide, undersea cables are susceptible to both accidental damage and intentional sabotage. While undersea cable damage has seen limited impact on in India so far, the recent Red Sea - March 2024 - incidents have exposed vulnerabilities in India's policies towards this critical infrastructure.
Three submarine cables connecting India to global telecom networks- Asia-Africa-Europe-1, Europe India Gateway, and Tata Global Network have been damaged due to targeted attacks forcing major Indian Telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Tata Communications to reroute traffic to other cable systems.
Although the non-state actors have been involved in intentional and targeted damage to undersea cables, the most often the unintentional cable damage is caused by commercial fishing and shipping activities. There are about 150-200 accidental damages every year, mostly by fishing equipment or anchors.
Also, offshore activities, seabed mining and natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes cause damage to submarine cables. For instance, on December 26, 2006 a powerful earthquake off Southern Taiwan cut nine cables and took 11 repair ships 49 days to repair. The earthquake affected internet connections, financial markets, banking, and other communications in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and also India.
Submarine cables are covered both by international law and Indian national laws with significant gaps. Although Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables, 1884 and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982 (UNCLOS) are dealing with the protection of submarine cables, these conventions are not defining of submarine cables.
However, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGC) Resolution 58/199 (2002), the UNGC Resolution 66/231(2011) and Experts meeting of the UNODC (2019) have recognised the importance of these cables as critical information infrastructure and emphasises the need for states to adopt national laws and regulations to protect submarine cables. Also, legal experts look at the Rule 54 of Tallinn Manual which extends international law protections that apply to submarine cables.
The Indian legislation deal with submarine cables is the Indian Telegraph Act 1885. However, this act, does not comprehensively define submarine cables. The Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 should be amended for a comprehensive definition of undersea cable system. Schedule 3A of Australian Telecommunications Act 1997and Section 12 and Section 13 of the Submarine Cables and Pipelines Protection Act, 1996 of New Zealand provide the legal regime for the protection of international submarine cables landing in Australia and New Zealand.
Indian legal experts opine that Australia's legislation provides an outline for creating 'cable protection zones' under India's domestic legislation which is consistent with UNCLOS, in which certain activities like fishing operations and anchoring of a ship are restricted with respect to identified submarine cables.
There are 15 submarine cables landing in 15 cable landing stations across India, in Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, Tuticorin and Trivandrum. These cable landing stations, where the cable surfaces and connects to land based infrastructure can be target for sabotage attacks, or even missile attacks in the case of a war.
Due to the difficulty of repair process and the lack of repair capacity, an attack against submarine cables could have a major impact on India. Therefore, submarine cables landing in India should be included within India's Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) under the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act).
Article 70 of IT Act articulates protection of any "computer resource" that directly or indirectly affects the facility of CII, a "protected system". Legal experts believe that submarine cables could fall under this definition. The Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) of India in June 2023 made recommendations to the government to establish norms to bring submarine cables under the scope of National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC). This will afford better protection and allow the possibility of extra-territorial application of Indian law. The 'Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience' (2023) also offers an opportunity for India to associate in proposals to protect critical undersea infrastructure.
As one of the world's fastest growing economies, Indian financial markets rely a lot on internet access via submarine cables. Moreover, submarine cables are vital to India's national security and defence communication infrastructure to endow with secure channels for military and intelligence agencies.
As well, in future, these cables are crucial for new generation networks, developments in artificial intelligence, cloud-based services, and to embrace growing internet of things. Indeed, submarine cables have become the backbone of the India's economic, political and military functioning. Therefore, to face any possible vulnerability to these cables, India should ensure that submarine cable landing stations and the subsea cable network management systems are protected from any security threats. For such protection mechanism India can verify and consider the European Union Agency for Cyber security (ENISA) report on Subsea Cables (2023).
