EC wants citizens' 'senstive data' off states' portals

Meanwhile, EC working on creating a national database of electoral rolls to create common standards

The Election Commission of India (EC) has instructed states such as Uttarakhand to get rid of citizen information such as photographs of voters from their portals, to prevent possible violation of citizen privacy.

The chief electoral officer’s (CEO) department in the state has complied.

In a two-part series published on Monday and Tuesday, this newspaper noted several states and central departments might be, unwittingly, following a bare-it-all approach in posting citizen data online, such as bank account details and income status, to push the government’s agenda on greater transparency and accountability. As the electoral roll is a public document, websites of places such as Delhi had an easy search feature without any security layer that could possibly lead to instances of profiling of a particular community, category or section of society. The stories are available at mybs.in/248eb (Your private data may be online, courtesy govt) and mybs.in/2efe4 (Saving privacy as we knew it).

Experts say criminals can combine public databases to create profiles of citizens, which could lead to invasion of privacy and financial fraud.

Along with other details such as voter identity number and address, some states had also posted pictures of voters.

Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla had earlier told Business Standard states were not allowed to put photographs of voters online, to ensure their privacy was safeguarded. “These will be removed if such cases are found.” On the report’s publication, he said instructions had been given to the CEO of Uttarakhand.

The Chief Election Office of Uttarakhand in a written reply told Business Standard that it will "get an enquiry done" on the matter.

Meanwhile, the EC is working towards creating a national database of the voter lists of all states, with the objective of creating common standards. Though the state data will be in the state servers, it will seamlessly interact with other databases over the cloud, Shukla said. He added this’d enable voters to access various services over a centralised portal. More, it will prompt all states to follow a common protocol while handling electoral rolls in the digital format.

“EC will benefit by way of better management of rolls, as we will be able to check for fakes and duplicates across states and also gain by putting in place some data analysis tools.” The proposal is waiting for  approval from the ministry of communications and information technology, he added.