On March 8, the government approved a Bulk Data Sharing policy, enabling it to monetise a database of vehicle registration certificates, citing benefits to the “transport and automobile industry”, even as the issue of privacy and data protection looms large over such sharing.
The policy was cleared along with several other decisions as the government sought to finish a lot of business before the parliamentary elections were announced.
The ministry of road transport and highways collects and holds data as part of issuance of vehicle registration certificates (RC) and driver licenses (DL). According to the ministry, at present, the data is shared with specified law enforcement agencies and in addition, data is also shared with automobile industries, banks, finance companies etc., at specified rates for each data set.
According to the policy cleared, organisations requesting the data should be registered in India and be majority (at least 50%) owned by an Indian resident or company. HT has reviewed a copy of the policy.
