Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) presented a policy proposal named “Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022” on February 21, 2022, which was endorsed by the Cabinet. The initiative intends to “fundamentally change India’s ability to exploit public sector data,” according to the government.
• Proposals contained in the Draft Data Accessibility Policy have come under scrutiny since they would allow the government to licence and sell publicly available data to the commercial sector, which would be a first in the world.

Why has the Draft Data Accessibility Policy been proposed?

• It is expected that the creation of citizen data would expand rapidly over the next decade, becoming the cornerstone of India’s $5 trillion-dollar digital economy in the long run. It is primarily commercial in nature, which is consistent with the rationale of the National Economic Survey, 2019, which at Chapter 4 noted the commercial benefits of government data exploitation, notably, “The private sector may be granted access to select databases for commercial use.,” and “The private sector may be granted access to select databases for commercial use.” As a result, it is only reasonable to tax the private sector for the use of this data, given that it has the potential to derive enormous benefits from it.” Its goal is to maximise the economic value of the data that has been created.
• There is also a lack of openness, as seen by the absence of a consultation document or the revelation of the list of stakeholders who have been consulted, which according to a public notification by MEITY includes “academics, industry, and the government.”

How does the Draft Data Accessibility Policy aim to achieve its goals?

• The policy will apply to any and all data and information generated, collected, and/or preserved by the Central Government, regardless of how it was obtained. As an added bonus, it would let state governments to implement its provisions. It would be operationalized through the establishment of an India Data Office (IDO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Information Technology (MEITY) for overall administration, with each government agency selecting a Chief Data Officer.
• In addition, an India Data Council would be established to serve as a consulting body for duties like as standardisation and finalisation of standards. It is not clear if the India Data Council would include representatives from industry, civic society, or technologists who are not affiliated with the government.
• To achieve this goal, the policy strategy is to make government data available by default and then keep a negative list of datasets that are not available to the public.
• The definition of more sensitive categories to which access should be limited is left to the discretion of autonomous government departments. In addition, current data sets will be enhanced or processed in order to increase their worth, and these data sets will be referred to as high-value datasets.
• A wide range of government information, particularly high-value datasets, will be made available for free sharing within government departments and will also be licenced to the commercial sector.
• The use of anonymisation and privacy preservation is recommended as a means of ensuring personal data privacy.

What are the privacy issues with the Draft Data Accessibility Policy?

• India does not have a data protection legislation that may hold people accountable and give recourse in cases of privacy violations such as forceful and excessive data collecting or data breaches, according to the World Health Organization.
• Inter-departmental data sharing raises privacy issues in this context, because the open government data portal, which contains data from all departments, may result in the building of 360-degree profiles and the implementation of state-sponsored mass surveillance, which is a problem.
• In spite of the fact that the policy considers anonymization to be an important objective, the policy lacks legal responsibility and independent regulatory supervision. There is also a failure to take into account scientific analysis as well as the availability of automated methods for the re-identification of anonymous information.
• Because of the financial incentives now in place for licencing to the private sector, in which the government serves as a data broker, this becomes increasingly crucial. In this case, the economic worth of the data grows as the amount of personal data collected increases.
• The absence of an anchoring piece of law further contributes to the policy’s inability to meet the legality bar for state intrusion in privacy, which was established by the Supreme Court of India in its historic right to privacy ruling.

Are there any other issues with the policy?

• There are three additional issues with the policy document that merit consideration.  While adopting the language of open data it strays from its core principle of providing transparency of the Government towards its citizens.
• There is only one mention of transparency and little to no mention of how such data sharing will help ensure demands for accountability and redress.  The second issue is that the policy bypasses parliament as it contemplates large scale data sharing and enrichment that will be borne from public funds. Further, the constitution of offices, prescription of standards that may be applicable not only to the Central government, but even State governments and schemes administered by them require legislative deliberation.  This brings us to the third and final issue of federalism.
• The policy, even though it notes that State governments will be, “free to adopt portions of the policy,” does not specify how such freedom will be achieved. It becomes relevant, if specific standards are prescribed by the Central government for data sharing, or as a precondition to financial assistance.
• There is also the absence of any comment on whether data gathered from States may be sold by the Central government and whether the proceeds from it will be shared with the States.

The Hindu link

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/understanding-the-draft-india-data-accessibility-use-policy-2022/article65077964.ece?homepage=true

Question- Describe the issues in Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy 2022.