Page 32 - Proceedings of the 2017 ITU Kaleidoscope

2017 ITU Kaleidoscope Academic Conference

services by members of the transgender community offers a in her address to the Parliament in June 2009, voiced the
unique opportunity to study the extent of their exclusion need for “A public data policy to place all information
from the mainstream discourse. This however remains covering non-strategic areas in the public domain. It would
subject to concerns about the targeting of individuals and help citizens to challenge the data and engage directly in
possibility of re-identification from aggregated data, given governance reform”. In March 2012, the Indian
the relatively small size of the data set. These issues will Government brought out the National Data Sharing and
need to be addressed through careful thinking about the Accessibility Policy (National Data Policy). It remains the
principles that should govern the sharing of Aadhaar linked only official policy document on open data, with the stated
open data, as discussed further in Section 4. objective of increasing accessibility and easier sharing of
“government-owned”, “non-sensitive” data amongst
3. INCENTIVES TO ‘OPEN’ registered users particularly for scientific, economic and
social development purposes. Pertinently, the policy
rationale for open data is the investment of public funds
The case for promoting disclosures of open data emanating that goes into collecting and processing such data. The
from Aadhaar applies equally to all authorized users of emphasis on government ownership and the use of public
Aadhaar. However, the incentives for public and private funds is also reflected in the scope of the policy, which
users to disclose this data are very different. Unlike the defines data to be limited to that generated “using public
public sector, where legal requirements and policy funds by various ministries/ departments/ organizations and
initiatives compel and encourage government agencies agencies of the Government of India”. The policy however
towards proactive disclosures, private companies are has not been operationalized in the form of binding legal
outside the purview of this legal framework. They also rules.
typically view data as a source of competitive advantage,
and would be reluctant to disclose data points voluntarily. Impact of Aadhaar-seeding on open (government) data: In
a speech given by Nandan Nilekani, founding Chair of the
The challenge therefore is to find ways to nudge all users of
Aadhaar towards greater sharing of data, in the interests of UIDAI, in 2010, he stated that “Aadhaar enabled
applications the UIDAI envisions can turbo-charge the
transparency for accountability, research and more sound
policy making. enforcement of Section 4 provisions (of the RTI) across our
subsidy and welfare schemes". He further said that the
“availability of electronic records within such
3.1. For public bodies programmes” would be a “natural outcome” of its linkage
with Aadhaar.
Legal basis for proactive disclosure: The legal basis for the The digitization of records, however, on its own has not led
government to open up datasets to the public comes from to proactive disclosure. At present, on the government’s
the ‘right to information’ (known in some jurisdictions as open data portal “data.gov.in”, the UIDAI has uploaded
freedom of information) regime. The idea of open some heads of information. Yet, there are still some gaps in
government data presupposes willingness of governments publicly available data emerging from UIDAI, particularly
to proactively disclose information to its citizens, and has relating to its various applications, or “use cases”. Research
been a hard fought battle in many countries. In India, this group IDinsight identifies “transaction or beneficiary-level
right of access to information held by public authorities has data” as one area which would benefit those doing data-
been codified through the Right to Information Act, 2005 driven studies of the efficacy of the project. However, such
(RTI Act). The passage of the law emanated from a granular disclosures would raise privacy concerns – which
grassroots movement that insisted on “peoples’ audit” of we address more fully in Section 4 on principles.
government services to address corruption. For areas where there has been proactive disclosure of
There is a comprehensive proactive disclosure provision in government databases seeded with Aadhaar, there has been
Section 4 of the RTI Act, which puts a general duty on significant controversy around the disclosure of Aadhaar
every public authority to provide “as much information suo numbers in the process, which is not permitted under the
moto to the public at regular intervals through various Aadhaar Act. A report by a civil society group found that
means of communication, including the internet”. This puts government portals using Aadhaar for making payments
the onus on public authorities to release data, so that the had uploaded the bank account numbers, and Aadhaar
public has to minimally resort to the use of the law to numbers of 13 crore people, raising serious data protection
obtain information. The provision also states that all public concerns (Amber Sinha & Srinivas Kodali, [8]). These
authorities shall routinely disclose a varied list of proactive disclosures on the disbursement of welfare
information including about its functions, decision-making schemes serve as a means to ensure accountability in the
norms, documents held, employee contracts, budgets – disbursement of social welfare benefits. It is therefore
along with a catch-all direction to release “such other essential to devise an acceptable mechanism of disclosures
information as may be prescribed”. Some studies however without compromising on the confidentiality requirements
suggest that the promise of Section 4 has been watered of Aadhaar.
down significantly in practice due to insufficient proactive Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act provides that personal
disclosures (RaaG & SNS, 2017 [6]). information which does not relate to any public activity or
Outside of the RTI Act, there have been a few other interest, or could cause unwarranted invasion of an
measures to encourage disclosures. The President of India, individual’s privacy should not be disclosed. Further,

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